‘Cycling has kept me going’
“Six months after I’d started cycling, the cyclo-cross season was just beginning, so I thought, why not give it a go?” That would be a brave leap into the unknown at any age, but Evie Hartley – who was just nine at the time – isn’t talking about bravery. She is simply telling me how cycling came to form a central part of her life. “I raced the first season and I came third out of the girls, so that was pretty decent,” she grins. “The next year I won the season.”
Evie, now 13, is sitting alongside her dad Dave, speaking to me by video call from their home in Ilkeston, Derbyshire. We are here to speak about how Evie has been coping since a life-changing diagnosis last year, and at the outset I’m nervous about asking questions that might be upsetting for her to answer. As soon as the subject is broached,
