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Evie Richards on how she became a bike pro
The British cyclocross and mountain bike sensation talks world titles, beating her heroes and why, after knee surgery, she’s never been happier.
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When British bike athlete Evie Richards burst onto the international cyclocross scene to scoop the world champion’s rainbow jersey at the 2016 U23 Cyclocross (CX) World Championship in Zolder, Belgium – her first cyclocross race outside Great Britain – she took most of her international rivals by surprise. “No one even had a clue who I was,” laughs Richards, who was just 18 at the time.
Seven years on, the 26-year-old’s rivals know exactly who she is – a versatile, world-class rider. Richards has collected some impressive senior titles on the way – an Elite UCI cross-country (XCO) World Championship, Commonwealth XCO gold, two Elite UCI MTB XCO World Cup wins and three UCI MTB short track (XCC) World Cup wins. That's not to mention her prowess in CX where she has two U23 CX World Championship wins, four U23 CX National titles.
Not bad for someone who only got into riding ‘for fitness’. So where did it all start?
01
Sporting ambitions
Since regaining her cycle Richards is more energised and far happier riding
© Jan Kasl/Red Bull Content Pool
Growing up in a sports-obsessed family in Malvern, a small town in English county of Worcestershire, it was never in doubt that Richards would follow her passion for sport. Cycling wasn’t on the Richards’s family radar yet, though – instead weekends were spent at the local rugby club. Richards found her first inspiration in England rugby international Jonny Wilkinson. “I remember watching Jonny Wilkinson kick – his dedication. He was the ultimate athlete and such a role model for me.”
I thought, 'One day, I want my jersey up there' – so I tried every sport until I found one I could see myself achieving a jersey in
But it wasn’t until starting secondary school and seeing the National jerseys of former pupils decking the walls that Richards doubled down her sports goals. “I thought, ‘One day, I want my jersey up there’ – so I tried every sport until I found one I could see myself achieving a National jersey in,” she explains.
As the pressure of individual sports made her nervous (“I could only do cross-country at school if I ran alone and they timed me!”), Richards gravitated towards team sports, excelling in hockey, which she was playing at county level in when a coach suggested the team find an alternative sport in the off-season to maintain their hockey fitness.
Evie and her dad, Gareth
© Evie Richards
She was a hockey star in the making before taking up cycling for training
© Evie Richards
Richards's first elite national trophy cyclocross win was in December 2015
© Evie Richards
Evie Richards grew up in a sport-obsessed family
© Patrick Lundin/Red Bull Content Pool
Enter cycling. “Cycling was the only sport I wasn’t doing! My dad had just got a bike and I wanted to continue working at a local farm shop at weekends to earn money, so I started a run-ride with him where we’d take turns running and riding,” Richards recalls. “With my first wage, I bought a kind of cyclocross bike, just the cheapest thing from the bike shop. That’s when we started riding together to the farm shop at weekends.”
Mountain bike races were the logical next step – this time without Richard’s usual nerves. “It was nice because it was away from school; no one knew I was doing these competitions, I didn’t feel any pressure. It was just a fun thing to do with Dad.”
Her first bike was a cyclocross one and she hasn't looked back since
© Patrik Lundin / Red Bull Content Pool
02
Talent spotted
Success quickly followed and after winning several National XCO Series events in 2014 and taking second place at the UCI XCO Junior National Championships, British Cycling took notice. “I got a phone call asking me to race in Norway at the [2014 Mountain Bike] World Championships. I didn’t really process how big a deal it was to be selected until I was there,” she says. “When I saw I was competing against the best in the world, I realised how big an opportunity it was to have so early on in my career.”
While friends were going to parties, Evie was racing around Europe
© Jan Kasl/Red Bull Content Pool
RIchards joined the Great Britain Junior Academy, racing the Junior World Series alongside Europe’s best mountain bike talent at the weekends, while studying for her A-levels at school and juggling a part-time job at a supermarket. “It was the best thing ever; we’d go to Germany, Italy, everywhere. On Monday, my friends would be talking about parties from the weekend, but I’d just flown back in from Europe.”
I remember doing turbo sessions at 10pm after work or at 5am before my supermarket shift. Even then I was pretty determined
Juggling it all meant serious dedication. “I remember doing turbo sessions at 10pm after work or at 5am before my supermarket shift. Even then I was pretty determined,” she recalls.
Evie Richards in action on her XCO bike in the Malvern hills
© Patrik Lundin/Red Bull Content Pool
Her hard work paid off with a phenomenal silver medal at the 2016 Junior UCI Mountain Bike Cross-Country World Championships in Andorra. “It was such an amazing experience, with 25 of my family and friends there to watch.”
03
Life-changing decisions
After the highs of a silver medal, Richards faced serious lows when her move to Manchester as part of her progression to Olympic hopes left her feeling isolated and unhappy. “I wouldn’t wish it on anyone,” she laments. “It was the hardest time ever in my cycling career. We lived far out of Manchester and I didn’t know anyone. I really struggled.”
