Logan Phippen: “I am thrilled to finally be able to make my debut as a professional.”

By Logan Phippen

I am thrilled to finally be able to make my debut as a professional at the Tour of Turkey. Turkey has always been a special place for me. I am particularly excited about the route. The first two stages are around Kapadokya, where I spent a month racing this past September (2020) and had some of my best performances on the bike, so it will be nice having that familiarity. Plus, Kapadokya is an absolutely beautiful area historically and geographically. It reminds me a lot of areas in Utah, where I grew up. 

Stage 2 is in the area of Konya which is of particular significance to me personally. The Sufi poet, Rumi, is from this area and his poetry was very moving and formative for me in my early adult life. I have a copy of Rumi’s poems signed by the famous English interpreter, Coleman Barks in which he inscribed “To Logan and his riding” and racing again in this area is a way of drawing the circle of Life justly. 

In terms of preparation, I think I have prepared as well as possible and the sensations are really quite good as of recent. I am going into this race avoiding the pressure of it being my first race as a professional and meeting the demands of a new level and instead, welcoming it with the same intensity and motivation, the youthful enthusiasm, of purpose as I have always entered races. Of course, there will be the pleasure of racing with new and a few familiar teammates and working with the staff of new faces and personalities. These factors combine to form, what I anticipate to be, a most memorable debut in the 2021 Insulin 100 kit for Team Novo Nordisk.