Channel Mastery - Ep. 183: Brendan Quirk, CEO of USA Cycling

USA Cycling

Career + Racing trajectory, Pandemic Growth, The Olympics + Community Building

featuring

Brendan Quirk first raced a bike in 1986 and has been a USA Cycling member ever since. He's raced at every age level -- Junior, Collegiate, Elite, and Masters. His passion for the sport pulled him into the cycling industry in the mid-'90s and led him to start Competitive Cyclist in 2000, serving as CEO while turning it into North America's largest eCommerce cycling business.

He later served as Executive Vice President for Backcountry.com, then President of North America for Rapha. In 2018 he went to work as the Cycling Program Director for the Runway Group, where he helped efforts to transform Northwest Arkansas into one of America's foremost cycling destinations.

His experience in race promotion spans local events as well as international ones. He created the Ronde van Burns -- a longstanding, weeknight summer criterium series in North Little Rock, Arkansas. He also served on the organizing committee of the 2022 UCI Cyclocross World Championships. Brendan divides his time between Little Rock and Colorado Springs. He has three children, two dogs, and nine bikes.

show highlights

In this episode of Channel Mastery, I had the pleasure of speaking with the newest member of USA Cycling, CEO Brendan Quirk. Brendan is a veteran in the cycling industry and brings a background in racing to his new role at USA Cycling, the nation’s governing body for cycling that oversees the disciplines of road, track, mountain bike, cyclocross, and BMX.

We discuss Brendan’s career and racing trajectory and what landed him at USA Cycling, how the pandemic has accelerated the growth of new cyclists, leadership opportunities in his new role, The Olympics, community building with other brands, and so much more.

Join us as we get to know Brendan and how he is taking the lead to improve USA Cycling, grow the cycling community, and develop in his new role as CEO.

