Six years ago three-time Olympian and former WorldTour pro Taylor Phinney walked away from professional cycling at twenty-nine, not injured, not in crisis, just done. As he told The New York Times in May, "when I retired it was like being at a party too long and needing to ghost".

He disappeared into a warehouse studio in Girona with a pair of CDJs, some canvases, a"nd no particular plan. What emerged wasn't a reinvention, just a refinement of what was always underneath: a clearer version of Taylor who no longer needed his art, his DJing, and his cycling to operate in silos or as contradictions, but as a single merged source. 

The art he makes is abstract, figurative, caught somewhere between chaos and geometry, like two people made it. The music is serious, yet built on real intuition, the kind that comes from understanding what a room needs before the room knows. And through all of it, the bike was never far away, a means to transport him to the trails, hills, bakeries, and always back to himself. 

That relationship with riding, carefully preserved through retirement, is now pulling him back toward competition: Taylor is making a genuine bid for the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, chasing a spot on the US team pursuit squad at the same velodrome where his mother won gold and his father took bronze 44 years prior.

"I've always wanted to fly," he says. "Feel free. Weightless."

Out of Body, as Taylor describes it, is the dream state we all chase through physical activity: the moment when you are almost levitating while exerting, when the questioning mind goes quiet and the body just knows. What makes the phrase stick for him is its layers. In Spanish and Italian it becomes "extracorporal" and "extracorporea", rooted in the Latin for "outside of" or "beyond". But read through an English lens, the "extra" implies something additional: a second body. "I often wonder," he says, "which one of these voices am I?"

For Taylor, Out of Body isn't just a feeling reserved for race day, but rather something he's spent a lifetime chasing through cycling, art, music, travel, and curiosity itself. Though the medium shifts, the pursuit stays the same. 

Read the full Q&A with Taylor where we talk about flow states, creativity, retirement, reinvention, and why the bike continues to pull him back, below.

[COURIER]: You've never really fit the mold of the typical cyclist. Did you always know that, or was it something you figured out over time?

[TAYLOR]: I was always too distracted by the world around me to lock into the traditional cyclist mindset when I was younger. I found that I could lock in for a few weeks at a time, but eventually I felt that I needed some external stimulus or inspiration to keep myself engaged in life. As a pro you have a lot of downtime, but not much energy — so I found that mixing or making music was a great way to get lost in flow. Most of the time I have no idea what I am doing, but something always comes out and I keep learning, which is one of my favorite feelings.

[COURIER]: The theme of this collab is Out of Body. Where did that come from, and what does that phrase mean in your own life?

[TAYLOR]: Out of Body is the dream state that I think we all chase when pursuing physical activity. I have always wanted to fly and feel free, weightless. The other day I was at the end of six hours on the bike, in the mountains, on my last climb. I had my EarPods in and this trance song was hitting me just right — pumping fresh energy into my already tired body. I was getting waves of goosebumps which prompted me to stand up and accelerate beyond my limits of that day. That is Out of Body for me — when you are almost levitating while exerting physically. It is a fleeting moment, but one I always come back to.

[COURIER]: Athletes and artists both talk about that state where the conscious mind steps aside and something else takes over. Do you experience it the same way on the bike as you do in the studio or playing to a crowd?

[TAYLOR]: Yes, I experience it as more of a quieting of the mind. Some of my best performances on the bike I don't remember at all, and I think it comes from this quieting, this locking in. I think I have learned from making art and music, as well as years of seated meditation, to let the questioning mind make its rounds and simply pass through until the quiet returns. The body knows.

 

[COURIER]: DJing is interesting because you're reading a crowd, reading energy, making split-second decisions — not unlike racing. Do you think those creative skills cross over into sport more than people realize?

[TAYLOR]: Yes, although with sport you are more focused on yourself and how you are feeling, whereas in DJing you are developing an intuition for others — and ideally you are removing yourself from the equation entirely.

[COURIER]: How has your art changed since you first started painting seriously? What are you trying to say now that you weren't able to say before?

[TAYLOR]: My art changed when I decided to pursue life as an artist full time. Painting for me blossomed in the dark, with no idea of becoming commercial or even selling anything. When I started thinking about what would sell versus what I actually wanted to express, I decided to pull back and keep it personal. As for now versus then — I am more interested in what makes something beautiful, especially in the human form. My art is quite abstract yet figurative, almost cartoonish or childish in nature. I try to find the line between something very simple and something very chaotic. As if two minds made the work.

[COURIER]: You stepped away from professional competition at twenty-nine and built something completely different. Now you're thinking about coming back. What shifted?

[TAYLOR]: This idea came to me as a simple seed that then gained hold of my mind — I couldn't stop thinking about it once it was planted. At the very core of it lies a simple question: why not? If I have the drive and the dream then I have nothing to lose. Throughout my life, when I find that I keep thinking about something, it usually means I have to do something about it.

[COURIER]: The athlete coming back now is a very different person than the one who retired in 2019. How do you think your years in the creative world have changed your relationship to sport?

[TAYLOR]: I used to think that I had to choose between sport and art. With enough time I have realized that art can fuel sport and sport can fuel art — it doesn't have to be black or white. I spent my whole career as a young prodigy with a lot to prove. Now I feel like that career is dead and gone, and with it, the expectation is dead too. The feedback I've received is that people are excited and curious, which is exactly how I feel.

[COURIER]: Your wife Kasia is one of the most dominant forces in women's cycling right now. Has watching her compete had anything to do with the fire getting lit again?

[TAYLOR]: Watching her work ethic has definitely served as an example of what it looks like to be one of the best in the world. I love to watch her race and cheer her on when I can, but what is more inspiring is her natural dedication and love for the craft.

[COURIER]: A lot of athletes fear stepping away because they worry they'll lose the hunger. You left on your own terms and built a whole other identity. Does that give you a kind of freedom most athletes never get?

[TAYLOR]: I lost the hunger a while before I retired, for multiple reasons, and have only rekindled that flame in this pursuit. I used to be more egotistical about wanting to dominate the sport, whereas now I just want to put in the work to reach my best — for me. I have always felt free in my identity as someone different. I have always been a they go left, I go right kind of person.

[COURIER]: Out of Body works whether you're a cyclist, a runner, a skateboarder, or just someone who's ever been so locked into something that time disappears. Was that universality intentional?

[TAYLOR]: As someone who speaks three languages fluently, I am somewhat obsessed with words or phrases that cross linguistic barriers and carry multiple meanings. In Spanish and Italian, Out of Body becomes extracorporal and extracorporea — and the "extra" in those translations comes from Latin meaning "outside of" or "beyond." But read through an English lens, it could imply a second, or extra, body. I love this notion that by entering an out of body state, you could be splitting yourself in two — that one half begins to drift away from the other. Any athlete will be familiar with the back and forth that happens in the mind during physical exertion, especially when reaching your limits. I often wonder: which one of these voices am I?

Follow along with Taylor Phinney

Photography by the incredible Piper Albrecht