Paige Onweller’s unconventional path from the emergency room to the pinnacle of gravel.
“I’m dangling off the back, there’s rocks flying. I was just like, ‘I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die’!”
Paige Onweller is recalling her first ever gravel race.
“I had no idea. Basically, I did a 150-mile gravel time trial because I didn't know how to draft or ride in a group.”
It’s a vivid memory that the 35-year-old is happy to relive, in part due to her commitment to transparency. She shares as much of her journey as she can, she says, in the hope of breaking down barriers to participation.
“It's a very intimidating sport, the mechanical aspect of things, not to mention the racing side-by-side and being physical. So it's important to me to be honest and transparent about that, so other people don't feel alone.”
Indeed, when she started out Paige didn’t ride outside. Moving into cycling from a running background but with a long history of injuries, she took up the bike as a way to relieve stress – and she focused entirely on Zwift.
She says, quite offhandedly, that she “didn’t know how to ride outside”, and so the indoor cycling platform – and the competitive aspect within it – became her gateway into bicycle racing.
The endurance ability she’d developed as a runner served Onweller in good stead. She was quickly recruited by an esports team to compete for them in the Zwift Premier League.
“It’s pretty intense,” she says. “You have to do weigh-ins and double power record. I did that for a while and then I started googling the people I was racing against, and they were all professional bike riders. I was like, ‘maybe I should try to ride outside.’”
And that’s how she came to be dangling off the back of a gravel peloton in the dark in 2021, trying not to get hit by flying rocks and drastically questioning her life decisions.
Despite this baptism of fire, Paige knew she wanted to go further into gravel.
At this stage she was still working full-time as a physician assistant, a licensed healthcare professional who practices advanced medicine, with the power to prescribe drugs.
This high-stress job, particularly against the backdrop of the coronavirus pandemic, led Onweller to seek out more racing opportunities as a way to blow off steam. When she won Big Sugar in 2022, everything changed.
“Up to that point I was still buying my own flights, I was paying for my own tyres. I got a little bit of equipment sponsorship, but I essentially was funding my racing through my job.”
It surprised a few people when she won what is one of America’s biggest gravel races.
“I still remember during that race they didn't know who I was. You could hear the media car like, ‘What? Who is that? What's her bib?’”
This moment proved to be a tipping point. She went full-time as a racer for the 2023 season, and threw herself into it fully.
“In total I raced around 34 days that year. I raced not just gravel but road, time trial, crits,” she says.
It would be more common for a top gravel pro to do between 10 and 15 days of competition in a season. Onweller did double that, all with a view to garnering experience.
“I bought a Sprinter van and I just travelled the U.S. racing every weekend that I could because I knew I had to learn. I was so far behind, in terms of my learning curve and skills.”
This idea of catching up is one that Paige returns to a couple of times in our conversation. While there is camaraderie between competitors in gravel, a sense of rivalry still persists.
For her own part, she started out not really knowing who her adversaries were, at least not in the wider context of their sporting achievements.
“When I entered the sport, I had no idea who these women were. I had no idea, like, pacing or even my own ability. And so it was kind of childlike, the way that I was racing.
“Once you start winning, the expectations start coming and you get more support – but you also have more responsibility. And I'm learning that sometimes it's better to go back to some playfulness.”
Interestingly, her best result of her career so far came about from a situation which she approached with a mindset focused more on fun than finishing fastest.
“Unbound this past year was so special because I had major ankle surgery 12 weeks before. I wasn't expected to even finish the race.”
Paige’s plan was to ride 100 miles into the course then climb off, as a step in her recovery journey.
“I had taken so much time off, and I was pretty out of shape. And this allowed be to bring that childlike behaviour from when I started racing. I was like, ‘I'm just going to go have fun.’”
She wound up on the podium.
“I just kept feeling good and good and good – and ended up getting third. The first American finisher. I was in that nine-up sprint that we had at the end. It was such a special day because it was also the first time the women had their own race for a long time.”
What Paige took from that podium performance, aside from a hatful of Lifetime points that secured third overall in the Grand Prix for 2024, was a newfound sense of her own ability.
“It was very surprising and really nice to not have any expectations. Just to see what I'm capable of doing when I put myself in that mindset.”
As a MAAP Privateer for 2025, Paige Onweller will be flying the flag for fun at a gravel race near you soon. She is signed up to the Lifetime GP roster once again.