Kristin Carpenter: Welcome back everybody to another episode of the Channel Mastery podcast. I'm delighted to introduce Brendan Quirk to you, the CEO of USA Cycling. And also, as we're about to find out, quite a storied history in the outdoor recreation and cycling markets. Welcome to the show.
Brendan Quirk: Thank you. Yeah. Glad to be here, Kristin. I appreciate it. Happy New Year.
Kristin: Oh, thank you. I was just going to say, we're connecting in the middle of January, 2022. You stepped into your role, latest executive role at USA Cycling, I believe in mid-December of 2021. But before we get into that and we have a lot to go through in that regard, in terms of your vision and what you're taking on there, let's talk a little bit about the high points of your career trajectory leading into this because I think it'll give our audience a really nice context in terms of the type of vision you're going to bring to the organization.
Brendan: Yeah, I appreciate that. Yeah. I started racing bikes when I was a teenager back in the 1980s, really fell in love with the sport and it led to me getting involved at retail. One thing led to another and in the late nineties founded a company called Competitive Cyclist in my hometown of Little Rock, Arkansas. In the span of about 12 years, a core group of us transformed this little bike shop in Little Rock into the largest cycling eCommerce business in North America and one of the largest ones in the world, it's a really crazy journey at an early point in the internet. Subsequently sold the company to Backcountry.com in 2011, joined the executive team at Backcountry in Park City, learned a lot in a few years there and then chose to exit. And a little while later joined Rapha, at that point it was a road cycling apparel brand that since expanded into lots of other things, but joined as their president of North America to help drive their growth trajectory in the United States and successfully had a three year run there.
We sold the company to RZC Investments, which the principles there, Tom and Stewart Walton, who have done so much great work in Northwest Arkansas to build cycling as a kind of quality of life initiative and an economic development driver. I spent a lot of time when I was at Rapha, since it's based in London, spent a lot of time going back and forth between the US and London. And once we sold the company, I was like, I'm done, I don't want to fly over there ever, ever again. And when I made the decision to leave the company, Tom and Stewart Walton asked if I'd be interested in joining them in driving cycling initiatives in Northwest Arkansas. Spent about the last four years doing that. For those of you who have not been to Bentonville or Fayetteville and ridden the amazing trails there, definitely would invite you to come out. It's a phenomenal experience. And yeah, I recently left that world and just started the role as CEO of USA Cycling, really excited to be there.
Kristin: Well, and I think that we can say we're all excited to have you there.
Brendan: Thank you.
Kristin: And I'm really excited to get into the conversation around how your career trajectory will feed into the future of that organization, but let's start at kind of the table stakes of the decision. Why now? Why did you step into that role now? Obviously we're living through this pandemic, it's changed everything with events, racing, consumer expectations, community, and it continues to accelerate and challenge changes with legacy organizations and institutions. And I'm just super curious, knowing that COVID has really been the great accelerator pushing trends to warp speed, you're stepping into this at a very dynamic time, and it's a legacy organization that maybe some would say hasn't been the most nimble, but I know it's really tried. Let's talk about your type of leadership, Brendan, I think is going to be new for this organization. I know you stepped in from a board role, but share your vision, why USA Cycling and why now?
Brendan: Why USA Cycling for me is a really personal thing. I love bike racing. To me, it has given me a great sense of who I am as an individual going back to the first time I raced the bike in 1986. I'm still a huge fan of the sport, the men's sport, the women's sport, Tour de France, the Olympics, even watching BMX racing. To me, it's really thrilling, it really cuts through to my heart. And I have seen time and time again how folks who get involved in racing, whether they're Olympians or whether they're lousy amateurs like I was, the act of training, the act of trying to better yourself on the bike, it's transformative. And for me, it informed who I was as a student, who I've been as a professional, and it means the world to me at a point now where I'm super motivated to package that experience and provide it to as many people in the US as possible, because I think it's an inspiring and beautiful thing.
Kristin: I love the way that you described that in terms of coming into it, in terms of the way that you self-identified with amateur racing and feel that you belong to the sport of bicycle racing. I definitely share a lot of the enthusiasm and passion and it definitely has defined who I am, the community I be part of, et cetera. And the Olympics, right? That's a big part of this as well. Can you talk a little bit about maybe how that might have tied into your decision to take this? Because that's a super important, I think, facet to this decision and the vision that you might have ahead is how the United States shows up in global cycling.
