Bb1123

Before I start with my story, I'll give you some basic info first:
Age: 19
USAC Category: 3, (have enough points to upgrade to 2 though!)
Years Racing: 1
Total Years Riding: 1.5

So hopefully thats enough info for now, but as you can see, I am really considering dropping out of college. First off, I have no interest in any topics, I haven't declared a major and I didn't really do well in my classes these last few months of my first semester at college.
Now if I weren't riding or training, I would have no choice but to stay in school. I also think I would have much better grades too because I wouldn't be thinking about riding my bike or training 95% of the time i'm in class or studying. Not to mention I am training half the time anyway, and its hard to balance both.

I have only been riding for a little over a year but have had so much success in my first season of racing, and I am super determined to have an even better season this year. I just feel like staying in college is too much to handle.

My way of living is to follow a passion 99% and everything else would be that 1% leftover. In a way this can be good for success in cycling, but can be bad academically... But of course I am very social too, and liking staying well rounded. I just aren't much of the classroom type.

Having just signed with a top regional devo team, I feel like I can really develop and become a top national cyclist within the next few years, and who knows, even further. But lets take it one step at a time. Having only been riding a little over a year and to get this far, I believe there are still huge gains for me to make in cycling. But is this way of thinking right?

My feeling towards Dropping out is this: Leave school, train full time and focus for the next few years to see if I can really make something out of this sport. If all fails by the time I'm 23, then just return to school, where I am sure I would be determined to focus on my academics.

The general Public Opinion: Stay in school to have a back up plan.

I am still young and I believe I can make something out of this passion of mine, its just I am not sure if it really is a SANE decision.

So I'm turing to you guys here just to get some public opinion, anything you can offer would be helpful.

I should really be talking to my parents about this too... haha

Thanks,
Brett

wanders

Stay in school.

gsteinb

41

longbeachgary

It really won't make much of a difference if you graduate school a few years later than planned. But you need to be clear that there are guys that you are going to be competing with who have had years of racing as juniors. If you are not consistently in the top finishers of your races, you really don't have much of a chance of doing anything with cycling.

spdntrxi

go back to school

10 Wheels

Drop the school..

furiousferret

I think its a bad idea, but if you are going to flunk out or not commit to a career, by all means.

misterwaterfall

If I was younger I wouldn't be going to school and getting in debt/spending my parents money without getting a degree that had a job on the other side. Those degrees are usually hard(engineering for example), and take actual work, which is sounds like you don't want to do right now. Not everyone should go right form high school to college so it would probably do you well to do something else for a while/forever instead of waste time and money getting a pointless degree if you get one at all.

johnybutts

There is absolutely no reason you can't do both. period. end of story. if you think school is holding you back from a 20 hour week of riding, you need to organize your life better. Former poster ZeCannon was nationally competitive cat1 with full time school.

Also - Collegiate racing.

Bb1123

No i won't flunk out, It's just hard to balance both where you have so much passion in one thing, where the thing that should really be mattering (academics) is in the back of my mind.

Bb1123

The university I go to has a top national Club cycling team. I am planning on racing for them this coming semester....

gsteinb

the guys with actual talent tend to be in school or working as they ascend the ladder. I know a guy who turned down a contract to race the 6 day circuit in order to stay in medical school. If you need to drop out of school as a three to 'make it,' it's pretty unlikely you have whatever it is it takes

shovelhd

Half of the reason you go to college is to learn stuff that you might make a career of when your graduate. The other half is to learn to grow up on your own and find out what really interests you. If every college student knew exactly what they wanted to do from day 1 and stuck to it there wouldn't be as many transfer students. So my advice is to either lighten your college load to something less taxing like liberal arts, or aim your college degree at your current passion, like sports psychology, sports training, exercise physiology, sports marketing, stuff like that. Stay in school and race collegiate. Don't sandbag the Cat3's, upgrade right now to Cat2 and race collegiate A's. The season starts pretty soon.

mattm

Think long-term - say you go pro, cool.

But once you're 40 and retired, then what?

grolby

Yep. Get organized, race collegiate. You have ample free time in college. Ample. You can have your cake and eat it, too. And that way, if the bike thing doesn't work out, you have an education.

Bb1123

Thanks for the tip, yea I will race A's and once I get my grades up this semester, Ill declare a sports related major next year.
I guess I just need to rethink my priorities, Im sure I have what it takes to balance both, and to succeed in both. Maybe its other unrelated issues making me think this way... who knows, can't live in a dream world.

shovelhd

Dude, you're 19. You've got a lot of free passes in your back pocket. Priority #1 is to enjoy life.

jon c. 

As I understand it, only a handful of people can actually graduate to a level where they are making decent money in this sport. So from a strictly practical standpoint, it's folly to chase a dream like that at the expense of your education.

