Adam Blythe is an ex-professional rider whose decade-long career spanned different eras of bike tech, nutrition, training strategies and race tactics. Blythe was characterised as a rider who constantly adapted and was rewarded with some crowning moments, including winning the British National Road Race title in 2016. He is now a presenter and commentator working for Discovery+/TNT Sports on the channel’s coverage of cycling, where he analyses the tactics at the biggest races in the sport. At Rouleur Live 2025 Blythe sat down with Rouleur and spoke candidly about how the sport has changed during and since his time in the peloton.
Rouleur: What do you miss the most about being a professional cyclist?
Adam Blythe: Being fit. It’s the easiest answer: being fit, feeling good on a bike and actually being able to repeat efforts and hold on to efforts, rather than doing one and then going, ‘where’s the nearest café so I can stop?’
I’m so unfit, but to be honest, I’m not too precious about it. And when I say I miss it, I’m not like ‘shit I need to get fit again’. It’s more of a just miss that feeling of riding along at 40kmph with relative ease and just cruising.
R: How long into retirement did it take you for you to feel like you lost that ability?
A: I’d say a month and a half, and then you lose it very, very quickly. It’s not the nicest feeling. I retired and didn’t run or ride a bike, and then Covid came. Then when I got back on my bike, I was like, ‘Wow, I’m not a bike rider anymore’.
R: Did you find each offseason you had that same feeling?
A: It just depended on your off season, how big you went. And when I say, how big you went, I mean how much time you had off. Some years were easy, some were harder. But definitely, as the years went on, it increasingly got harder and harder, just because the level was going up and up.
I remember in 2010 at my first ever WorldTour camp with Lotto, I turned up and I had done two weeks training before. But I would say 80% of all the bike riders in the team there that was the first day on the bike at that training camp. Things have changed a lot. When I got to my last training camp, everyone would already be getting fit for the training.
It has completely changed. I just think that’s just going to keep going that way. There’s no off season anymore at all. They’re just on it the whole time.
R: What do you miss the least about being a professional cyclist?
A: The thing I missed…