Brendan: Yeah. The interesting thing about the Olympic movement, and it's something that a lot of folks don't know, is that they assume, ohm the government funds the US Olympic and Paralympic committee and all the national governing bodies like US Ski or, or USA Cycling, we're the recipients of loads of government funding to fund Olympic operations. The fact is that it's not. We are highly reliant on the generosity of donors to fund the operations of Team USA, it's year in, year out. It's like skiing. You have annual world cups, annual world championships, but then the all important, every four years the Olympics and it's short of a couple of bike races that I'm a huge fan of, the Tour de Frances, the Tour of Flanders, Paris-Roubaix.
I find the Olympics across all disciplines, whether it's BMX or track or road or mountain, I find them to be some of the most riveting racing that there is. When you meet these athletes, I mean, yes, some of the men's road racers are faces that are familiar from the Tour de Frances, but by and large, American cyclists who are racing in the Olympics, these are men and women who have part-time jobs or full-time jobs. They've got college degrees, graduate degrees. They're just trying to hold it together, their elite athletic career and a professional career. And it is nothing short of heroic watching them try to live both of these lives. I want to come in and support these athletes as they try to reach for the metal podium in the Olympics. I also want to be supportive of them as whole humans, as they're trying to also so pursue their professional careers as well. They're so worthy of that support. I want to find a way to tell those stories and unleash the generosity of the cycling community through USA Cycling to support Team USA.
Kristin: I love that. And I think that's something we can all rally around. Let's get to kind of the brass tax here. What do you see as the number one biggest opportunity in the near term for your leadership at USA Cycling?
Brendan: The biggest thing we have to get through is the really tough economics of running a national governing body. Historically, it's been reliant on selling, racing memberships. American bike racing peaked 2012, 2013. It was kind of the final tailwind that came from the Lance Armstrong era. Ever since then, racing has been kind of flat. It hasn't really declined, but it definitely has not grown. And that trend really went in the wrong direction with COVID, bike racing basically stopped. When you don't have bike racing, you don't have amateur racers, you have to buy racing licenses. You don't have racer days that race promoters are putting on, and that's basically the economic engine of USA Cycling. Racing has bounced back since 2020. Membership has bounced back, racer days have bounced back, but still the economics of the organization are really hard.
There are a lot of exciting forms of cycling that are out there now, especially with the big boom behind gravel racing. That is separate from USA Cycling, you don't have to have a USA Cycling license. Typically those of events don't sanction through USA Cycling, no money flows to us, we don't provide them any support. And it's great on the one hand that so many new cyclists have been created with COVID. The tough thing for us though, is they're not racing bikes in the traditional way. Understanding how we can take all of this excitement and energy that's coming from new events, from the creation of new cyclists because of COVID, it's for us, how do we build pathways into bike racing so those people try the sport, hopefully fall in love with the sport, and continue to do it for years? And for us, that kind of kicks back our economic engine so we can have economic sustainability. Without a doubt, that's the biggest challenge for us.
Kristin: Wow. I find that to be such an interesting business challenge around this organization. And I think it's awesome that you explain that this is not a government funded entity, if you will. And so being reliant upon the cycling community and maybe business donations versus event sponsorships, what are some of the things that you're hoping to maybe ramp up as you're taking the helm here, in terms of I think the North American cycling business community contributing to this?
Brendan: Well corporate sponsorship, I mean, we've got definitely underperformed in connecting with cycling industry sponsors, non-endemic sponsors to say, look, we've got these incredible men and women wearing the stars and stripes racing all across the world in these beautiful places, racing the Olympic games. There's a lot of storytelling and a lot of good that we can do from the sports marketing perspective that we've not done a terribly good job on, we've got a very generous foundation and we need to continue to grow that foundation. That's where the majority of the financial support of our elite athletic operations comes from, comes from donors and we need to continue to diverse that donor pool over time to support our high performance operations. We need to grow membership, we need to do a better job supporting all of the grassroots organizations that are responsible for putting on bike racing on a day in day out basis.
It's the racing clubs, it's the event organizers that are putting on the Wednesday night mountain bike series or the Wednesday night criterium, it's the local associations that really help administer a lot of the work that makes bike racing come to life in various regions. We have to support all those organizations at a much higher level, at the same time, we have to identify what are key segments of these new cyclists that are out there who are commuting by bike, they're recreational cyclists, how do we introduce them to the joy of bike racing? How do we make it easy? How do we show them that we are an inviting inclusive community? We have fun bringing down those barriers to participation because it is a pretty intimidating sport. We've got to do a better job of bringing those barriers down, and if we can kind hit across all of those marks, I think our membership will really get back into growth mode and we're going to have a much larger and healthier racing community.
