The Flying Scotsman

My phone buzzed with a text from one of my athletes last week.

She'd been looking forward to guest-riding — racing with a different team for a single event — at the Tour of the Gila, an upcoming UCI stage race in New Mexico. The text was short. Matter-of-fact. It wasn't going to happen. A new, 2026 UCI rule change had closed the door on this opportunity.

There wasn't much to say, except: this is UCI racing.

The rulebook is thick, frequently updated, and not always easy to interpret. Learning to navigate it — the eligibility requirements, the licensing categories, the event-specific restrictions — is part of competing at this level. It doesn't take long before you realize that some of what shapes your race calendar has nothing to do with your fitness.

Two of my other athletes are finding out what the rulebook does allow. A junior rider and an under-23 racer (both from Puerto Rico, both representing their home country) are heading to the Pan-American Cycling Championships in Colombia next week. It's a milestone for both of them, and a reminder that when the rules open a door, this sport can take you somewhere remarkable.

The UCI, of course, has a long history of both opening and closing doors.

Nobody learned this more viscerally than Graeme Obree.

Obree was a Scottish cyclist who, in 1993, built a bike in his shed (partly from washing machine bearings) and used it to break the world hour record. He was unconventional, self-taught, and brilliant. And the UCI, confronted with his unusual riding positions and homemade innovations, responded by banning them. Twice. They changed the rules, essentially, around one man.

He won anyway. He adapted, found new positions, broke the record again. He became a two-time world pursuit champion. And then the rules changed again.

If you haven't heard of him, start here. And if you want to spend a couple of hours with a genuinely great sports story, the 2006 film The Flying Scotsman is worth every minute.

What I take from Obree — and what I try to pass along to the athletes I coach — is this: the rulebook isn't yours to control. Neither is the weather, or the field that shows up, or the official who reads the regulation differently than you did. What you can control is how consistently you train, how you carry yourself on the hard days, and how quickly you pivot when the door you were counting on suddenly closes.

Obree pivoted. He adapted. He won.

That's the model.

See you next time.

- Steve