MAKERS COLLECTIVE: MEET MARIA BENSON DIRECTOR OF PRODUCT FROM Cervélo
Product management is more than just a profession—it’s an art of balancing strategy, creativity, and execution. With the WTB Makers Collective Blog series, we believe in amplifying the voices of those who build, iterate, and innovate daily. This blog series spotlights cycling industry product managers from around the world, sharing their unique perspectives, challenges, and triumphs as they navigate the ever-evolving landscape.
From discovering bikes as a way to stay active to developing bikes that win the Tour de France, Maria Benson has carved out an extraordinary path in the cycling world. As the Director of Product at Cervélo, Maria blends passion, performance, and precision to deliver bikes that set the standard for modern road and gravel racing. Her journey from bike shop sales to the front lines of elite bike design is proof that with curiosity, grit, and a whole lot of miles, anything is possible.
Here is a conversation we had with Maria about her unique journey as a “maker” in the bike industry.
WTB
So how did you get started in the bike industry?
Maria
I started riding at 22 years old. I was just kind of looking for something to do to lose weight and for general exercise. I ended up getting into triathlon for about 3 years. I enjoyed it, but it was never an obsession like cycling is today. During a time that I was going through a transitional period in my life and didn’t know what I wanted to do with myself, I ended up getting a sales position in a bike shop. I had no idea what I was doing, but they needed a woman to sell bikes to women. I really enjoyed working with bikes and talking to people about bikes, but I realized after a couple of years that I didn’t want to do retail my whole life. You know, working nights and weekends can be a tough gig. So I decided to go back to school for the third time in my adult life to get a business degree with the intention of doing something in the bike industry outside of retail. I just didn’t know what that meant at the time.
I’m from the Twin Cities in Minnesota, and QBP is in our backyard, so that became a focus of a place that I wanted to end up. Just before I graduated with my degree, I think I had 3 classes left, I ended up in an inside sales position at QBP, and it all kind of spawned off from there.
At QBP, I did sales for about 9 months before an internal position became available for the product manager of Ridley USA. At the time, QBP was distributing Ridley bikes in the US, and they needed a product manager for the US market. It was much more of a junior product manager position compared to what I'd start doing later on. I ended up getting that position, and that was my start in product. The relationship between Ridley and QBP kind of ended about a year later, so I didn't get to do that position for very long. I was then transitioning into a purchasing role at QBP, but it just wasn't sparking my interest as the product position did. Luckily for me, Cannondale was looking for a product manager for a women's product line, and they found me through a recruiter. I went through the interview process and in the end, the hiring manager and I discussed the position, and we agreed that I would be better suited as a Global Product Manager and not just specific to the women's product line.
I went on to do that for the road category at Cannondale for a little over four years before moving on to Cervelo in a very similar position. Cervelo's product line is much narrower, and it only included road bikes at the time. So, it was a familiar type of role to what I was doing at Cannondale. I moved into a director position at Cervelo within about a year of being there. Cervelo has changed significantly since that time (2018). Fast forward to today, we've moved to California, we've grown our product line, and our team is much bigger.
WTB Now you are designing bikes that win the Tour de France and working firsthand with yellow Jersey winners and whatnot. That has got to be pretty cool?
Maria
Yeah, I would say 2023 was a very, very exciting time to be a part of the brand. You know, winning all three Grand Tours, I don't think is something anyone can really expect, and we can't really expect it to ever happen again. That was fun for sure.
WTB What specifically do you enjoy about your job at Cervelo?
Maria
I think one thing that makes Cervelo very unique and also a big advantage for us is our size. We're small compared to other brands that we compete against. I like to think that we present much larger in the market than we are in reality.
The Cervelo headquarters has less than 50 people in the office, so it's quite small, but that includes all product development, inside sales, finance, marketing, C suite, customer service, etc.
The product development group all sit in the same room. We have an open floor plan, so we can just turn our heads and talk to each other. It's extremely collaborative, and everybody is talented and passionate. There's nobody in that room who doesn't love their job.
WTB What do you like to do when you're not talking about or riding bikes?
Maria
When in my life am I not talking about bikes? (laughs) No, no, no, I have a dog named Dottie and a boyfriend that both take up a lot of my attention. I do some running and a bit of hiking. My sister and I plan these trips now and then to go hiking somewhere different in the world. Recently we went to Costa Rica at the end of year, which was a new thing for us. That was really fun.
I really enjoy reading, novels and self-improvement types of stuff. I got into bread-making for a little while. I make my own yogurt and granola too.
WTB Unlike many in the bike industry, you didn’t grow up riding and racing. However, you now do both frequently. How did that come about?
Maria
I got interested in cycling through triathlon, which is a very individual sport, and I was riding around my community and seeing these huge groups of cyclists go by, and I was just like, “what’s going on, who are these people?”, and I wanted to do that. At that time, I was in Minneapolis, and the Twin Cities have a very strong cycling community. There are lots of different clubs and teams. Around 2007 I ended up meeting some girls building a women's team from an existing men’s team that had been established for a little while. After getting involved with the women's team, I moved away from triathlon and found road racing and crits. I rode with that group consistently for two or three years. I never took it super seriously, and it wasn't necessarily training; I was just riding with the group and racing. I then took a big break from racing (about 7 years) just because I moved away and there wasn't really the same kind of community structure.