But as others noted, there's no reason you can't go back. And you'll probably have more focus if you do. I didn't start until I was about 22, having taken 'time off'' to hitchhike around the country and spend a few years drinking heavily in Austin and New Orleans. It was a breeze to graduate at the top of my class when I returned with a bit more maturity and purpose, whereas at 18 I'd have probably flunked out.

So why not give it a shot. But do it with a plan to keep your life moving forward if you don't make it to the big time.

Bb1123

Yes absolutely agree to this. This is my thinking if i were to drop out now. I can always go back if I wanted to.

Gjc985

Stay in school. Look at ted king he graduated from college and now is a professional. Can you race for your college team? Where do you live?

sstang13

Ask yourself "what's the worst possible situation that can happen?" Then follow your heart.

Edit: Are we not also part of 'generation screwed'? A college degree doesn't garuntee you anything more than your cycling will. Especially considering that you'll give 110% in cycling and nothing near that in college.

carpediemracing 

If you aren't already dominating stuff then you're not going to be a pro pro, meaning a Euro dog. The guys that are good, they were good virtually immediately. In 2010 a Cat 4 that won his first race at (my) a Spring Series turned pro by the end of the year. Another guy who won the Cat 5 series at my race was a 2 (and placed 3rd in a really tough P12 crit) by the end of the year. When he was a 3 and I was in the same races as him he won every single race we both started. And he's no pro, he's a solid Cat 2.

A friend of mine tried to race pro in Europe. He was over there for 7 or 8 years, racing for what would now be considered the second tier teams (Continental? the wild card teams). Then he returned to the US and race domestic pros (Colavita, Lemond/Defeet, one or two others) for a few more years before giving up. He was lucky to have a back up plan. He was also super talented - at 15-16 years old he was regularly racing in P12 races, at the front. In one race, a national level crit in Nutley, he and his team, all Juniors were at the front for something like 40 or so laps of the 50 lap P12 race. They missed the break so they chased, keeping the break within bridgeable distance for an hour and change. He never made the top level.

Another friend was a super strong 3. He could lead out and beat two local 7-Up pros, both very good sprinters. He was the only one that could stay with Jeff Pierce when he was local and doing group rides. He could pull us down Route 123 for about 10 miles at 30-35 mph (it's slightly rolling downhill but still, us mortals were hard pressed to do 28-30 mph - he took it a notch up). He quit racing to learn his family business - he and the guy described above were really good friends, trained together all the time, and he realized that if the Euro dog couldn't make it then he definitely couldn't. So he quit.

You really have two separate questions:
1. Should I stay in school?
2. Should I try and become a pro?

They are two separate questions and they are not exclusive of each other. You can do both if you have the focus/smarts for school and the talent/determination for cycling. You may not be able to do either.

grolby

Funny that I'm now saying this in two threads, but: in spite of everything, the employment rate for people with college degrees is still significantly better than for those without.

And I wouldn't bet large money that the OP will put 110% in cycling just because he enjoys it. Because when you are training as much as you need to when you are really trying to make it, it becomes work, it requires focus and discipline. It's easy to oversimplify and say, whatever, you're screwed anyway, and you'll be good enough because you want it enough - but it's not a good basis for important decisions. You're not screwed anyway, and just wanting to be a pro doesn't mean you have what it takes. Cat 5 to 3 in one season is good, but it's not necessarily evidence that you can make it as a pro, or that you can afford to devote yourself solely to that project.

Just for an example: a guy who turned pro for Optum this year, Jeremy Durrin - he comes to mind because I know him, worked and rode with him in college. I believe he went from 5 to 3 in one season, not to 2 or 1, and he eventually made it to the pro ranks. But it took him three or four full years of development, all the while finishing college and then holding down a job. He had some obvious potential, but he didn't drop out and he had to work to pay his bills. And he's got another business going as well! Point being, you might be able to make it, but you need to be able to work your ass off doing something that you may not enjoy, no matter what. Dropping out isn't really a great indication of having the work ethic you need to make this happen. Stick with school. Keep racing. If you're going to drop out of college, don't do it because you think you need to in order to go pro. If that's your attitude, you don't have what it takes.

noglider 

It's impossible to say what would produce the best outcome, but staying in school brings a chance that you'll discover other talents or abilities. Making a life out of bike racing is a long shot, and it's not all that promising a life. If you want to do it and then go back to school later, that makes sense. I took a couple of years off after two years in college. I was wasting time and money in college pursuing a music major. In my time off, I worked as a bike mechanic and took a three-month trip through Europe on my bike. I came back and went back to college, majoring in computer science. That second major has afforded a good career for me.

I never left singing. I'm a very active amateur singer, and I get occasional paid gigs, too. But I'm very glad not to be a professional musician. That would be too hard for me. Not my style. Being a professional athlete would also be too hard for me and not my style. But I can't speak for you.

rapwithtom

HTFU, get some discipline. Don't ride your bike until your homework is done. If you don't get straight A's, then sell your bike(s). FFS, listen to your parents, stay in school, and get A's.

Of course riding your bike is fun. Don't mistake that for a vocation.