Kristin: You've done an exceptional job, I think, building a more diverse board. And I believe with that will come new networks, because coming through the ranks in our careers, as we have in the outdoor recreation spaces or cycling, we really have a tendency to kind of work within the system of our network, and I think you've done a great job introducing a more diverse board. And it sounds like you're taking a less extractive approach, and I think that's really something that the USA Cycling has experienced criticism around okay, from the community's view, if they want to get into gravel, maybe the assumption immediately goes to extraction or ownership of gravel instead of support of local and regional races. What's your take on that in terms of turning the vision from maybe extraction, cause you still do have business goals to support.
Brendan: Yeah. For us, a new cyclist is a new cyclist as far as I'm concerned. We are in the business of supporting the growth of the sport. If people are coming into the sport through gravel, we want to support Lifetime and what it is they're trying to do, we want to support the Belgian Waffle Ride with what it is they're trying to do or all the other grassroots organizations, because as they create enthusiasm and for these mass start events that people are training for, taking very seriously, eventually some percentage of those people, they're going to see the Tour de France on TV and they're going to say, well, that's a different form of cycling. It's similar to what I'm familiar with, and I want to give that a stab. Of course, if we can be supportive of Lifetime and others in building up that base of participation, we all win.
There's this kind of narrative in the cycling media of, oh, it's a zero sum game. Is it Lifetime events over here and these people over here and USA Cycling over here, none of us own the customer, none of us own cycling. I think if we all work together to build up the sport, we're all going to be successful. And the funny thing, it is this notion of this rivalry, I do think it's a media concoction. We have a great relationship with Lifetime, we've got a great relationship with the folks at BWR, got a great relationship with the folks over in the BMX world. There is a lot of collective understanding that getting more kids into cycling, growing active transportation, just getting more people on bikes. That's the end goal and we'll all win if we achieve that.
Kristin: I love that. And it actually does feel like a new start, and obviously we've seen what Lifetime is a Verde client, we've helped them launch the Grand Pre, we've seen what BWR just came out with in terms of this enormous price purse. And it's funny because you and I have watched gravel and participated in it from its infancy and we've seen like, oh, “We want this to be kind of party at the back.” And now we're seeing it develop the way that we've seen potentially mountain bike in the early nineties, right? What is your take, now that we're in this new era and we want to really bring people out of that long ago history mindset where maybe they can blame whatever they want for quote, changing mountain biking, but gravel's actually making mountain biking, I think, have a resuscitation and off-road cycling I think is super important. And it sounds like you have a very collaborative approach in terms of supporting all these disciplines. I just would love to have you speak to anything that you want to that's top of mind in terms of kind of the competitive side of gravel as we've seen the landscape really change in January of 2022.
Brendan: Yeah. Well I think you're absolutely right. If you look back to the early days of mountain biking, the magic of those early days is it was small, community based, self-governed, self-regulated and it was kind of a party, even though you were racing. What happens though is the sport grows, it gets international, the industry gets involved, money starts to get involved, self-governance and self-determination can get to be pretty messy. People want to start to see rules. She should men be pacing women in gravel races, should there be doping control, should there be better marshaling at intersections, just basic safety or measures like this. Some organizers have those nailed, a lot of organizers don't have those nailed, especially when you bring money into the top end of the sport, some of the self-determination and self-regulation could lead to unexpected messy outcomes. And I think you've seen over the last year, several different forms of controversy come out of that. What we already know, what the UCI's going to do, they are going to get more involved at the, what's called the very most elite side of the sport. You're starting to see professionalized gravel racing come to life in Europe. It's exactly what happened with mountain bike in the 1990s, and I expect the same thing will happen with gravel. That's fine because there's still amazing sort of fun led, community led mountain biking that has nothing to do with the UCI involvement in the sport. And I mean, you look at what's going on with Enduro racing and things like this where it's yeah, it's fast at the front, but fun in the back. That spirit is still very strong in mountain biking now, even though there's also the Olympic movement, a very competitive world cup, and what I expect is the same thing to happen in gravel as well.
