Real life has a way of derailing youthful dreams.
I sincerely hope that is not the case for you. When I was a young lad in the UK, my most fervent dream was to ride in the TDF, just like my hero Tommy Simpson. I rode with the local club and learned at the wheel of the town's star cyclist.
Then my parents decided to move to Canada.
There went all my connections and my new home was bereft of a cycle racing scene.
Soon, however, I got a job in a bicycle store and could afford the dream bike I never had in the UK. I took that bike on
great adventures into the vast, mountainous land my parents had brought me to. I forgave them for uprooting me and severing my roots in the UK cycling community.
I never made it to the Tour de France. In fact, I didn't race much more, until I entered a few "masters" races decades later. But I did become a competent mountaineer in the great mountains of Canada and US.
Bicycle riding became the main training area for those adventures and also a vehicle for tours into and through remote places. As I reached my forties, I discovered
"randonneur/audax" cycling, which sprang from the events pre-dating the Tour de France and are still run under the original "self-supporting" expectations of early racing.
I would not change anything because my cycling "career" is exactly where I would have it and I would not want to have lived anywhere else but where I am.
I have some advice: Why don't you try to get on at a local bike shop. There you will see that bicycling is a business. It relies on sales of a product. If you are lucky and talented enough to find a spot on a team, you will become a walking advertising billboard for products and services. Your purpose will be to give a reasonable return on investment. If you don't "perform," you'll be out of a job.
So try to gain a footing somewhere it is reasonable to expect: at the local bike shop (LBS) and with your local team.
There you will soon find out if you have what it takes to make it any further.
And even if you don't, you will have learned some valuable life lessons that will help over the long term.
Of course all this depends on whether you are:
- Coachable (listen to elders/teachers)
- Capable of unflinching honesty with yourself.
maybe???
