What does life after retirement hold for a pro cyclist? If you’re Jens Voigt, it seems like much of the same only this time for trek as the official Ambassador of Awesome, rather than a professional racer. In addition to cracking the whip on employees within Trek’s Waterloo headquarters, Jens is planning to host Trek Travel trips, coaching juniors on the Trek Factory Racing team, and continue product testing. Shut up legs? More like Shut Up retirement…
From Trek:
Traditional relaxing retirement progressing poorly for former pro cyclist
(Waterloo, WI) – Jens Voigt, the long-admired and recently retired professional cyclist, has entered into an agreement with Trek to become its Ambassador of Awesome as part of what experts have labeled “the least relaxing retirement ever.” Voigt will work in product testing and ambassadorship roles, while also hosting a handful of luxury cycling trips with Trek Travel for those cyclists looking for one of the most memorable vacations available. Beyond his roles with Trek and Trek Travel, Voigt is also exploring plans for the future to step into a coaching role with Trek Factory Racing, who recently announced Voigt would have a role within the team mentoring young riders.
As Trek’s Ambassador of Awesome, Voigt will be tasked with a variety of diverse objectives including crushing the field on the daily lunch ride, yelling motivational catch phrases at staff members, and increasing worker productivity. In addition to winning the race for starting pitcher on the company softball team without ever once touching a softball, Voigt has also been named interim VP of corporate geocaching. In his very short time as geocaching VP, Voigt has already successfully completed caching most of Trek HQ’s daily required work supplies such as all of the pens, spare laptop power cords, and paper clips, leading many Trek employees to spend an exorbitant amount of time scouring the Waterloo, WI, campus for what used to be easily accessible in the company’s supply closets.
“We expect to see our average employee’s productivity to increase by somewhere between 500-600% when Jens is around,” said actual Trek VP Joe Vadeboncoeur. “Provided they complete their geocaching tasks in a timely manner. Maybe I’m being a little conservative, but we don’t want to heap unreasonable expectations on too early.”
It appears the affable German, renowned for his tenacity and fierce riding style as well as his quick wit, is capable of most things, except the hallmarks of a traditional retirement. Shuffleboard, completing crossword puzzles, yelling at kids in his front yard, and just sitting around doing absolutely nothing seem to have all taken a back seat for now as Voigt pursues myriad new pursuits. This has led many in retired athlete circles to question whether or not Jens is truly cut out for retirement at all.
