Written by Moreno Moser • 10:39• Pro Cycling Story

I had no pressure coming into the sport with the Moser name. Of course the name gave me publicity in the sport, I won’t deny that. The only pressure came from myself, especially after the great results I got early on. Actually, I’ll tell you a secret. In 2012, I won Laigueglia, Frankfurt, Tour of Poland. I was 21 and I started believing maybe I will win everything in my career, the Giro, Tour, Liege – everything haha. I started believing I was better than my uncle hahaha.

But I believe everyone has their own destiny.

Retiring is not a decision I took lightly.

The last 2 – 3 years my body just hasn’t been working. Something hasn’t been right. I could not perform at the level that I’m used to. I’m not even talking about winning. I wasn’t even able to be in the first 30 riders. I couldn’t understand why. In my first year at Astana, I got diagnosed with a virus so I was happy because I thought finally we’ve found the reason. But after the virus was cured, my performance didn’t get any better.

I did more tests and we couldn’t find a reason. Everything in the tests came out ok.

Moreno Moser, wins Strade Bianche in 2013. Photo: Gian Mattia D’Alberto / lapresse

Mentally it was hard to deal with. My two years at Astana I really suffered. I was putting in the work, training well, doing altitude camps etc but my performance kept going down. I became scared to train because when you go out there and suffer a lot in training and your performance in the races keep going down, I really didn’t know what to do anymore.

I made peace with the fact that I can’t control everything in my life.

I’m happy with the career I’ve had. Sometimes in cycling it seems like there is a schedule. You turn pro then for the first few years you work for the team until you become better and then get your own chances in the races. The typical bike rider goes until 36 or 37 so I’ve had a different path – retiring at 28 -but I believe we all have our own way to go in life. I achieved results in the first 3 or 4 years of my career what many riders take 20 years to achieve.

I don’t have any regrets. This is a new beginning for me. A new challenge.

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Last modified: Jan 19, 2020

Tags: francesco moser