Brad Huff from Pro cyclist to Project Dudeman, and mens mental health

Brad Huff is remembered as one of the great American criterium racers of the 2000s — a two-time US Pro Criterium Champion, a bronze medalist at the 2007 Track World Championships, and a fixture on the North American racing scene for two decades. But as Brad would be the first to tell you, the race results were never really the whole story.

In this conversation, Brad takes us back to a farm in rural Missouri, where the work ethic was absorbed by osmosis and the bicycle became his first and most reliable escape. We trace his path from high school multi-sport athlete to junior mountain bike state champ, through his early national team experiences, an eating disorder that nearly derailed everything, and an eventual comeback that would sustain a professional career all the way to age 39.

Brad opens up about what it was actually like to be part of the early TIA CREF and Slipstream era — the brotherhood those teams created, the idealism of trying to race clean while the sport was still reckoning with the Lance years, and the heartbreak of watching that development program pivot away from the riders who'd built it. He reflects on what it meant to race in Europe for the first time, winning at the Tour of Normandy, and the particular challenge of learning to compete in a culture that was utterly unlike anything North American cycling had prepared him for.

But more than the racing stories, this episode is a real conversation about the patterns men carry — from how they were raised, through how they competed, and into what comes after. Brad is candid about perfectionism, fear of failure, the inability to savor achievements, and the very specific kind of identity crisis that hits when the thing you've spent your life becoming suddenly ends. He talks about what it felt like to unclip for the last time, to find himself without a team or a structure or a sprint finish to focus on, and to slowly figure out who Brad Huff is when he isn't being a bike racer.

That search eventually led him to Tulsa and to Project Dude Man — a men's community built around cycling, connection, and what Brad calls mental fitness. The premise is beautifully simple: you don't have to show up saying you need help. You can just show up and ride your bike. And through that shared experience, something real tends to happen. Guys start talking. Friendships form. People look out for each other. The work gets done — just at a pace and in a way that's actually sustainable.

There's a full circle to Brad's story that's hard to miss. This is a man who spent his career in a sport where the entire point is to drop people and not get dropped — and who now runs a community organized around the opposite idea. No dude left behind.

This one covers a lot of ground, from great bike racing stories to much bigger conversations about masculinity, identity, mental health, and what a life in sport actually leaves you with. We hope you enjoy it.

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