Kristen Faulkner has made several leaps over the years, most notably from venture capital to bike racing, and in February the American rider will make her European racing debut with EF Education-Cannondale.

The Alaska native threw herself into professional cycling full-time in 2020 with Team Tibco-SVB. As a result, she won two stages at the Giro d'Italia Donne and finished sixth in the ITT at the 2022 Road World Championships in Wollongong.

Her 2023 campaign ended with a gold medal in the individual time trial at the Pan American Games last October after a season of disappointment and injury. She then took a break, knowing that 2024 would be "a really intense year. Her victory in the TT gave her confidence for a new team and a new start.

"I hadn't done a time trial in over a year, so I didn't really know how to pace myself or how much power to put out. being able to focus on the TT was a positive for me. It was a lot of excitement to realize that I was back and that I was back to full health," Faulkner said of his Pan Games title. [I can go into winter training with the confidence that I can show up healthy in 2024. And I'm not just 'kind of back,' I'm fully back."

Faulkner, known for his aggressive racing style, was in his element at Strade Bianche, coming close to winning with a solo attack, but was disqualified by the UCI for wearing a glucose monitor and his place on the podium disappeared.

Then, after La Vuelta Femenina, she was rear-ended by a car driver during a training ride in California, suffering a hairline fracture in her leg and a blood clot in her lung. She took blood thinners for three months, during which time her doctor did not allow her to ride outside.

As a result, she had to miss the Tour de France Femme and the Road World Championships. It was like COVID all over again," she told Cyclingnews.

"Missing the World Championships was really upsetting. Because if I had made the podium in the time trial, I would have automatically qualified. So it postponed a lot of my goals and spurred me on to try for 2024. I learned that you have to be patient. You have to control what you can control."

One of the first things she did to take control of her career was to change teams. With her two-year contract with Jayco ending in 2023, she decided to return to a U.S.-based team at the continental level. She did not see it as a downgrade, but as the best investment in every way.

"I had several world tour offers this summer. And they were really strong teams, which I was excited about. But I got on the phone with Jonathan Vaughters, and right after that first conversation, I called my agent and told him to sign me up. I was really excited

"So I had never had a conversation with a team that felt so right. It made me really comfortable with a three-year contract. And honestly, it proved to be even better than I expected."

In December and January, after honing her sprint and technical skills on the track in Colorado Springs, she traveled to Adelaide, Australia, to train with Team USA track riders on the 250m velodrome.

It will be fascinating to train on a track the same size as the Paris Velodrome Nationals, and if she is chosen among the four or five women who will race with Team USA on February 2, it will be her first Nations Cup.

"This expedition is also my first experience on a 250m track. It's much steeper than the track we practice on in Colorado Springs. I've been to a couple of track camps to practice sprinting." Yeah, I'm trying out for the team, but we'll see how it goes."

Her main goal for 2024 is to make the US team for the Paris Olympics. She also hopes to develop into a GC rider on a new team.

"I think the effort to make the men's team and the women's team as equal as possible is really genuine. We stay in the same hotels, we go on rides together, and we [the women] even take nutrition at home," she explained of being part of EF Education Cannondale.

"Just like men, we get many of the same resources. The first is that we have access to those resources. The second is that we feel treated as professionals, valued, and needed. And that has a tremendous emotional impact on one's performance. I don't think that can be over-emphasized

"I'm very excited for everybody. I really like Ezra and I have a lot of faith in her ability to manage the team. And I'm really excited about my teammates. They are really great cyclists and a lot of interesting people outside of cycling. So I think it will foster a lot of trust and rapport off the bike as well," the Harvard graduate continued.

"We've all won races, but we are very different types of riders. So we can complement each other on the bike. We are similar enough that we can support each other in different races. I think it's really great to have that kind of collective strength in building a team."

From Australia, the team will head to Europe to start the road season with EF Education-Cannondale at the Setomana Valenciana on February 15-18.

"It depends a lot on whether I make the Olympic team or not and what the run-up to that will be. I don't want to peak too early in the season for the Classics. Right now I have the big picture in mind. I want to finish the U.S. Nationals and then decide what my next steps are from there." [He learned about entrepreneurship from his family in Alaska and set out on his own to become a venture capitalist in New York City.

"In my life, I've become really comfortable with failing because I know that failure is the only way to win. When I don't shoot, I fail 100% of the time. But I know that the only way to win or not get away with it is to try."

"I was an investor before cycling, investing in early stage companies. However, when I invested, I was able to recoup all of my money. So it was a high-risk, high-return type of investment, and I knew it well. So I have the same mentality that the chances of failure are very high. But the one time it works out, it works out brilliantly."