Interviewed at The Mill on Divisidero, San Francisco, CA on April 23, 2026

Ian: When did you first start riding?

Helena: I started riding in 2022, around September. It came after getting into a bad Vespa accident — I broke my foot and my hand, and spent the next few months walking around with a peg leg and an arm in a sling which was a lovely time. My PT said I should get into some kind of non-load-bearing exercise to get my leg strength back, so I started riding. Around the same time professionally there was a lot of uncertainty — I was working on a startup and we were pivoting, so there was a bit more time in the day. I started going up and down Hawk Hill over and over. Eventually I got fast enough, or coming across masochistic enough, that people started asking what I was training for or who I raced with. At the time I didn't even know people raced bikes or that there were local teams. I kind of fell into it by accident.

When did you get serious about riding?

Pretty immediately. I go all in on something when I commit to it — it's really an all-or-nothing, I don’t keep anything chill. It was probably less than six months before I started racing, doing crits and road races for fun. All of which started because people had come up up to me and said, "Hey, you should join our team, we're going to this race." I’m trying to remember what my first race was… probably one of the local VeloPromo races, and after that first race — mid to late summer 2023 — I was hooked.

How did you do in your first race?

Oh, I totally messed it up for my team. I knew nothing about racing. In high school I was a runner, and I assumed cycling would be similar racing, where you pick the hardest pace you can sustain and go. Cycling is nothing like that. I knew nothing about drafting, positioning, any of it. We were wrapping up the race, I saw the finish line, and I thought, great, I'll go! Instead I fumbled the lead-out for my team. I think I ended up fourth or somewhere around there, but I had no idea what was going on. Now that I understand the mechanics, it's way more fun than running ever was. There's so much strategy to it.

What does "serious" mean to you?

Planning anything takes cycling into account. Planning travel, vacations, work, all of it has to be compatible with my cycling.

In what ways does road biking impact your life?

It takes up all my time. Right now I'm training around 18 hours on the bike a week plus two gym sessions, plus all the before-and-after prep and showering. It's like a full-time job, in addition to having a full-time job, which then leaves very little room for “normal” life activities like having a social life. Cycling is essentially my social life. Cycling and work is pretty much all I have time for right now.

That’s pretty all-in, to your point earlier. Have you ever felt like it's negatively impacting your life?

I would say having a social life is healthy, and the lack thereof implies something less healthy. But I believe there are phases in life, and I'm very okay with going through phases that are more intense in one area than another. For the last few months work has again been lighter and I’ve spent that time engaging in a social life, seeing friends, and I do think that’s important. Now that work is picking up work again, I'm actively trying to figure out a new balance, where I’m working a reasonable amount of hours, still cycling the same amount of hours, and squeezing in a social life.

Maybe sleeping?

Maybe sleeping! Okay, so going back to how cycling has impacted my life, I have never prioritized sleep in my life as much as I do now. Sleep is completely non-negotiable now. I have a much deeper understanding of my body and what it takes to be in good mental and physical shape, and how much of your fitness gains depend on just sleeping well. So I'd choose sleep over a social life any day. Sleep is on the up and up.

Net-net, do you think cycling is positive or negative?

Probably good, otherwise I probably would’t be doing it. There have definitely been moments where I've fantasized about quitting and imagined all the free time I'd have and what I would do with it. But there's something so truly magical about pouring yourself into an athletic endeavor that makes taking that leap to quit feel impossible. I do think there’ll probably a time when I think I’m done, and I’ll think this was a crazy way to spend all this time, but I don't know what it'll take to give it up.

Imagine someone said “I’m going to give you 30 hours a week of extra time”, what would you do with it? But… you’d have to take away cycling.

Helena I’m mean, before cycling, I filled my time with work and startups. I worked a lot on my company and it took up all my time. I think realistically, if you took cycling away, my life would be just as intense, directed toward something else. So okay, net-net, it makes my life better. It makes my life significantly better, because even if it seems extreme, it makes my life more balanced than it ever has been before.

Do you have any goals for yourself in road biking?

Have a lot of fun. At the end of the day it's a game — it's supposed to be fun. If I can show up at a race, have a great time, push my limits, and see my team and other teams push their limits, that is extremely fulfilling. If I ever get to a point where it's not fun, it's probably time to move on.

What are some things you absolutely love about cycling?

So many things. I love that it feels like play — I don't think I realized I needed that until I got into cycling. So much of it is just goofing around, and there are very few moments in adult life to play. I also enjoy a lot of the strategy that goes into it, and I very much enjoy pushing my body to extreme physical limits in terms of exertion.

If you had zero constraints on your time, how many hours a week do you think you would ride?

Maybe 20 to 25? I don't know if I'd do much more than that. I don't think fitness gains would come from more. If I had the time, then those extra hours would probably be trash hours — coffee rides, just hanging out. There is an alternate universe where I'm doing multi-week bikepacking trips, which could be fun in its own way, like biking across a country, maybe not the US, maybe the UK, something more reasonably sized than the US. In that scenario you'd be riding all day, which could be fun in its own way. But I haven't done that, so I don't actually know if I'd enjoy biking every day, all day. It'd be fun to try once.

