My Bike Life Balance – Drew Gibson
Discover what life looks like through the lens of a motorsports photographer
Balancing the demands of a high-octane career with personal passions is a challenge many face.
In our ‘Bike / Life Balance’ series, we delve into the lives of professionals who endeavour to integrate their love for cycling into their busy schedules. In this edition, we feature Drew Gibson, a renowned motorsports photographer. Across an impressive 18-year career, Drew has travelled the world photographing the world’s most prestigious races. Long hours and back-to-back race days are a given, but outside the rush of the track he tells us how he makes time to escape on his (Factor) bikes.
Drew shares how cycling not only complements his demanding career but also enriches his personal life, offering insights into achieving harmony between his two passions.
Read the Q&A below, take notes and it may help you achieve a balance:
Tell us about your journey into cycling?
As a kid I lived in the countryside and loved my bikes, messing around on beaten up second hand bikes. When I was a bit older the bike gave me independence and a way to get to my local village to see mates or play rugby. I lost touch with cycling and went to university where i didn’t need a bike. My bike actually got stolen at uni, a Trek 800 Sport in gold, I’m still annoyed about losing that bike.
When I moved to London I felt really trapped, I was so frustrated at how long it took to get anywhere on public transport or in a car. So I bought a mountain bike off a friend for £25 and started cycling to work, and then across London to meet up with mates. Suddenly I had that freedom back again, I started to build a mental map of London based on how close places were and not awful train journeys and it opened the city up to me. I couldn’t keep up with the commuters on their modern lighter bikes so bought my first race bike on a ride to work scheme in around 2008, I still had no intention of taking cycling seriously but just wanted to get around a bit quicker. Then a friend took me out to Surrey one weekend and I just loved it.
I’m very competitive now (I was even more competitive back then) and he beat me up Box Hill. It spurred me on to get a bit faster on the bike. Ironically my mates still beat me up Box Hill now, we’re just going much quicker than I was back then! I started to ride out mid week on my lieu days. I was still playing rugby and by no means a cyclist though, hairy legs, no lycra, mountain bike helmet, I looked terrible looking back on it. I started to take it a bit more seriously, got some proper kit, then a friend who shot the Tour De France told me about some ex Astana team bikes that were going cheap, and I bought one. That was a turning point for me, I remember my first ride on that bike, it flew along, it was like the bike was taking me for a ride. After that I stopped playing rugby, joined a cycling club and it all grew from there. If I’m into something I commit to it and cycling has been no different, soon I was doing 20 hour weeks, training properly and competing in events. So ironically I started cycling in London to save time and money and now it’s how I spend most of my free time and money!
How did you become a motorsports photographer?
I first started taking pictures at college around 2001, shooting black and white film of anything and everything. Not because it was cool to shoot film by the way but because digital wasn’t really a thing then! I’ve always been interested in cars, especially motorsport, and so I started taking a camera to rallies that I was attending as a spectator. My passion for photography grew from there and I started to look into the industry and if it was possible to make a career from photographing cars. Soon I was travelling to London from my home in the North East of England for work experience and when I left university with a photography degree I got a job in the office of an F1 magazine. From there I took up photography full time in 2007 working for an agency. I went freelance and set up my own company in 2012 and now I’m fortunate enough to travel the World doing what I love.
What does a typical working week look like?
My job is incredibly varied, so no two weeks are the same. When I’m not travelling abroad to work there is a lot of office work involved. A typical day in the office can involve speaking to clients to get contracts, invoicing, dealing with accounts, getting briefs from clients, booking travel, applying for visas, briefing other photographers who may be working with me over a weekend, then a lot of planning goes into a race weekend. Looking at weather forecasts, timetables, circuit maps, even my own pictures I might have shot previously at any given circuit to be as prepared as I can be before I head off to a race. I run my own online tutorials so some evenings I’ll be filming those. I shoot for various magazines, so I can have mid week editorial shoots in the UK.
Most of my work is abroad, Europe, Asia, America, I travel a lot. A regular race week I’ll usually travel on a Wednesday. Then I shoot preview images, speak to clients and shoot any element of a client brief I can on a Thursday before the track action begins on a Friday. I’ll then shoot track or images of the teams in the pit lane on Friday and Saturday before the race on a Sunday. That’s simplifying it a lot, a race like Le Mans I can be onsite for 10 days, and there is a lot more to my job than just shooting the cars on track, but basically that’s what I get up to. It is a very intense job, a race like Le Mans I’ll be shooting around 20,000 images, editing them on site and delivering them to clients throughout the week. It’s not unusual to be working 18 hour days in the build up to a race then working through the night at an endurance race. I was shooting for Ford at Le Mans in 2016 when they won their class and I was awake for 41 hours including the after party!
What are you currently training for (events, personal goals, races)?
My work comes first, then I fit cycling around my work schedule. So next year is a bit up in the air until I finalise my work schedule. I’ve entered the Mallorca 312, I love the longer events as opposed to crit racing. I don’t have much of a sprint and can’t afford time off work with injuries so the bigger less crashy events suit me. I’d love to do a sub 10 hour on the 312, I came close (10hrs 20mins) a few years ago so I’ll train through the winter and aim for that. Then I’ll see what else fits in around work. I’d love to do some more racing on gravel, those events suit me and I enjoy the social side to those races.
