Tayler Wiles is a key part of Trek-Segafredo, bringing both race wins and emotional intelligence to the American team. She lives with her wife in California, works a part-time job to keep her mind occupied and her first sporting dream was to play in the World Cup. She tells Procycling why she is on a quest to find the grey areas which lie between black and white

Writer Edward Pickering

Portrait photography Jojo Harper

R acing cyclists, we are told, are busy doing nothing a lot of the time. The portions of their life that they spend riding their bikes can obviously be frenetic, but the bits in between, which add up to quite a lot of time, are for rest and recovery (and airports). The harder they rest, the harder they can ride. Siri, show me what inactivity looks like: a professional cyclist in recovery mode.

This is not true of Tayler Wiles. “I don’t like to sit still,” the Trek- Segafredo rider tells Procycling. “I always like to be doing something. I’ve always been the kind of person that needs to be productive, to feel a sense of worth.

” Wiles spends part of her spare time working a part-time job, as a customer services manager for a friend’s cycling clothing company. Trek-Segafredo was the first team to give their female riders salary parity with the men, and her moonlighting is not out of financial necessity. It just works mental muscles that cycling cannot reach.

“In my down time I spend time answering emails and solving problems, which I really love. I love solving problems and mentally I need to be doing lots of things besides riding my bike,” she says. “It gives me balance and helps me ride my bike well and gives me something else to focus on. I can focus on training, then have something on the side to keep my mind away from the bike. That’s a positive thing. It makes me more balanced and well rounded, and I get to be a part of something besides just cycling. It connects me to a lot of people.”

Wiles used to blog regularly on an elegant Squarespace website, with beautiful pictures of bowls of healthy, exotic food - Cashew and Goji Berry Salad To Die For!

Gluten-Free Quinoa Granola Bars! Bibimbap! And a 10-step and very specific process for the perfect coffee pour-over - but she’s migrated to Instagram in the last few years, where she shares sunny selfies. She is a thriving member of the gig economy. She has four parents. She has a wife, with whom she lives in Fairfax, California - the pair were featured in a Bicycling magazine feature called ‘Cycling’s coolest couples’.