Racing
Sean Quinn joins the 2022 roster
American neo-pro eager to learn from veteran teammates
October 15, 2021
EF Education-NIPPO is proud to announce the signing of Sean Quinn to our 2022 line up. The American joins the team as a neo-pro.
The 21-year-old has followed professional cycling since childhood, thanks to his parents. “My family always rode bikes when I was a kid. My parents always had the Tour de France on over the summer. I remember there was one year, for whatever reason, I became obsessed. I watched the team time trial and that was the first thing I saw and I thought, ‘Whoa,’ with the helmets and stuff. That summer I woke up every morning to watch the Tour.”
Lucky for us, Quinn translated his curiosity about the sport into action. As a 10-year-old, he joined a youth program at his local velodrome where he learned track cycling and eventually transitioned to road racing. “I don’t like going in circles,” he explains.
Once on the road, there was no turning back. To this day, Quinn loves the adventure and the sense of awe that riding his bike brings him. “It’s something else that no one experiences. Whenever I travel to a new place, I don’t just see the city, I go 100 miles outside and see all these amazing places. All these things you’d never see if you weren’t a cyclist. I’m really grateful for that. The feeling of freedom and being able to be outside. I’ve always enjoyed that.”
When it came time to step up to the WorldTour, he knew EF was the team he wanted to join. “It’s pretty cool to come to the team I rooted for the most while growing up. It had always been a dream in the back of my head to go to EF since I was younger.”
While he first became a fan of the team because of their American roots, his appreciation deepened over time. “As I started to understand the sport more, I really liked how they advocated strongly for clean riding. That’s something that’s really important to me.”
Quinn grew up in Los Angeles, California and relished the urban experience. “It was pretty great growing up in a big city and I’m very grateful that I did. I still spend quite a bit of time there. The riding is quite underrated there actually, as long as you don’t mind cars passing you all day.”
Nowadays, he splits his time between Boulder, Colorado and Girona, Spain. “When I’m stateside, I’m mostly in Boulder. I went to the University of Colorado for a few semesters and so a lot of my good friends live there as well as my girlfriend. It’s a nice place to spend time over the offseason. Girona is an awesome place to live in during the racing season. It has great weather and a lot of friends and former teammates to hangout and ride with.”
On the bike, Quinn can do a bit of everything but he considers reading a race to be among his main talents. “Positioning in the pack and knowing when to save energy and being smart about the way I’m riding and riding pretty conservatively when I need to is a big strength. A lot of time tactics and strategy can be overlooked but it plays a huge part in all the races.”
His other strength? Climbing. “I really love the big mountains but the thing is, ironically I’m not a super small guy,” Quinn says. “I don’t know if it’s ideally suited to me but that’s the stuff that gets me super excited, looking at huge mountain stages although when you’re in it, it’s not so fun.”
Jonathan Vaughters, EF Education-NIPPO CEO, considers Quinn’s size to be an asset. “He’s a climber. He’s a big climber. He’s not a tiny little guy but those are the kind of guys you want because a slightly larger framed climber tends to be a little bit more versatile in different types of terrain you can gamble with so we’ll see where he fits in. I see him very much as a future Tour de France rider. He’s a bigger, stronger kid that can handle the high speeds on the flats and then he can also climb which is what you need for the Tour de France.”
For the upcoming season, Quinn’s priority is to soak up the knowledge from his new teammates. “I just like hearing from guys with a lot more experience than me. A lot of veteran riders are on the team and it’ll be really cool to ride with them and learn from there. I’m looking forward to having good people with a lot of good advice. I’m sure I’ll still learn some stuff the hard way but that’s life,” he laughs.