Throwing herself into regional cyclocross gave her training focus
© Patrik Lundin / Red Bull Content Pool
Throwing her energy into racing regional cyclocross events at the weekend provided a focus and a new training tool. “I had nothing to do but train really hard, so I raced ‘cross nearly every weekend. For me, it was nice to see other people, vary my training. I loved doing it and it broke up my week a bit.”
I said I’d do the race that weekend, but I never wanted to get on a bike again
Despite this, she almost quit cycling in the week leading up to the 2015-16 UCI U23 National CX Championship because of how unhappy she was in Manchester. “I said I’d do the race that weekend, but I never wanted to get on a bike again.” Thankfully, winning the race – and realising her dream of earning a National jersey – changed her mind. “That gave me a glimpse that I was good and I needed to find another way for me to make it work and enjoy it.”
Evie Richards is all smiles at the 2019 MTB World Cup in Snowshoe
© Bartek Wolinski/Red Bull Content Pool
Just a week later, aged 18, Richards lined up at the inaugural U23 UCI CX World Championship in Zolder, Belgium, where she was a relative unknown. “I’d only done a couple of national races – mainly local league races. I was gridded so far back, I definitely didn’t think I’d do well and I remember feeling so tired going into the race.”
But she did do well, coming from the back of the grid to win the race by half a minute and scoop the rainbow jersey of World Champion, riding on a mountain bike lent to her by for British downhill and enduro MTB rider Tracy Moseley, a long-time supporter of Richards. “I think everyone was pretty shocked I’d won, because I was an unknown. I really didn’t know how big a deal it was until the next morning when my phone had gone crazy overnight and people were queuing at the tent for photographs!”
04
Breakout performance
She won her first senior CX World Cup in 2017-18
© Patrik Lundin/Red Bull Content Pool
Richards was a phenomenon in the U23 category, but her breakout performance came in an Elite cyclocross race she almost didn’t start. Days before the 2017 UCI CX World Cup in Namur, Belgium, Richards dislocated her knee, giving way for the second time in three months. She was distraught. “I cried my eyes out and started looking for flights home to get it scanned,” she recalls.
Incredibly, it ‘slotted back into place’, so Richards lined up to race against decorated Elite cyclocross athletes such as Jolanda Neff, Pauline Ferrand-Prévot and fellow Brit, Nikki Brammeier. In an audacious display of power on one of the sport’s toughest cyclocross courses, she picked her way through the world’s best riders to win by 15 seconds. “Again, it was such a shock. I’ve always watched Pauline and when I overtook her and Yolanda, I felt so strong. Then I overtook Nikki. I wasn’t even thinking about tactics, I just decided to ride as hard as I could.”
Evie Richards powers up a climb on the 2019 Nové Město track
© Jan Kasl/Red Bull Content Pool
Winning silver at the Commonwealth Games was a real 'pinch-me' moment, the only time I’ve ever cried on the podium. I was so emotional because it was something I’d always dreamt of
Riding a wave of success, Richards went on to complete a hat-trick of consecutive U23 National CX titles during the 2017-18 season and win her second U23 CX World Championship, swiftly followed two months later by a Commonwealth Games silver medal in crosscountry mountain bike in Australia – her proudest moment yet. “It was a real 'pinch-me' moment, the only time I’ve ever cried on the podium,” she explains. “I was so emotional because it was something I’d always dreamt of.”
Evie bagged herself a silver medal at the 2018 Commonwealth Games
© Getty
05
Injury and silver linings
Next came a huge blow when Richards’s on-going knee problem reached a critical point, dislocating during a physio session while training in Girona, Spain, in 2018. “I’d just done a four-hour ride, a gym session and I was saying to my swanny [soigneur] that everything was falling into place,” she remembers. “Literally after that, she told me to turn over and I was screaming in pain for someone to get me an ambulance.”
Knee surgery in 2019 put paid to plans to defend her National and U23 World cyclocross titles, but it proved to be a turning point in her approach to training and life in general. “During my recovery, I realised I’d developed tunnel vision thinking that an athlete can only train and can’t do anything else. When I first joined the GB team, I stopped seeing all my friends. I cut off socialising because I thought it would be detrimental to training. I was also overtraining and under-fuelling to get as light as possible.
Strength training in the gym has got Evie prepared for the 2020 season
© Patrik Lundin/Red Bull Content Pool
Since the injury, I’ve never been so happy. I enjoy every single training session. I’m a completely different person now
“I realised I should use my injury as a positive and find things other than cycling to make me happy, so I started seeing friends again, did loads of normal things I’d cut out – like going shopping or to cafes. I realised that from being happier, I was actually recovering quicker and then I was training harder on the days I was actually training.”
