Curtis Neill has switched from the French scene, upped the winter miles and switched team, re-setting his cycling career (Photo: Nassos Triantafyllou)
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Curtis Neill first went to race in France three years ago. And though he got to see a lot of the world in that time, he decided last year it wasn't for him. Now, still aged just 20-years-old, a switch to Velo Performance Development U23 seems to have brought some spark into his progress.
He upped his training volume during the winter and his performance at Tour of Rhodes (UCI 2.2) last week suggests that approach is set to pay dividends. The former Carn Wheeler, from Moneymore, Co Derry, managed to dodge a virus doing the rounds in the peloton in Greece. And a knee injury that sidelined him earlier this month did not appear to undermine his performance.
In a race featuring many of the best World Tour U23 development teams in the sport - Jayco AlUla, Astana, EF Education, Ineos Grenadiers - Neill notably held his own. And though he said he wanted a bit more from Sunday's final stage, he rode significantly better than most in the field.
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"I was happy with it, it's a good target now to try and beat in my next races," he said of his trip to Greece, where he competed in the one-day Rhodes GP (1.1) before moving on to the four-day stage race.
The Tour of Rhodes has developed into a significant early-season showdown for major U23 teams, meaning Neill was stepping up to a higher level of racing (Photo: Nassos Triantafyllou)
A strong junior rider, he was on the Cycling Ireland development panel and represented Northern Ireland in the Junior Commonwealth Games in Trinidad. He spent 2023, his second year as a junior, with U19 Academy La Pomme Marseille Provence. He then moved to Lyon Sprint Evolution for 2024 and 2025.
"I decided last year when I was racing in France that things just weren't going my way," he said. "The racing wasn't suiting me and, after a number of different issues last year I decided to end my season early."
Calling time on the French dream, into which he had invested time and energy, wasn't easy. But it was a brave to decision to assess, decide it was time to move on and execute that decision.
Though his new season has only just begun, he placed 38th overall in the Tour of Rhodes, from a start list of more than 160. He is very hopeful he can progress through the season.
But he is already certain his decision to move teams was the right one. He described as "phenomenal" the atmosphere and support in Velo Performance, from both management and the other riders.
Neill winning on the home roads, after a breakaway of over 100km, in the Carn Classic in 2023 (Photo: Sharon McFarland)
On the roads of Greece over the past week, he said his team mates had ridden to ensure he was well-placed coming into the climbs, putting him into the best positions possible to compete with the major teams.
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In the prologue TT, just 2.3km, last Thursday he was 63rd, some 13 seconds down on stage winner Cameron Rogers (Ineos Grenadiers Racing Academy). Over the following two days of racing, the stages ended in bunch sprints, though the peloton both days numbered just 85 and 75 riders.
Neill was in those bunches, with team mate Jack Conroy and the Irish Hagens Berman Jayco duo of Adam Rafferty and David Gaffney.
The final stage on Sunday involved almost 3,000m of climbing. Neill finished alongside Gaffney in a small group just over eight minutes down, in 37th and 39th.
While Neill said he hoped for a better result, two thirds of the race was behind him. It was a day of high winds, when the last man home was more than 24 minutes down, others were outside the time limit and many abandoned.
"I'm very happy with my form at the minute, I'm very pleasantly surprised," he said. "I'm only just recently coming off the back of a knee injury. I had to take two weeks off the bike just before going to Greece and I was only able to train for two days before arriving."
However, having ended his season early last year, he got stuck into his winter early and significantly increased the number of hours he did on the bike. And he believed that solid period of training helped him when he had to put the bike aside for a fortnight earlier this month. Still, Greece was a step up.
"I've done a fair bit of UCI racing but not UCI racing of this level, with as many devo teams at the level of the guys who were in Greece," he said.
"The Rhodes GP was a bit of a shock to the system, just learning how the racing works the positioning; working with your teammates and communicate with your teammates. But we seem to have gotten that down these past few days. As a team we've performed extremely well."
When he started the stage race last Thursday, with the constant speed and pressure for position, he said he felt he was learning each day; and holding his place as many riders were being spat out the back.
Overall, he feels his solid winter, and now starting with a new team, has been a re-set for his cycling career. And he's looking forward to see where it takes him in coming months.
"I don't know where I belong yet," he said of his place in cycling. "I didn't go to Greece with too many expectations. It was a learning race, a break-in race for the season. But from the feeling of the past few days. I'm very excited.
"My all-round power numbers have skyrocketed over this winter. I've taken a very different approach to my training, much more focused on as many hours as possible. And I'm far more dialled in on my nutrition and all of those my new details, the team has really helped with that.
"I can hopefully get my name out there this year a wee bit better and hopefully go to these UCI races this year with the team to compete and not just to make up the numbers."
