Brendan Quirk is the CEO of Bentonville-based bicycle brand Allied Cycle Works. The ALLIED Mission is to make the finest bicycles on Earth. They build them in the United States from the ground up: from design to engineering to manufacturing.
Quirk is an industry veteran who cofounded Competitive Cyclist in Arkansas and later served as an executive vice president at Backcountry.com, North American president of Rapha, and the cycling program director for Runway Group, tasked with bringing cycling brands to Northwest Arkansas and making the area a magnet for bike tourism.
We had the opportunity to ask board member, Brendan Quirk, a few questions and get to know the new leadership at USA Cycling.
1. What compels you to serve on the USA Cycling Board of Directors?
My desire to serve on the Board is rooted in my appreciation for the fact that many of the best lessons I learned in life were a direct byproduct of my efforts to be a bike racer. Tenacity, focus, resilience, and discipline were all things that eluded me when I was a knuckleheaded teenager -- that is until I discovered bike racing when I was 15 years old.
While I never amounted to anything as a racer, I brought that athletic framework into my academic life and -- eventually -- my professional life. They were game-changers for me, and I'll always be grateful for having stumbled upon a sport that ended up shaping my life in so many instrumental ways.
In being part of the Board, I'm eager for cycling to impact as many young lives as possible. A few of these kids will end up as Olympic medalists someday, and that's fantastic. But equally important is for USA Cycling to maximize its opportunity to transform the lives of people who become part of the sport at a less elite (but no less emotionally meaningful) level. It's a monumentally worthy mission to make cycling relevant in varied ways to a much bigger part of the American public. Programming that supports this is what membership dollars pay for, and it's something I imagine the entirety of our members will be excited to support.
2. What is your favorite cycling memory?
I have two favorite cycling memories:
One is from a ride on an IMBA Epic Trail called the Womble Trail. I was having a tough time on the mountain bike that day and the closer we got to the end, the more I was melting down. One of my best friends stuck back with me and tried to keep me going by reassuring me "Right over that hill -- there's fried chicken and waffles!" He must've said it 20 times! And to this day, no comfort food is as comforting as that -- fried chicken and waffles. I've made it a post-ride treat way more often than I should admit!
My other favorite memory was the time I did the full cyclesportive the day prior to the 2010 Tour of Flanders. It was 270km, and we got the full Belgian experience on our ride: Hail, sideways wind, broken bikes, being dropped by people on mountain bikes, but then somehow making it to the end. It was bedlam and all I could think afterward was how sorry I would've been if it'd be calm and sunny that day. I'd always been a huge fan of the Spring Classics, but my appreciation skyrocketed from that day forward.
3. What do you want the cycling community to know about you?
I'd like for the cycling community -- and the USA Cycling membership in particular -- to know that I've been a member since 1986. Because of that,. I know what USA Cycling has historically been: A licensing and insurance organization.
I joined the Board out of my excitement to support the transformation that's underway here. Yes, Olympic medals and elite rider development are just as important now as it's always been. But there's a larger mission unfolding. "We Champion" is a shorthand way of saying that USA Cycling will become instrumental in enabling far more Americans to discover the sport in the first place, and in making cycling an important part of their lives regardless of whether they ever pin on a number. This is just as exciting to me as Olympic medals. And, obviously, if we double or triple or quadruple the number of kids riding bikes on a regular basis, not only will USA Cycling be a force for social good and emotional well-being, but we'll end up winning a heck of a lot more Olympic medals in the process.
USA Cycling Board of Director bios and information can be found at: https://usacycling.org/about-us/board-of-directors