Kristin: That's awesome. And just looking also at, I know that you have a focus on parody with the board that you've put together, the programs you're launching. I mean, all of that seems to be a lot of great things on the horizon. And you mentioned the UCI, you were just there in December. Can you share a little bit about what that trip was about in your vision? Not that I want to be nosy here Brendan, but you went right out of the gate, you took the position, you went straight over to Geneva and I was just curious to know how that maybe fed your vision for 2022?
Brendan: Yeah. A couple different things. As we speak today, it's January 11th, on January 29th and 30th is going to be the UCI Cyclocross World Championships here in the US. It's only the second time that's ever been held in the US. We started on that project back in 2018. Getting a UCI world championship, it's not dissimilar to cities that try to attract an Olympic games. It's a lot of time, energy, resources that go into hosting an event many years into the future, and so it was a big, big project. It was a big learning project for us to get involved with recruiting this 2022 Cyclocross World Championships. The main purpose of the trip over there was to do a review of everything we were establishing to make this a really successful race here in a couple of weeks from now, that was measure number one.
Measure number two was to talk about gravel, and the UCI appreciates the fact that gravel was born in the states. It will probably be the dominant market for gravel cycling for some time to come. And they wanted to get some American perspective on the direction of the sport so I was happy to share that with them. Across all disciplines though, road, mountain, track, BMX, et cetera, we are excited to work to host more UCI World Cup and hopefully UCI World Championship events. And spending time with those international federations is a really great way to build a bridge to those kinds of events happening. Those kind of events are so inspiring to bring new cyclists into the sport, it's super important that we have host them here, right. We've lost the Tour of California, we've lost the Tour of Utah, we have very little in the way of world cup mountain bike races here. It is important that we bring top class international racing back to the states if we want to grow the sport.
Kristin: Do we need an 18 month runway to bring a new one to the states or is what you're set up with the UCI around what's happening with the Cyclocross, is that going to serve as a template for a new way forward that maybe we can activate more quickly?
Brendan: Cyclocross... Different disciplines, the world championships are already reserved for road, it's through 2028 or 2029, you have to go way into the future. Cyclocross, it wasn't quite as far out into the future, but the truth is we need a sustained strategy to establish an international caliber of racing in the states. What we have right now is three world cup UCI Cyclocross races in the US. We as a community should work hard to keeping those here. We have a couple of UCI world cup mountain bike races every year. Snowshoe, West Virginia has one, Mont St. Anne up in Canada has one, we need to get another one in the US, whether it's in Bentonville, whether it's in California, we need to make that a fixture on the calendar. And I think once we get that rhythm or that heartbeat of having international class racing in the US, I think what you're going to see is increased fandom, increased participation, and it's going to be great for the sport and great for the industry.
Kristin: I can't wait for that, because it does feel we have a big gap right now and hopefully we can get more going on. The more that we can see or our young people in this country can see themselves in people participating in these events, especially on a global stage like that, the more you're going to see the aspiration grow, the dreams. Yeah. I'm super excited about that. And hopefully that's something that the business community of cycling and even outdoor recreation can step up and support because I think everybody really misses that.
Brendan: Yeah. I mean, you would know that too, being right there in Durango, right? The mountain bike world championship was held there back in, what, 1989 or 1990.
Kristin: Yeah.
Brendan: I mean back in the stone ages of mountain biking and you look at just how the sport of mountain biking just absolutely infuses every last little nook and cranny of Durango and hosting that mountain bike championships, it was just one weekend at time, but everybody remembers that. And I spent some time with, there's a young man named Riley Amos who lives in Durango.
Kristin: Yes.
Brendan: Probably one of the two or three most promising young male mountain bikers in the United States, he won an under 23 world cup mountain bike race in, I think it was in Germany, last summer and he is without a doubt, a star for the future, but even we were talking about, I think the Durango world championships happened before he was born, but it's still in the front of his consciousness. What that does to transform a sense of community around bikes, those kinds of events, it's just incredible.
Kristin: And I think the more that the broader cycling, the newcomers that are coming into the sport, can see that history and see that we actually have had an imprint on that history and how wonderful it would be to bring American cycling more into the global sphere, I think, would be very, very important to do. And I think doing that, and as much as our country loves sports and our sporting heroes, I also think that it could affect how we will have influence on the decisions around bike infrastructure and bike safety. I feel it's not too far of a stretch to know that promoting that and making that more visible and something that America can have permission to have an ownership stake in, the more that's going to, I think, really graduate down into everything else that we're working on to keep this new cyclist who has emerged from COVID.
