Coronavirus crisis gives Tassie cycling star chance to fully recover from difficult 2019 season
Two serious crashes wiped out a large chunk of Nathan Earle’s 2019 season in a year he quickly wants to forget. And while there has been no racing in 2020 due to COVID-19, there has been a silver lining.
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LANDING a professional contract via training sessions in Tasmania might seem unconventional but Nathan Earle is hoping to use his home state to his advantage to reignite his European dream.
After a torrid 2019 season punctuated by two serious crashes, the shutdown of cycling from the COVID-19 crisis has seen the Tasmanian star spend all of 2020 at home.
But the recently turned 32-year-old has lost none of his motivation to return to the top level of racing — and is now pain free after having a metal rod from his leg removed.
History has taught the former Team Sky domestique and current Team UKYO member to be ready for any potential opening, and he is confident opportunities could arise despite there being no competitive racing on the horizon.
“For me personally to get back to Europe is the goal, even though there is no racing I still have a manager and we are still talking to teams,” Earle said.
“Part of my rehab and recovery is all the training, but also I need to be ready in case an opportunity arises.
“I still get paid to ride my bike so I still need to be a bike rider and do the hours and look after myself.
“You never know when things might just happen again.
“There is a lot of online data now, we all have heart rate monitors and power meters and online programs.
“A lot of teams, the performance managers are looking at the data, they are looking at what numbers we can crunch out, how many hours we are doing on the bike.
“It could be a weird one where contracts are signed through basically data, they might request I need to meet certain criteria and then I need to go out and show them I can do whatever it might be — 450 watts for 10 minutes up a hill or something.
“I have seen in the past if you mope around and think something is not going to happen and then it comes up, you are not ready and it’s wasted.
“If you sit around it is certainly not going to happen.”
A major driving force for the father of two is an unwavering opinion that he still has plenty of gas in the tank to perform at the highest level.
It is a mindset brimming from recent surgery to remove a 200g stainless steel rod from his leg which was inserted following a horrific crash in April at the Gran Premio Miguel Indurain, which cost him three months of racing.
Then capping a 2019 to forget, Earle found himself in hospital again in December in Hobart when a group of youths pushed a girl in front on him while on a training ride.
“I ended up having some ongoing issues with my leg I broke last year in Europe, in the end with no racing I used that time to have surgery in May and have the rod and a couple of bolts removed out of my left femur.
“One blessing for me was getting that out, which I wouldn’t have done if it was a proper race season.
“Back to full training now and virtually pain free after 15 months of constant pain of the leg never quite being right.
“I was having constant aching in the leg, other balance issues on the bike. Obviously you want to be symmetrical with cycling, so if something is not quite right your lower back starts to go, then you are not producing power in one leg compared to the other.
“Mainly though it was the pain and sensitivity of the bone, it was like my leg never fully recovered.”
Earle said it started taking a mental and physical toll on him.
“You don’t feel like much of an athlete when you wake up in the morning and limp to the toilet and limp to breakfast.
“It is nice to get out of bed and feel normal and actually forget about issues with the leg, there wasn’t a day I didn’t remember it or didn’t get reminded of it from the pain.
“When you are dealing with that for so long, it takes its toll on you mentally and physically and then your confidence as well.
“Definitely already now where I am at with the training, one I am excited to hopefully get back to racing but two, I think I can better than I have been for the past 18 months, and I had a pretty good end of season last year with the metal in.
“I feel 10 times better on the bike, it is like a confidence boost, which is pretty motivating.”
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