I’m Neah Evans, a road and track cyclist and member of the Scottish Cycling Performance Programme.
I was accepted onto the Programme in March 2015 having begun cycling through Glasgow Wheelers in early 2014 having previously competed in Hill Running. I originally focussed on track sprinting whilst balancing this with my university studies in Veterinary Medicine.
I recently made the switch from Sprint to Endurance as whilst I was enjoying success sprinting, I am naturally more suited to Endurance events. Having experienced road training as both a sprint and endurance rider I have a rough idea of what it entails. For sprinters, road is mainly used for a bit of base fitness, recovery and socialising - coffee and cake being essential!
Now that I am transitioning to endurance, road has now become a much bigger part of my training. This hasn't been easy as my job as a vet takes up a large amount of time. I currently work long hours part of which involves working on call so being woken up at any time in the night is not an uncommon occurrence. The main obstacle for me is finding the time to fit in the hours required on the road; luckily being on-call makes getting up at 5am for bike rides slightly easier.
Road is a big part of being a track cyclist especially for endurance riders. It can be tough getting the motivation of go out on a dark windy morning but it is balanced out by the enjoyment you can have exploring new routes or getting out on a nice day and ultimately pushing yourself to the limit!
Neah
Neah Evans will be competing as part of Scotland Burness Paull at the final round of the Revolution Series in Manchester this Saturday 23rd January.
You can read previous #SCSquad blogs by clicking on the links below:
