The Kiwi rider on finding calm in chaos, learning to lead and pushing beyond her comfort zone
Deep in the Pyrenees mountains, nestled directly between France to the north and Spain to the south, is Andorra. It sits right in the high ridges and rugged terrain of southwestern Europe, made up of a cluster of steep valleys that feed into the Valira River. Niamh Fisher-Black has a house there. She lives alone. And in certain moments, when she looks out of her window to snow-capped peaks spanning into the horizon, she finds peace.
“You feel a long way away from anything else. That’s a sort of freeing feeling I can get here sometimes,” she states.
The life of a professional bike racer is noisy. It is flights, cars and people. There are few moments of solace to be found in car parks filled with spectators, or mixed zones scattered with journalists, or even on the team bus surrounded by colleagues. This sport, this world, is an assault on the senses. It is sport at its most intense. Fisher-Black is in search of quiet.
“Moving here was natural but also a big step. I was used to living with people and I am on my own now, but I do enjoy it a lot. I think the way cycling is going, we are away so much that it’s nice to have a base here. It’s where I can look straight at the mountains and escape into them,” the Kiwi rider smiles.
There is a reason so many professional cyclists choose to live in Andorra. The roads offer a unique variety of long and short climbs, while flatter lands in Spain are conveniently reachable. Of course, there are well-known performance benefits of living and breathing at altitude.
“It’s just calm. We always have a lot of people around us so I think the moments where I can find a little bit of peace to stop for a moment are really important for me.
There's people who recharge when they're surrounded by people and I recharge when I’m totally alone.
Getting her own place in the mountains is one of a number of steps the 25-year-old has taken in recent years. While she has been a professional cyclist for five seasons now, the Kiwi rider is still learning, especially as her role within her team has developed. A promising climber who has won a stage of the Giro d’Italia Women and was the under-23 road world champion, Fisher-Black has all the credentials to be a future Grand Tour winner. To get there, though, she needs to become a leader.
“It’s still a work in progress. I feel more settled in the role, but I think if I look back on the season so far, I’ve put too much pressure and expectation into it,” she states. “That’s why I say it’s a work in progress. I’m still trying to find a little bit of balance between enjoying it and also not feeling like it’s a burden on my shoulders to perform for the teammates who are investing so much in me.”
Fisher-Black feels somewhat indebted to her teammates because of how much they have helped her get to this point. More experienced riders have encouraged her to use her voice and taught the qualities only learned after years in the peloton.
“As a person, I’m a little bit quiet because of my personality, but that’s also definitely something that I’ve had help from people in the team. There’s always someone in the bus pushing me, like the sports directors I work with and I spent a camp this year with Spratty and Lucinda, they taught me a lot. I trust any feedback they have.
“In general, I’m not the most self-assured or self-confident person by default. I want everyone to believe in it as much as I do and if I get the sense that someone else doesn’t believe in it, I really take it to heart.
There is nothing that lifts me more than knowing that my teammates also believe in something as well.
Fisher-Black is exceptionally driven when it comes to working on her weak points in order to become a better athlete. The Tour de France Femmes is her North Star when she looks out at those mountain landscapes each night – it is the race she dreams of performing best in.
“It’s a very challenging Tour this year,” she reflects. “I’ve looked at some stages and Ventoux which has made me start to feel a little bit ambitious. I always get this feeling in my stomach like, ‘Oh yeah, that’s a nice one.’
“It’s all puzzle pieces now. You are spending the whole year trying to put all the puzzle pieces together to just perform at the right place. It’s more difficult than what people will see on TV.”
Her approach to the Tour de France has been encouraging, with a fifth place finish overall at the Giro d’Italia Women, a race in which Fisher-Black looked to get stronger by the day. She proved her ability to climb with the very best, and can only hope for more of that at the Tour.
“It has been a good build-up to the Tour and we spent some time with the team and also did some recons. It’s about making sure I go there in a healthy, fit state. I have a good knowledge of the courses from the recons and all my teammates are also firing and ready to go,” Fisher-Black smiles.
To reach her full potential, Fisher-Black will have to leave the comfort of her home Pyrenean landscapes behind this summer. She will still be in the mountains at the Tour, namely Mont Ventoux on the race’s final weekend, but there will be no solace to be found. Instead, it will be cheers of crowds and fierce battles with her competitors. But – perhaps most crucially – Fisher-Black is at peace with this reality.
“A lot of this sport and what we do is asking each other and ourselves to step outside of our comfort zone,” she says.
“That’s also off the bike. For me, stepping outside of my comfort zone is stepping up and saying what I want, saying what I think and making sure that we build up a team culture that is worthy of winning. I hope that eventually it will become easier.”
Watch our All Access episode with Niamh Fisher-Black now:
