Update: Since this interview and the article was written, it has been officially announced that Jay Vine is set to leave Alpecin-Deceuninck to join UAE Team Emirates for the next 2 years.
For a while, Jay Vine has been listing off the things he’s done during his two week off-season. I asked the question on a whim, as that lazy journalist’s opening gambit for interviews that take place when the racing is done for the year, but Vine is taking the liberty to reply with a supremely detailed answer. “I’ve just been doing things that I didn’t do for the past two years, like mowing some grass, building some concrete foundations, putting some fences up. I’m trying to keep busy, but doing stuff that’s different that might seem like chores, but just mentally is not cycling related,” he says.
Vine lingers the longest as he talks through the renovations he’s been making to his Mini Cooper 65 which he bought before he turned professional two years ago. “I’ve been working on it loads,” he says. “During COVID was one of my expenses because I didn’t know what was going to happen so I bought this car. It ran, but then after not touching it for two years, it no longer runs, and it needed a whole bunch of work done to it so I’ve been waiting for parts to arrive and putting that back together.”
This is the sort of person Vine is. He’s straight talking, generous with his answers, and refreshingly, honestly, quite normal. Maybe it’s because he’s pretty new to this game of being interviewed after only being a part of the pro peloton for eighteen months. It’s like when he won his first stage of the Vuelta a España this year and told The Cycling Podcast that the best thing about it would be the extra financial compensation that comes with getting a big win. These are things you don’t normally say as a professional bike rider.
I was sitting there as I interviewed Vine expecting the usual response to my nonchalant inquiry about his off-season, along the lines of “I saw family, saw friends, took some time to relax,” but Vine simply isn’t someone who follows the status quo, and that’s part what makes him a very exciting prospect.
The 26-year old Australian secured his professional contract through one of the most left-field ways possible: through the Zwift Academy. It’s a talent identification programme that takes place completely virtually as participants compete against each other in Zwift races at home on their turbo…