06
A dream introduction to Elite racing
Stepping up to Elite racing in 2020, Richards was in a good place to realise her dreams of winning the biggest races, and was aiming on concentrating solely on XCO racing. But then the pandemic hit and all the off-season training she had done was seemingly wasted as sporting events were paused. When the shortened season finally kicked off in October, Richards had good legs and managed to win the two rounds of XCC racing in Nové Město. These were her first wins in the Elite category.
2 min
Evie Richards talks about her XCC win in Nové Město
Trek Factory Racing rider Evie Richards talks about her UCI World Cup XCC win in Nové Město.
07
Smashing 2021
Coming into the 2021 World Cup season, Richards would have been seen as a good bet for more XCC and XCO honours. At the first World Cup of the season in Albstadt, Germany, things didn't pan out well for her but in the next round in Nové Město she got her first senior XCO podium with a fifth place. The next XCO race in Les Gets saw further improvement as she finished third. In July, she represented Great Britain at the Olympics and finished seventh in Tokyo. It felt like the form and her own condition were building to something big.
Going into the World Championships in Val di Sole in August, Richards was seen as something of an outsider in both XCC and XCO races. A silver medal in the first-ever XCC World Championships race gave her a confidence boost going into the XCO race. Despite sitting 30 seconds back on the defending 2020 World Champion Pauline Ferrand-Prévot after the first full lap, Richards dug deep to overhaul her and the rest of the field and would solo to the win by 1m 3s in the end, and become XCO World Champion.
"Once I'd won Worlds, it was like, 'Oh my goodness, I can actually do this'."
Evie Richards was commanding in her World Championship win
© Bartek Woliński/@wolisphoto
Backing up the biggest victory of your career comes with some pressure, but Richards managed to do the famous rainbow stripes jersey of the World Champion justice just seven days after her World Championship win, at the World Cup round in Lenzerheide. A break from the main field on the penultimate lap in Switzerland saw her take the win, and her first Elite XCO World Cup victory.
1 min
Women's XCO finish – Lenzerheide
Watch a recap of the end of the women's cross-country race in Lenzerheide.
Quite clearly Richards was in the form of her life. Back-to-back wins in her last two Elite races meant she was firm favourite to win the XCO at the last round in Snowshoe. Her weekend got off to a flying start with a win in the XCC – her first in 2021 and third of her Elite career – but she saved the best for Sunday with another solo win, making it two XCO World Cup wins for the season.
"I haven’t had that feeling [of being favourite] before. A lot of people said, 'You're handling the stripes quite well and it doesn't look like you've let the pressure get to you of being favourite'.
"I suppose I hadn’t really thought of it like that. I said to my psychologist, 'It's fine, it doesn’t really matter – it's only a jersey'. But in Snowshoe, I felt like the pressure was on. After winning Worlds and the World Cup in Lenzerheide, it made me a bit nervous."
9 min
Evie Richards's 2021 season review
Watch newly crowned XCO world champion Evie Richards as she reviews her 2021 Mercedes-Benz UCI Mountain Bike World Cup season.
08
Eating right
Richards has been very vocal about her struggles with eating the right things. Issues in the past not only led to a major dip in her performance but also saw her periods stopping. “I went through a stage where I was really under fuelled, and it just never ends well,” she says. “You always think it will make you faster and it doesn't – it's always a negative thing.”
She's worked with nutritionist Renee McGregor in the past and that led to a huge difference to her training and her performance in the saddle.
Once I'd won Worlds, it was like, 'Oh my goodness, I can actually do this'
09
Building to Tokyo
In the 2022 season, Richards never quite managed to hit the heights of her stellar 2021 year. A stomach bug she had during the first round in Petrópolis in Brazil hampered her race performances there, then back pain issues meant she wasn't fully at her best in subsequent rounds. Richards missed the Leogang race in June to give her back a rest and seek treatment, returning in late July to race the British Nationals in the run up to the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham. Being the outstanding World Class athlete in the field, she duly won the gold medal.
She followed up gold at the Commonwealth Games with 11th at World Champs
© Bartek Wolinski
Richards next raced the Worlds in Les Gets to defend her title but came up short and would also return empty-handed from the last World Cup race in Val di Sole in Italy.
“I trained so hard in those weeks after the Commie Games to get as fast as I could, and I knew it wasn’t enough time to get where I really wanted to, but I could be happy knowing that I tried as hard as I could to get back to the start line."
43 min
The battle for cross-country Olympic success
We talk to Evie Richards, who achieved a childhood dream when she represented Team GB in the cycling in Tokyo.
The 2023 season has yet to bring Evie any more success. However, there is confidence to be taken from her performances to date with three top 10 finishes in three of the four XCO races that have taken place. At this stage of the season and with the Olympics on the horizon in 2024, Richards is happy with her progress.
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