This article was originally published in Cycling Weekly’s print edition as part of the long-running MY FITNESS CHALLENGE series.
In 2018, his last year at school, Tom Townsend added 80 watts to his threshold power and only A-levels stood in the way of his making a serious tilt at bike racing. By summer 2019, school was finally out and he was free to unscrew the lid on his teenage ardour. “That season I went from fourth-cat to second-cat and raced a few National Bs,” says the 22-year-old, speaking to me by video call from his living room in High Wycombe. “But then the first crash wiped me out.”
The last thing Townsend remembers is riding along near Henley an hour before the crash; his next memory is waking up in hospital two days later. “I had a neck brace on, and I remember thinking, ‘What on earth is going on?’ I had broken my neck, both my cheekbones, my pelvis and my collarbone, and initially the doctors had no idea whether I was going to be a vegetable or be mentally fine.”
Comeback number one
It turned out a car had pulled across Townsend’s path and the impact, recorded by his Garmin at 30mph, had knocked him unconscious for more than 20 minutes. He was airlifted to hospital where scans revealed he had sustained a traumatic brain injury with multiple haemorrhages and a very uncertain prognosis. “Over the next few days and weeks, I was telling everyone I was fine – that my brain was OK – but my parents weren’t convinced,” he shrugs. “I had just signed for Vredestein-Basso [now Stolen Goat RT], so I was eager to rebuild over the winter – I had a carrot to aim for.”
So avid was his ambition that Townsend resumed training regardless of his cracked bones, persistent headache and faltering balance. “I was a bit obsessive back then,” he says, putting it mildly. “I was back on the turbo before I could walk in a straight line without wobbling.” Why such a rush – did racing really matter that much? “Yeah, cycling was the centre of my life and had been since Year 11 [of school],” he admits. “It was my identity: I was known as a cyclist.” Incredibly, he missed only two weeks of training.
By the spring of 2020, Townsend had regained his pre-crash FTP of 360 watts, but now racing was on hold for everyone as Covid-19 swept the globe. His first competitive test came with the autumn hill-climb season, and he duly demonstrated his potential by clinching the win on the long Tan Hill climb in North Yorkshire….