\u201cI\u2019m definitely very excited to get back to the peloton,\u201d the 29-year-old said about his first race of the season, the Tour de la Provence, which begins on Friday. \u201cRaces are very motivating for me. My form is improving but it ended up being a 12-week off season so it was quite long. It\u2019s going to be three good, hard days of racing. We\u2019re going with Luke for sprinting ambitions and Michael for the climbing stage. I\u2019ll be there to support the team and hopefully come out of the race better than I went in and want to keep on improving for the rest of the spring.\u201d<\/p>\n
Neilson<\/a> had always planned to start his off season a little earlier than usual, but it ended up also being longer than he had expected.<\/p>\n \u201cI took a longer off season already just to be around to help out with our second baby. Our son, Remy, was born in October so I took five or six weeks off and then towards the end of that, I injured my knee and created tendonitis off the injury so I had to sort of halt my training. It just took a really long time for that to heal. I didn\u2019t need any surgeries but it was just injured in an area that would get agitated even from just walking so it was a difficult one to fix but now it\u2019s all good. I\u2019m four weeks into training and just trying to build my fitness up again. It was better at least that I was injured in November and December than in June or July, but at the same time it pushed my goals back by a couple of months. Originally we weren\u2019t sure how long it was going to take but now we have a pretty clear plan of when we think I can start racing for the win,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n During the three stages of the Tour de la Provence, Neilson will ride in support of new teammates Luke Lamperti<\/a> and Michael Leonard<\/a>, and alongside four riders from our development squad, EF Education-Aevolo<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cAt Provence, we\u2019re going for stage wins,\u201d Neilson said. \u201cWe\u2019ll go for some sprints with Luke on stages one and three. We\u2019ll do everything we can to deliver him to the final K in a competitive place for him to compete for the win. Michael will be our rider for stage two. I think it\u2019s a 15-kilometer climb so all you can do is keep him safe until then and hope that he has the legs in the end. I\u2019ll be there to support him as long as I can but I\u2019m not really expecting to make it through the first 10k of the climb with the leaders. We have clear goals for each day which is the reason why I\u2019m going. I\u2019m not really going for a result myself but it\u2019s really motivating to help my teammates try to achieve a result and help the team. Even if my fitness isn\u2019t great, I think I\u2019ve become a rider who\u2019s able to contribute a lot of value even just by supporting other riders on the team.\u201d<\/p>\n With the majority of the roster hailing from EF Education-Aevolo, Neilson recognizes the importance of development riders racing with their WorldTour counterparts. <\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve got Gavin Hlady<\/a>, Tomos Pattinson<\/a>, Magnus Carstensen<\/a>, and Josh Golliker<\/a> from the development squad,\u201d Neilson said. \u201cI\u2019ve raced with some of the development riders before and we\u2019ve mixed around at some of the team camps. It\u2019s a cool opportunity. I think it\u2019s really valuable for them to be able to compete alongside riders who have been in the WorldTour for a while and just show them how to move around the peloton a bit better and be either good support or a good leader. Hopefully I can share some of my knowledge with them.\u201d<\/p>\n After this weekend\u2019s racing, Neilson will have a couple of weeks to prepare for his first block of the year.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m starting in Provence, and then I\u2019m planning to go race in Italy at Trofeo Laigueglia and then Strade Bianche, Milano-Torino, and Milano-Sanremo. They\u2019re all races that are quite close to where I live in Nice. I can drive to most of them, which is great. After the Italian block, I will head up to Belgium for almost all of the classics. That\u2019s been the most motivating thing for me, being able to compete in the classics, from the Flemish classics to the Ardennes and Roubaix in between. I\u2019m really hoping that by the time I get to the Flemish classics, I\u2019ll be firing on all cylinders and ready to compete for the win. Everything before that, it\u2019s nice if I can reach competitive shape but we\u2019re not really expecting it until I get up to Belgium. We\u2019ve got E3, Dwars Door Vlaanderen, Amstel Gold, Paris-Roubaix, La Fl\u00e8che Wallonne, and L\u00e8ige-Bastogne-L\u00e8ige. It\u2019s quite a long block and I\u2019d like to race all of those. I think this time off the bike will just give me more freshness for the classics,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n For Neilson, the biggest challenge of recovering from tendonitis was having to take such an extended period off from sports.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is the longest injury I\u2019ve had to come back from. I\u2019ve had minor bouts of tendonitis, but in the past I\u2019ve only needed to take three or four days off and then it would go away. This was the longest time I\u2019ve had to take off and I think it was the longest time in my life I\u2019ve ever taken off from sports so that\u2019s pretty wild. I was always into basketball or cross-country running or swimming or triathlon or mountain biking or, of course, road cycling. I think the hardest point throughout the whole thing wasn\u2019t necessarily reshaping my goals for the season because I know how many races there are in the season. The hardest thing for me was just not having the outlet that I\u2019ve had for the rest of my life,\u201d Neilson explained.<\/p>\n Knowing that it was just a matter of time until he had recovered and would be able to fully train and race again kept him focused and grounded throughout the process.<\/p>\n \u201cI knew this was something that was going to heal, it was just going to take some and that was ok to accept. I didn\u2019t need any surgeries or anything invasive which was great. It just took a long time which was frustrating for life in general but I was pretty accepting about shifting my professional ambitions,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Until the flag drops on Friday at the Tour de la Provence, Neilson will be counting down the hours.<\/p>\n \u201cRacing is what excites me the most,\u201d he said. \u201cGetting back in the peloton and feeling that camaraderie with the team and going with a real purpose of what you want to get out of the week, all of that is really motivating for me. I like training and I like the process but there\u2019s no rush like a bike race can give you.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI\u2019m definitely very excited to get back to the peloton,\u201d the 29-year-old said about his first race of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":423542,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-423541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-cycling","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=423541"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423541\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/423542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=423541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=423541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=423541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}