TO go from a complete rookie to Scottish champion in just a couple of years is rapid progress by anyone’s standards. It was, admits Neah Evans, a complete shock when she won the Scottish 10-mile time-trial title in May, especially when she considered herself to still be learning the sport.
“I’d only done two time trials before the Scottish Championships so I just went to get more experience,” she says. “But I had a really good ride and managed to come away with the title – it was a real surprise but it was fantastic.”
Evans, from Renfrewshire, was a hill runner who was national under-23 champion twice but, after illness and injury, found she was unable to run for a spell. At the suggestion of her dad, who always thought that she had the potential to be a better cyclist than runner, she started cycling.
“It was great to have something to do while I couldn’t run and, at the start, I was just riding socially,” the 25-year-old says. A trip to the velodrome in Glasgow at the start of 2014 changed her mindset. “After riding in the velodrome, I got hooked,” she says. “I really enjoyed it and it was also nice being able to train somewhere during the winter where it was warm and dry.”
Evans was then on her way to becoming a “real cyclist”. After being accepted to the Scottish cycling programme in March 2015, Evans has had a busy schedule as she attempts to build race experience. Having only come to the sport at the relatively mature age of 23, Evans has some lost time to make up for.
“It’s tricky for me because for the other riders who have been doing this all their life, riding a bike is second nature to them,” she says. “The youngsters have such good bike-handling skills because they’ve been riding for so many years. So it’s been a steep learning curve for me.”
Evans has risen to the challenge though and she will get further indication of how she is progressing when she rides in the British Road Championships in Stockton-on-Tees next week.
First, she has the Scottish Criterium Championships tomorrow but it is the British Championships which are Evans’ primary focus and she is looking forward to pitting herself against such luminaries as Lizzie Armitstead and Dani King.
Evans admits she is still learning the intricacies of road racing and it can, at times, be a slightly intimidating experience. “One of the first big bunch races I did, it wasn’t even a particularly big field but I remember thinking, ‘There’s an awful lot of riders here’,” she says. “The learning process has its good and bad sides. It’s really fun seeing the progression but it’s also frustrating because I see where I want to get to and I know I’m not capable of it yet. You need to have patience but I’m not always the most patient person.”
Evans might be achieving success on a national level but it doesn’t stop her yearning for the old days when she was a hill runner. That she can see Ben Lomond from her home only makes her miss her old sport even more. “I don’t do it all these days and I really miss it,” she says. “It’s such a different type of sport compared to cycling – it’s really laid back and it’s all about being competitive within yourself. It was really fun and the training was great – you just pick a hill on a nice day and go and run up it. I can’t do it at all now though because it would completely wreck my recovery from cycling training.”
Evans does not – yet – have the luxury of being a full-time cyclist. She works as a vet in Alexandria and said: “It can be tricky but I went part time in March which has made things easier. It’s nice doing something that’s totally unrelated to cycling, but I can be standing for 10-plus hours a day when it’s supposed to be my rest day.”
With Evans’ performances improving at a rate of knots, it’s impossible to predict when she will reach her peak. She is reluctant to set too many targets because of her newness to the sport, but there is one event she certainly has her sights on. “I’m definitely looking towards the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games in 2018,” she says. “That’s a big target but a lot can happen between now and then. I hope I’ll keep improving and become one of the best but you just don’t know what’s round the corner.”
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