Phil Gaimon has built a brand as a cookie-loving, Strava KOM-collecting, former pro cyclist. Gaimon raced for two years on the World Tour with the Garmin-Sharp (2014) and Cannondale (2016) team. He won the Redlands Bicycle Classic in 2012 and 2015, won Stage 1 and finished second overall in his first World Tour event, the 2014 Tour de San Luis, and, after officially retiring in 2016, won the USA Cycling Hill Climb National Championship in August 2017. He had a tattoo of a bar of soap with the word CLEAN inked on his right bicep to underline that he never used performance enhancing drugs.
During his pro career, Gaimon became known for his love of cookies, and for being one of the most open riders on the World Tour. He founded his own race, the Cookie Fondo, in November 2016 and showed up at pro races, including the 2017 Tour of California, with a jar of cookies to promote it. (Along the way scoring a photo of three-time road race world champion Peter Sagan popping a wheelie while reaching for a cookie mid-race.)
Gaimon has written three books—Pro Cycling on $10 a Day: From Fat Kid to Euro Pro, Ask a Pro: Deep Thoughts and Unreliable Advice from America’s Foremost Cycling Sage, and Draft Animals: Living the Pro Cycling Dream (Once in a While)—and stars in a series of Worst Retirement Everand Best Retirement Ever videos on his YouTube channel that offer cycling fans a view into the life of a pro, or ex-pro, cyclist. He is active on the social fitness platform Strava, where he seeks to set fastest times on cycling segments around the world and rack up King of the Mountain crowns.