"Got to admit, this really hit home," Leuchs wrote on Facebook. "He was racing for others rather than himself. This hobby had become a job. What is it about racing that makes us so obsessed? Don't get me wrong ... I loved racing and totally encourage young riders to get into it. The adventures and experiences it brought me were amazing. But I must say, too, by the end I had no idea any more why I was doing it. The pressures and sacrifice pro riders have to make are huge, and for what? Money? Ego?"
Leuchs raises a compelling argument. Call it the George Gregan theory, where Olympic and Commonwealth athletes work in four-year cycles, often under intense pressure to perform on salaries at the lower end of the income scale. The self-flagellation makes them fall out of love with their sport.
Leuchs observed it first-hand at three Olympics and two Commonwealth Games - his bests were 17th at Sydney in 2000 and fourth at Manchester in 2002.
"In the last days of the Olympics, you look around and I reckon 80-90 per cent of people are relatively depressed because their expectations far outweighed their realistic abilities," he says. "Winning's important because it helps pay the bills but we need to be careful not to let sponsors and federations get away with putting athletes under mass stress with their obligations.
"We place such a high value on sport in our society and it's really easy to get into it at the expense of all else. I look back and think, actually, it's just a way to be happy and to exercise. Is elite sport providing that? It motivates people but also creates idols and we become obsessive. Surely other things should be held in higher regard?
"Admittedly, I had 13 amazing years [competing internationally] but what good did it do for humanity? It's difficult to justify. The reality is, companies need to make money off sport."
Leuchs is now trying to forge a living from importing and selling mountain bikes in his home town Dunedin as the owner of Black Seal Imports.
"I'm doing what I can in my little corner of the world rather than the public eye," he says. "Mountain bikes had barely been heard of 20 years ago, now they're a global industry. I love the sport but I struggle to understand what I did [as an athlete] apart from motivating more people to ride bikes.
"I find it strange that New Zealanders can be idolised on a sports field when, in everyday life, people are doing far more important things."
Swimmer Gareth Kean decided to take a break in April with the intention of returning for the Rio Olympics.
He's currently working a normal week at an IT recruitment company and has rarely been in the pool since.
"I just don't have the passion that it takes to be the best I can be right now," Kean said at the time.
"I believe I could qualify for Glasgow but I don't want to go to make up the numbers. If I'm not in the sort of shape to win a gold medal, then I'm not doing justice to myself, my family and to the public of New Zealand. Right now, I'm struggling to make that commitment."
Kean took silver at the 2010 Delhi Commonwealth Games in the 200m backstroke and went to the 2012 London Olympics but his outlook differs to Leuchs.
The 22-year-old sees the hours of dedication as a choice rather than a sacrifice.
"There's no shortage of motivation because of the reward at the end," he says. "When you're about to race at a big event, you think about all you've put into the sport to get to that point. It's hard to value that.
"As a teenager, you can get bogged down by the pressure and query if you're doing it for the right reasons. It was a curiosity for me to take a break because it got pretty intense. I needed a breather if I wanted to carry on."
Olympic bronze medallist Nathan Twaddle says the hardest thing for many top athletes is seeing mates building successful careers outside sport.
Twaddle now helps athletes deal with this as a life adviser to High Performance Sport New Zealand.
Rather than being simplified into a four-year cycle, he says the sporting dream generally gains traction at secondary school, when families often make sacrifices and invest significantly, contrary to the perception of a cushy lifestyle.
"There are definitely sacrifices," Twaddle says. "You see a lot of people in their late-20s who have thrown everything into their sport and don't have much to show for it. I was always conscious what others my age were doing. As I got older, they moved into senior roles and got mortgages while I was still living in a flat with four dudes in the back of Cambridge, asking 'am I doing the right thing?'
"The flipside is when I bumped into guys I considered to be living 'normal' lives. They were always so excited, envious and proud of what I was doing, which was a real boost. You get to do things money can't buy, like earning a seat at two Olympic Games."
Twaddle says it's natural for athletes to wonder whether it was worthwhile when they retire, because they can tend to put all their eggs in the sporting basket.
"I came out [of rowing] at 33 and, for some roles, I was competing with 21 year-old graduates fresh out of the latest courses. Employers would say, 'we love what you stand for' in relation to the Olympic movement, which might get a foot in the door. But I needed to start from scratch.
"Forewarned is forearmed. I say make sure they've taken time to make an informed decision about pursuing their sport, so they have a range of options to deal with the consequences. As an athlete overseas, you can have everything sorted down to who's buying the milk for you."