When Cervelo moved to Southern California, I discovered the strong cycling community here. There were some local girls I was meeting in these groups who were just crazy fast. One of them in particular, Priscilla, has been racing since she was a junior and we've actually had a long history of knowing each other through the bike industry. After a couple of years of showing up to these groups, she convinced me to come out and do some racing with her team. This year is my third season with them, and I have gotten back into it full swing. I just got my category 2 upgrade a couple of weeks ago. I think I was a Cat 3 for like 15 years or something, but I finally made it to the “big leagues”!
WTB So, of all the WTB products you've ridden over the years, is there one that stands out to you as your favorite for the time it came out?
Maria
What comes to mind is the 45mm Riddler in 2017. I was riding a Cannondale Super X that had just a ton of clearance, so we shoved these tires in there, and my only thought was “I'm going to be so slow, with this giant tire”. I ended up doing a group ride on the road because it was winter in Connecticut, so it made sense given the road conditions. It was a spunky group ride, and I kept up just fine, and I had so much fun. It was one of the first times I experienced the idea or the phenomenon that a big tire with low tread can still be fast on the road. I just remember having a lot of fun doing that ride on those tires.
WTB What is your favorite product that you've been a part of bringing to market?
Maria
I think it's the original Aspero. When I was at Cannondale, the gravel category was still undefined. The industry didn't know how to approach gravel, so the bikes were always a “to it all” attempted solution. Unlike today, where it's very clear what people are looking for, at that time it was all over the place.
I didn't get to be at Cannondale for the launch of their first gravel bike, but I learned a lot studying and planning that project. Then, similarly at Cervelo, they were looking at the gravel market, trying to figure out how to approach it. Taking the ethos of Cervelo, being a race-focused brand that has always been pavement only. The question became, how can you translate that ethos into a gravel application? That's where the idea of having a gravel bike very specific to racing was born. I think that we at Cervelo introduced that concept to the market.
WTB You were unapologetic about making a purpose-built race bike.
Maria
Exactly! We wanted a bike that handled like the bikes we were riding on gravel at the time, which were road bikes with as big of tires as we could shove in them. We came up with the idea of designing a handling geometry that would give you that road bike feel but allow you to put big enough tires in it. One of the cool things about that project was that there was a lot of back and forth internally on how we approach this new category. Then there came a point in time where we said, “we just have to do it”. We had to stop analyzing and wondering. So the product development team came together, and we were able to come to market rather quickly with something that turned out to be quite compelling and successful.
WTB What do you feel is the most important attribute to consider as you create a new bike model?
Maria
Who's the customer? And what do they really need and want? It's really easy to look around the market and go ‘this brand did this’ and ‘this other brand did that’, so let's do that too. It's harder to look at those things and find new opportunities. What's not being offered and what can we do better? I often think about the Steve Jobs quote “The customer doesn't know what they want until you tell them.” That always opens up that opportunity for new innovation.
WTB What new project are you most excited about?
Maria
If we go back to how we talked about the original Aspero kind of defining that specific gravel race market. The new Aspero-5 really does that again. It redefines what a gravel race bike is by introducing how applicable aerodynamics are in a gravel race.
The gravel race scene has evolved into similar types of situations that you see in road races, where you have a peloton, you have a sprint finish (typically on pavement) often involving a handful of riders. You see, these bunch finishes a lot more often. Speeds are going up, and people are coming into the sport at elite levels in bigger waves than ever before in gravel racing. We approached the newest Aspero-5 specifically to advance that race-specific tool again for those racers who are competitive and dedicated to racing gravel. We did a lot of aerodynamic development on the frame fork, handlebars, seat post, and other components for the first time. It was a new approach to how we choose parts that get hung on the bike, too. By putting them in the wind tunnel, we were able to determine the speed differences between various options. What we brought to market is the fastest configuration. This ended up including a large volume slick tire that is really applicable to dry open courses that aren't very technical.
The other thing we did was a big study on gearing. We looked at the efficiency of chainring sizes paired with cog sizes in the rear to find what is the ideal chain line and gear to be in etc. We decided that what you would typically call a “mullet” setup, which is a mountain bike range rear derailleur paired with a really large front chain ring, gets you the range that's needed for just about any course. This also lets you use a larger cog for those sprint finishes. If you can stay up in the cassette, just a couple of cogs, you significantly improve efficiency while still getting a low climbing gear and access to a super tall high gear for those fast descents. We used data to make these decisions, which Cervelo riders should expect from us.
We are looking forward to seeing what Maria and Cervelo come up with next, as we are sure it will challenge the status quo. We hope this interview provides some interesting insights for the next time you see an Aspero 5 roll by.
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