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From desk jockey to pro cyclist!

Last month, João Correia, a 34 year-old cyclist and ex-business man, was putting on the Cervélo TestTeam kit and starting in his first professional race in Europe, Etoile de Besseges. Just a few months ago he was running a sales meeting in New York City. When I started my job as Bicycling’s associate publisher in 2004, I had already spent years selling Italian fashion accounts for the men’s magazine Esquire. As a kid, I had qualified for the junior world championships, and I had raced in Europe into my twenties. Now, I was getting dropped on the lunch ride, I looked like somebody’s idea of a prank with my 205 pounds. In 2006, I set myself the audacious goal of competing in the time-trial national championship of my native country, Portugal, without being embarrassed. I finished twelfth in the TT in 2007. I kept riding — though now I thought of it as training — and the next year I was offered a chance to join the domestic American race team Bissell Pro Cycling. Late last year, the founder of the Cervelo team, Gerard Vroomen, asked me if I wanted to ride for him. So 14 years after I stopped ...

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