Ride to Success is hitting pause

This is a difficult newsletter to write.

I haven't published a new episode of Ride to Success since May.

Not because I stopped caring about it.

Not because I ran out of ideas.

And certainly not because I lost the motivation.

I burned out

For the past few years, Ride to Success has been an enormous part of my life

When I started the podcast, I became the researcher, producer, host, editor, marketer, social media manager, newsletter writer, booking agent and business development manager.

For a long time, enthusiasm carried me through it.

Until it couldn't.

Life changed.

I became a dad. My professional life changed. My responsibilities grew. And earlier this year, several things collided at once.

Something had to give.

Eventually, that something was Ride to Success.

But what a ride it has been

I've had conversations I could never have imagined having when I first pressed record.

I've sat across from community champions and campaigners, entrepreneurs and startup founders, CEOs and Olympic champions.

I've travelled, recorded live shows, walked around cycling events with a microphone, met people I now consider friends and been given an extraordinary window into this industry.

And somewhere along the way, this little independent podcast became something people actually knew.

Something people listened to.

Something people cared about.

I'm incredibly proud of that.

But Ride to Success has also taught me something about the very subject I've spent so much time exploring:

Success isn't linear

And perhaps more importantly, success rarely happens alone.

You can have the ambition.
You can have the ideas.
You can be willing to work incredibly hard.

But meaningful things also need people, capacity and a structure that makes them sustainable.

I eventually reached the point where Ride to Success could no longer be sustained by one person.

That's not failure.

It's probably one of the most important things this journey has taught me.

My life looks different today.

I have a young son.

I've started a new chapter professionally.

I have different responsibilities and different priorities for where my time and energy need to go.

None of that has made me less ambitious.

It's changed how that ambition needs to be expressed.

So, for the foreseeable future, Ride to Success is on pause.

Not necessarily goodbye.

Just no promises about when—or exactly how—it comes back.

Because if Ride to Success does return, I don't want to force myself back onto the same treadmill.

I want to build the next version differently.

With other people.

With collaboration.

With enough space to make something genuinely great without sacrificing everything else around it.

And perhaps that's fitting.

Ride to Success was always supposed to be about the journey rather than simply reaching the destination

Sometimes that journey takes you somewhere completely unexpected.

Sometimes you need to stop.

Sometimes you need to take the route less travelled.

And sometimes the route forward looks nothing like the one you originally imagined.

For now, I simply want to say thank you

To every person who listened to an episode.

To everyone who subscribed, shared something I made or sent me a message.

To every guest who trusted me with their story.

To the brands, organisations and people who supported an independent podcast and opened doors for me.

And especially to those of you who have been here for a long time.

You gave this project meaning beyond the numbers.

It's with sadness that I'm hitting pause.

But much more than sadness, I feel grateful.

Grateful for the conversations.

Grateful for the opportunities.

Grateful for the friendships.

And incredibly grateful that so many of you decided to come along for the ride.

Thank you

Pedro