What else have you achieved on the bike this year?
This year was a bit of an odd one, usually the start of the year is quieter with work so I get the miles in through winter and race in Spring. But work got busy, my brother got married, I went on a big holiday to Japan and never really got my training together. I don’t mind, cycling is important to me but it has to fit in around the rest of my life at times. I still rode the Mallorca 312 in sub 10hrs 30 mins, finished top 70 on the Traka (100km) and I was flying on the Gralloch and well in the hunt to qualify for the UCI Gravel World Champs when I punctured. I rode the Dragon Ride, that was a tough day out but I got round at the sharp end. Then I rode the Etape, I was busy with work through Summer so I wasn’t in great shape but I was around 60th in my age category so not too bad given I can’t train in the mountains like a lot of the guys that beat me that day. So I’ve had a lot of fun on the bike this year and am now getting some good riding in ready for 2025.
What impact does cycling have on your daily life?
Well obviously it can be quite time consuming, and I have sacrificed other hobbies to take cycling more seriously. I gave up rugby and rally driving / navigating to take my cycling more seriously, but i’m fortunate that I can be quite flexible away from the race track and get a lot of riding in. I enjoy it, so I don’t mind compromising my personal life to get more time in on the bike.
What role does cycling play in working life?
Cycling is so important to me. I love my job, it is my passion, something I have an eye for and an area where I’ve made a decent name for myself. But it is stressful. You know that feeling when you get back from a holiday that involved quite a lot of logistics, that you enjoyed, but also it was tiring and you’re glad to be home? That’s what my job is like, often travelling to 10 or 12 races back to back through Summer and covering over 30 races a year. I’m always thinking about my job, at home I’m thinking about the next shoot, then on the shoot I have to be fully focussed, always thinking about the next picture and how to better the last one. So cycling has become a great escape for me, my phone gets switched off and I can choose to think of nothing or everything. I’m fortunate that to a certain extent I can choose my working hours so I can ride in the day and work in the evenings. It is a great escape for me.
On a practical level cycling helps me to be in shape for my work. The hours are long, I’ll often stay up through the night to capture endurance races and there is a lot of walking carrying my gear. So it helps to be fit and healthy to do the job I do to the best of my ability, cycling is just so good for keeping me in shape.
How do you find time to train and ride?
I’m fortunate that I can often ride midweek between events. If I have a few events in Europe consecutively I’ll often take my bike and ride between races. This year I drove to Mallorca with my road bike and gravel bike, rode Mallorca one week, Girona the next on gravel then drove up to Belgium and shot a 6 hour race. It was a mega trip, I’ll do something similar next year.
How do you motivate yourself to train?
I find it easy to motivate myself to ride, I love just getting out on the bike. There’s such a great scene in London, there’s usually mates heading out, or I can ride solo. Then I can mix it up by riding road, gravel, mountain bike, it keeps it all quite varied and not monotonous. If I don’t ride I get smashed by my mates which is a good motivator, ha! I don’t approach my training too scientifically, I don’t ride to power, when I feel like I have a good base in I’ll start doing more efforts and pushing myself. In the run up to an event I’ll push myself more and more, but honestly I just like riding my bike, racing my mates, chasing PB’s, that’s all the motivation I need.
What challenges do you face when trying to balance work, life and training?
It is tricky, I love my job, so when I get offered work my first instinct is to say yes. I’m getting paid to do something I enjoy so I want to do it. But it is easy to burn out, the travel, jet lag, inconsistent diet, workload and pressure of having to perform every weekend. I hate feeling unhealthy and neglecting my cycling so I am more disciplined now than I used to be with what I say yes to. I’ll get my work diary set for the year in January then try to get a work and life balance that fits in work, cycling and life. I don’t always manage it but I’m conscious there has to be a balance to be sustainable, and few things beat that feeling of having great legs on a high end bike on a beautiful day on a road I love to ride.
What advice would you give somebody who lacked the time or motivation to train or ride?
Obviously we all have those mornings where the alarm goes off and we want to roll over and and hide under the duvet, but there are very few bike rides I regret going on, so usually this is enough motivation to get me up and get going. I’ve seen a lot of the World now and seeing poverty and hardship in countries like India, Africa, the Middle East, it makes me realise how fortunate I am. Don’t get me wrong I’ve worked hard for what I have but I had the opportunities to take advantage of, there are people who, just because of where they are born, will never get the same opportunities I have had.
I think it’s worth remembering that when it’s a bit cold outside or one’s favourite bike has a puncture. If I was to offer some slightly more practical advice I’d say get your gear ready the night before, arrange to meet a friend if possible and don’t scrimp on winter kit. The UK gets cold and wet, so dress appropriately, feeling cold and miserable on a ride is not fun and will not motivate you to get out next time.
A huge thank you to Drew for contributing to the series and allowing us to use photographs from his impressive archive.
You can find more of Drew’s work on his website here and follow his Instagram account here for more motorsport adventures.
Additional photography by: Alastair Staley, Georgi Todorov, Oliver Turvey, Michele Scudiero, Paul Davidson, James Ferguson, Matt Bridge, Laura Senior
Follow Drew Here
