ADAMS TWOFER
The success of a dual project - by Timothy John
"I really enjoyed learning new things with a ProTeam and discovering a different world, almost. Turning up to a race in a bus was a special experience; one I'll never forget. There was a lot of feeling starstruck: lining up alongside famous names or heroes from childhood. If those names and heroes were not in your team, it was like, ‘Oh well, we've got to figure out how to beat these guys.’”
Adam Mitchell has seen the promised land. His brief immersion in the world of professional cycling has sustained him through another demanding if ultimately successful season as an amateur rider with a French DN1 team. A proven winner, he has demonstrated a talent to compete in the sport's paid ranks on numerous occasions. Now, as he stands at a crossroads in his career, all he needs is that rarest of commodities: a second opportunity.
His first chance to convert the physical ability demonstrated in 16 victories on French soil came 12 months ago when he raced as a stagiaire for TotalEnergies, the ProTeam for which his Vendée U-Primeo Energie squad, a UCI Continental team racing in the French amateur scene's first division, serves as a feeder.
He performed well in his assignments with the senior team: a four-race brief that concluded with teammate Joris Delbove winning the Tour de Langkawi. From a racing perspective, Mitchell might have considered his internship a matter of mission accomplished; his ticket to the big time stamped. Nothing about professional cycling's contractual machinations is ever straightforward, however.
The circumstances of one professional team concluding (Arkéa-B&B Hotels) while two others merged (Lotto and Intermarché) would be considered bizarre in any other sport. In cycling, it is business as usual. Ironically, the team with which he stagiaired now seeks a title sponsor.
"At the end of last year, I knew it would be difficult with the Arkéa and Intermarché situations essentially flooding the market with pros looking for jobs. It didn't really surprise me not to get picked, as disappointing as that was. It was more a case of seeing what this year would bring," Mitchell says.
It has brought setbacks and success in almost equal measure: two concussions at the beginning of the season, one of them "serious", and three victories, including a second consecutive overall triumph at the Tour Nivernais Morvan.
Even this is understating the quality of Mitchell's campaign, which also included a career-best eighth place at the British championships, seventh overall at Kreiz Breizh Elites, second overall at the Agglo Tour after winning the opening stage, and, a few days before we speak, seventh overall at the 3 Jours de Cherbourg.
Channel hopper
Mitchell’s dedication to the tasks he sets himself is admirable. In addition to his success on the bike, he has gained a degree from Loughborough University, courtesy of much Channel-hopping and studying in airports. Cycling remains his greatest ambition, but he is sufficiently grounded to accept whatever fate the sport hands him.
"Whether or not I manage to make it as a professional, I think I've done everything I can. If it happens, that's incredible. If it doesn't happen, I can be happy to say that I gave it my best shot, and I can move on in life," he reflects.
"With the injuries, I've missed out on a fair amount of racing and a fair few opportunities where I would have liked to show my level. I showed what I can do at the end of the year. What that will lead onto, we can only find out. At the end of the day, I've really enjoyed what I've done this year. If nothing else comes from it, I've had a great year racing my bike on the Continent, and it will be an experience that I'll never forget."
Unlike many of the prodigious teenagers hoping to follow Remco Evenepoel and Paul Seixas to cycling superstardom, Mitchell does not have an agent. He does, however, have irons in the fire. When we speak in mid-September, conversations are in progress. His talent and dedication might yet be rewarded with a professional contract. If they are not, he won't be defeated.
French exchange
Mitchell’s rational assessment underlines his maturity and resilience; qualities typical of the riders who enjoy The Rayner Foundation's support. His arrival in France with his worldly possessions in the boot of his car encapsulated the often bizarre circumstances that British would-be pros encounter. After meeting the DS in a car park, he found himself lodged at a boarding school for a week-long training camp with his new teammates at Team U Charente-Maritime, the only DN1 team then to have offered him a place.
His move to Vendée U a year later followed a tip-off. He reported to the team's office as advised and became one of only two riders from a testing pool to be offered a place on the squad. The other was Sam Maisonobe, now a professional with Cofidis.
Mitchell came close to emulating his former teammate during his internship with TotalEnergies. The ProTeam operates from the same facility as Vendée U: a manoir about 60 kilometres south of Nantes, with stables converted to a service course, owned by team president Jean-René Bernaudeau.
"I felt I was making a contribution to the team. I felt I was useful," Mitchell reflects on his time as a stagiaire. "Although I was far from being a leader, I felt I could have a meaningful impact and had a place. Unfortunately, it didn't happen that year, so I decided to stick at it one more year and decide whether I continued to cycle or not at the end of this year."
Living for the weekend
Continental racing accounts for much, if not all, of Mitchell's cycling career. After stints with elite British teams Crimson Performance and Cycling Sheffield, during which he completed his first two years of full-time study at Loughborough, he decided to roll the dice on his cycling career and see if he could emulate the British professionals before him, many of them Rayner-funded, who had launched their careers in France.
His generation had an added incentive: the sad and seemingly inexorable demise of elite British road racing. France offered a far greater volume of racing and, with it, far greater opportunity to earn the attention of professional teams. So it was that in 2023, following the training camp in a boarding school, he spent six months alone in a team apartment living for the weekend.
"I wouldn't say it was the easiest experience of my life or the most pleasant, being on my own, but I had a great relationship with some of the riders on the team, so every weekend was kind of like a treat: going away with them and doing a race. Then I'd go back, sit in the apartment and wait for the next weekend."
His French language skills improved, though he still does not claim to be fluent. The days when he would sit at the dinner table and be lost among the overlapping conversations of his teammates have ended, however. His early preparations with the Duolingo app have been surpassed by a more valuable immersion in French culture.
More important still has been his cycling education. The inexorable rise of the WorldTour devo team and the de facto professionalisation of junior racing have made the route followed by Mitchell and other Foundation riders seeking to build their careers in France seem almost traditional. He believes passionately in the pathway's validity, however, especially for riders who might not have enjoyed the same physical development as their competitors in the under-19 ranks.
Solid Foundation
Mitchell is modest when asked to describe his own characteristics, falling back on the expression, jack of all trades, master of none. A more serious assessment reveals an archetypal puncheur: light enough to be effective on difficult courses with short climbs while able to sprint against all but the pure sprinters. Performing in the Ardennes Classics would be "a dream", he says.
The Rayner Foundation has been a reassuring constant amid the vicissitudes of his Continental career; the highs and lows familiar to all racers, though Mitchell has been more successful than most. Like many who have been fortunate enough to call themselves a Rayner rider, he regards the charity's financial support as only one benefit.
"The most important thing might not have been the money but the inspiration of an established path. If there were no British Rayner Foundation riders going to France and passing pro, would I have gone there in the first place? Potentially not."
Racing in France has not been a walk in the park, an activity he was unable to enjoy when recovering from his first concussion in February, but Mitchell clearly regards the experience as an adventure to be enjoyed, rather than an ordeal to be endured.
"If I don't make it into the world of professionals, I will be forever grateful for these past four years," he concludes. "At the end of the day, that might be the more important thing."
Adam Mitchell was talking to Timothy John exclusively for the Rayner Foundation
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