But if it's not going to make you faster, you’re not interested.

I really like being fast. Part of the motive in going all-in on whatever I choose to do is that I like to be good at what I do, and in cycling that usually means being fast.

What is something you wish a non-cyclist could experience about cycling?

Flying. Just the pure freedom of a flowy descent. Nothing compares to it.

Have you ever taken a total break from cycling?

Not yet.

All in. Not even for a week?

I took last week off because I had the flu, so yeah if I'm sick I don't ride. I took New Year's off because I was backpacking. But taking a whole week off feels crazy. Unless I'm sick, I'm riding. Earlier you asked about what it means to be serious… If I'm going on a week-long trip, I'm bringing my bike. There were few trips when I first was starting to train where I used just used a gym Peloton bike — I would do anything to never do that again. I’m just going to bring my bike. That’s just so normal to me now. I was going to a conference in New York for a week and I brought my bike. Why would I not bring my bike? I think racing stage races has also drilled into me how accessible it is to fly with a bike. We do it all the time for races that are a week long — so why wouldn't I just fly my bike with me when I go on a business trip?

Tell me about your racing.

I race with a team called Monarch. It’s very fun. It's an all-women's domestic elite team. We do classic road racing only, usually around five races a year, each about a week long endeavor with multiple stages — typically a time trial, a crit, and several road races. This is my second year racing at this level, and it was a pretty intense step up from domestic races. You're racing multiple days in a row, the level is so much higher, and especially in women's fields, I'd never raced in fields this big. At the local level there might be 10 to 20 women racing. The race I just came back from at Redlands had 150 women, all of them as strong if not way stronger than me — which is terrifying and humbling. Each day builds on the previous one and the layers of strategy just keep getting added. At a local race your goal is top five or winning. At a stage race you obviously want to win each day, but you also want to win overall, and then there are all these mini-games: climber's jersey, sprinter's jersey, cash primes. So many different ways of winning, and playing it, that yeah, it’s a fun time.

Does being on a team add pressure — good, bad, or neutral? Do you feel like it’s impacting the way you view what you’re doing?

To some extent, yes. We all sign contracts committing to show up at every race in the best shape we can. Obviously if we’re sick, or injured, or not well, health comes first. But our team has eight riders, and if I'm not going to show up and do my best, I'm taking a spot away from someone else who would have fought for it. There's a healthy accountability system. It's kind of like having a coach — when somebody else is watching and analyzing all your workouts, you're not going to skimp. It's a healthy motivator on days that feel really hard, when you don't want to do your workout or you feel like crap. Having a team and a coach who hold you accountable gets you past those days. Our manager also doesn't put intense pressure on us to win every race. They treat the riders in a much more three-dimensional way — racing isn't your whole life, you're a human first and foremost, and your job is to be a good member of society. I appreciate that. I think it's the right culture for a team at this level.

Is anyone at your level trying to make a living purely from cycling?

Plenty of people are. There are teams we race against where people are mostly full-time. Different teams and people have very different resources to invest in their success. Obviously if you're racing against someone who's full-time training with a mechanic and race radios and all these resources, it's easy to feel like it's not fair — but then when you beat them, it feels even better.

It’s kind of amazing, you know, it's not like you can just put on a football uniform and go play in the NFL. But in cycling you can. If you're fast enough and you qualify, you can go.

Yeah, you can. It’s interesting the level of investment, how it’s different, there’s obviously everyone’s time, but then there are a few teams at our level where the riders get a salary, not much, and maybe have a side hustle. But that's very different than my team I’m on, where most people are working intense jobs. I’m grateful that our manager doesn’t put intense pressure on us to win every race, it’s a lot more about being a human first and foremost, and a being a good member of society, which I appreciate. I think it’s the right culture for a team.

Please choose only three words to describe who you are as a cyclist.

Hmmm…. [long, long pause] this is a hard one.

It’s the last one, it’s the finish line. It has to be hard.

Do other people not struggle with this one? I wish I had a hundred words to pick from. Okay…I can do this. I’m competent. What’s going through my head is, every adjective I choose, I think, well, is that really true? Like, technical, I do well with a lot of turns and I can read the field well, but if I compare myself to a mountain biker I’m not that great, so I can’t say ‘technical’.

You are a very fast descender.

But descender is not an adjective. I tried that already.

Descender, descendist. Descendering…

Descendist? That just sounds very negative!

You are a believer in descents?

A believer in descents! Okay those are the words. Also, my role on the team is very much in a helper role: I know how to navigate the field, I pull people up to the front and help them sprint to the finish, but I'm not a finisher. So, “Helper.” And I like to think I'm kind.

Descenderist, Helper, Kind.

Yeah, or just “Believer in Descents.”

Those are your three words?

Yes. That’s it.