Manon Lloyd’s life has been shaped by bicycles, though not entirely in the way she once expected. There was the first dream – one that is held by so many young cyclists – of Olympic medals. It was an ambition of sporting success at the highest level, forged on the wooden boards of the velodrome and crafted in the aerodynamic, low, efficient tuck of a team pursuit formation. Building blocks to achieving this dream for Lloyd were long training sessions as part of the British Cycling Development Programme and a big move from Wales to Manchester as a teenager to live and ride full time. In those years, it was happening: National and European titles on the track were taken in abundance by the Welshwoman, and the road to cycling’s top table was there for the taking. What Lloyd did not expect, however, was for the dream to change.
“It was never the plan to retire from cycling. When I did so, I retired at the end of 2019 but I’d actually signed a contract for the 2020 season. I was going to carry on,” the 28-year-old remembers, now six years on from the last time she competed in a professional bike race.
The decision by Lloyd to step away from the sport which had shaped her life was one that surprised many, including herself. For a long time, cycling had been all she knew: “When I first tried cycling I got really addicted and loved it,” she says. “I remember going to Newport Velodrome for the first time and although I was scared, I loved the adrenaline of it. It happened naturally and I got on the Welsh Programme then the British Cycling Programme when I was 16. When I won two gold medals at the junior European Championships on the track, I realised being a professional cyclist could be possible. I had amazing role models on the track too, like Laura Kenny.”
The American motivational writer William Arthur Ward once said: “Opportunities are like sunrises, if you wait too long, you will miss them.” It is this ethos which we could apply to the decision Lloyd made to leave behind the racing career she had worked so hard towards in order to pursue something entirely different.
“This really good opportunity with Global Cycling Network (GCN) came along and I’d always thought, ‘What does my path look like after racing?’ I knew I wanted to stay in cycling and always loved the media side of it, post-race interviews, things like that,” she reflects. “I just felt like I couldn’t turn the job down, so I was going to give it a go. I still carried on training for a good few months when I was starting, because I had this fear of it not working out and thought I might want to go back to racing.”
Lloyd became GCN’s first and only female presenter, appearing on the brand’s YouTube channel (which has a subscriber base of more than three million) in videos where she completed challenges and guided a keen audience through how-to videos surrounding topics like bike maintenance. She may not have realised it at the time, but Lloyd steadily became a key presence in the cycling media landscape, creating a space where female cyclists felt represented and welcomed.
“It was quite hard at times being the only female with five or six other male presenters, but I feel like I was lucky in the team that I worked with, because it was very inclusive,” says Lloyd.
“I got to do so many amazing different challenges at GCN, but the things I loved most were the really basic stuff, because it felt like it helped and inspired people. When you have been cycling for as long as I have, you can take things for granted that beginners don’t know how to do. Basic tips made a big difference to people’s riding experience, and I got a lot of joy from that.”
So the dream then, for Lloyd, had evolved. From the pursuit of her own personal success in the sport, she began to work towards a wider goal of helping people find their own joy in cycling like she had when she started out on the boards of Newport Velodrome as a teenager. She admits, however, that the transition from bike racing to being in front of a camera as her job was not without its challenges.
“Going from being a full-time athlete to not riding your bike as much and sitting in an office, your body is going to change, and that’s a really natural thing to happen, but I think it’s even harder when you’re in front of a camera,” admits Lloyd. “People can see those changes and feel the need to comment on them, which got me down, but I’ve learned to deal with that. I have the mindset of thinking, ‘What sort of person can comment on that?’ I know none of my friends would. Of course it isn’t nice to read about, but it’s not something to dwell on too much.”
In the five years that Lloyd spent as part of the presenting team at GCN, she amassed her own social media following of over 130,000 on her personal Instagram account, with many respecting her candid and honest approach to speaking about her experiences in the sport. We know from her story so far, however, that Lloyd is a person who is always looking for the next challenge and opportunity, never content resting on her laurels. It was this which fuelled her decision to start her next chapter, the one she is living through now.
“With GCN, it started to feel like it was coming to a natural end. I’d been there for so long and I found myself seeking more opportunities and wanting to work closer with my own brands,” says Lloyd. “It felt like the right time to take that leap and it was something I thought about for a very long time because I did really like GCN, but I made the choice to leave last July.
“I was so excited for new opportunities to come, but it was scary at the same time, thinking, ‘What if this doesn’t work out? What if no one wants to work with me? Will I just end up having a normal job after this?’ But thankfully it has worked out.”
Soon after she left GCN, Lloyd had the opportunity to work at the 2024 edition of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift as a presenter – a landmark moment in women’s cycling: “That was on my bucket list of something I’d wanted to do and to have that opportunity started things off on the right foot of my next chapter. It is my favourite race in the world and I think it is incredible to bring those stories back to people.”
The Welsh cyclist has also started working with her own brand partners, namely world-famous componentry manufacturer Shimano, for whom she is a European ambassador.
“Since I very first started cycling I remember my dad put a 105 Shimano groupset on my bike and told me I was going to go fast. I would never in a million years have thought I’d get to work with them,” says Lloyd. “They are a brand who like my ideas and are open to what I want to do. I recently went to do the Mallorca 312 alongside Shimano and it felt like I was with a family – that’s something I really want from the partners I work with, it’s so important.”
Lloyd explains that using her platform to build communities at events alongside the companies she works with is something that she is passionate about as her career in content creation continues: “Since leaving GCN, a big goal of mine is to be out in the community more, doing my own rides and events, because there is nothing more powerful than a group of like-minded women all on bikes. That’s always so special and something I’d like to do more of. Having thousands of people in Mallorca who had all been brought together by bikes, all with the same passion and loving the same thing, it was incredible.”
She notes while she saw a marked increase in female participants of the Mallorca 312, there is still more work to be done in order to achieve gender parity in big cycling events: “I saw more women than I ever have, and I do think it’s in a good place,” she says. “I think we need to do more at the grassroots level to keep it growing more, like making sure every cycling club has a female group and isn’t intimidating. It can be really daunting, so I think it’s important to have groups that are inclusive and take it back to basics.”
Despite the work that Lloyd does helping beginner cyclists feel more welcome in the sport she loves, she also hasn’t completely lost the competitive drive that drew her to the velodrome all those years ago. As she looks ahead to the future, the Welsh woman is keen to set herself new challenges – because that’s the kind of person Manon Lloyd is.
“I know I’m not interested in the racing side of things any more and I know my perspective on cycling has changed a lot, but I still want to push myself,” she says. “I would love to do my furthest ever ride and I’m thinking of trying to do the length of Wales. I also want to keep doing more events like the Mallorca 312 as a way of getting my own community together.”
She may not have the Olympic medals she once dreamed of, but Lloyd is a success story in her sport all the same. The 28-year-old is proof that there are a number of ways to make a difference in the cycling landscape – it’s not just about the top step of the podium. If you are brave, ambitious and grasp opportunities like she has throughout her career, then it is possible to touch the lives of a huge number of people, and bring new faces into a sport that has, for so long, been heavily steeped in tradition.
Knowing what she knows now – and where her dreams in the sport have eventually taken her – what would Lloyd say to the young cyclist who took the risk to leave behind the racing she knew and embark on a new job in cycling media?
“Don’t read the comments!” she grins. “Just don’t take them so seriously, just enjoy it. Above all, I think the most important thing is to be yourself, that’s what makes it work.”
