BECOMING JACK BURKE

Despite missing the WorldTour, Burke's career is just getting started.

Jack Burke’s new book is packed with insider advice and stories about how to make it to the WorldTour.

Canadian Jack Burke excelled as a young cyclist by competing and winning races in the United States and Canada. He eventually made his way to Europe, but never onto a WorldTour team.

His struggles as a professional cyclist are epic: a positive test for an illegal performance enhancing drug early in his career (which was not his fault); teams that would not have him or paid him so little that he could not make a living; and a horrific crash that nearly killed him.

While a contract with a WorldTour team has proved elusive, Burke, now 29 and living in Austria, has found success as an author and podcaster — he lands interviews with the world’s best riders and talks to some of them for more than three hours an episode. And, as a cyclist, he’s not done yet. Last year, he shattered the records on some of the sport’s most famous climbs up the Mortirolo and Stelvio in Italy and Alp d’Huez in France.