Brendan: I agree. There was a phrase we sometimes used to talk about the normalization of cycling, it's normal to ride your bike to the store, it's normal to ride your bike to school, it's normal to ask your city council to put in a bike path or some kind of protected, active transportation infrastructure, and it's normal to race a bike. We kind of normalize all forms of cycling for sure. It elevates the whole sport. What we, as a cycling industry need to be focused on is, where do the participants of the future come from? What are the barriers to entry? I mean, yes, through sport, you can inspire some folks to start, but ultimately I think that's one ingredient for success. Another ingredient for success is going to be a continued progress in the development of active transportation networks and the creation of perceptions of safety.
If you're riding your bikes in or near traffic, that's been one of the great breakthroughs that we've had in the US in the last decade has been, I think, a lot of courage and a lot of funding on a municipal level to invest in active transportation networks, making bike pad master plans actually come to life, actually activating those plans. And then most recently with the big infrastructure package that just passed Congress, so much of that's being devoted to large scale transportation networks, but when you get away from interstates and you start getting down to county and city level infrastructure, road infrastructure that'll be built, it's going to be, I think, a real breakthrough for cycling because all of these bike pad master plans, they're going to have the opportunity to be funded. And I think the opportunity to use bikes for utility purposes all across the US, we're at this in incredible inflection point where I think we have the opportunity to become a nation of cyclists. And that would just be incredible for our health, for environment, for the sport.
Kristin: And I can just say, after listening to you talk about this and all of the things that are in flight and in play, I can't wait to see what you do with your team and your board at USA Cycling going forward, because you're right. We really are at that pivot point and I think if we all push, we're going to make huge progress happen. I want to take the COVID great accelerator and apply it to the vision that you've just laid out. And I know that you have such a collaborative mindset with people for bikes, with Lifetime, with all of the players who are in this to try and make the United States a country of cyclists. I mean, I hope that happens within the next five years, let alone in our lifetime.
Brendan: Yeah. Yeah. I completely agree. And I think we're going to go there. The final thing to sprinkle on top of that has been the unbelievably rapid adoption of e-bikes by American consumers in the bike market. That's, I think, the final piece of the puzzle that I do think in the next five years, it is going to be transformative. Our industry's going to benefit and our communities are going to benefit. If you haven't spent much time on an e-bike, you should do it because you'll put a huge smile on your face, you'll get a kick out of it, but also from a practical standpoint, it's just a game changer in terms of being able to get out and get around on a bike.
Kristin: Yeah, it truly is. And I have one and you're right, every time I'm on that, I'm smiling. It is so much fun.
Brendan: For sure. It is.
Kristin: Is there anything I forgot to ask you about your vision that you'd like to put out there for the community?
Brendan: I think the final thing, the final challenge we have as an organization that I am really excited about is that as you look at the history of the elite side of the sport of cycling again, Tour de France, Olympic games and all of that, it has been an incredibly white sport. And there have been a couple of exceptions, Nelson Vails is this classic example, the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984, he won a silver medal. We've got people like Justin Williams who are really doing some breakthrough things in the US racing scene, but I want to challenge our organization to build impactful programs to get diversity into our developmental pipeline for the Olympic movement. I think we have some really unique opportunities to do that, this is where the diversity that we have on our board is really helpful.
And I think we can help change the literal complexion of what elite cycling looks like in the Olympic movement. 2028, we've got the Los Angeles Summer Games, it's going to be the most important Olympics that's ever happened for the American non-governing or national-governing bodies. And I would love nothing more than to find a young man or young woman whose Hispanic or African American in LA County to recruit them into our developmental pipeline and to have them stand on the metal podium at LA 2028. If we could make that happen, I can't think of anything that we would be more out of as an organization. And we are going to work our tails off to try to make programming like that come to life.
Kristin: That's amazing. I literally almost got teary when you said that. That is awesome. Thank you so much. This was a fantastic conversation, so positive. I mean, there's so many ways that we could have framed this that might have been more you facing challenges, et cetera, but you've really painted this fantastic runway of positivity and growth. And I want to say thanks for that. And thanks so much for your time, Brendan. It was great to have you on here.
Brendan: It's good to see you again. Thanks for having me.