“My mates joke that I’m the most amateur professional rider around,” Paul Double laughs, recounting another one of his tales from the past. “I try to do things properly, be respectful, be on time, but I just have some quirks like the washing-up gloves.” Wait, what? “Yeah, so do you remember at school you had those tiny, fluffy, cheap black winter gloves?” he continues, “well I’d wear them under some washing-up gloves on the Tuesday night chain gang in Winchester.”
Double has a story like few others in professional cycling. He started racing at age 17, spent lockdown cutting down trees on Mount Etna (that’s a story for another day), became fluent in Italian, worked in cafes, bars and hotels, and finally, after almost a decade of scrimping on savings and hand-me-downs, has finally made it as a WorldTour pro with Jayco-Alula at the age of 28. “It all feels a bit surreal,” he tells Rouleur. “We had a team meeting yesterday and in a jokey way, we said that we’re not family because everyone was chosen to be here. It’s just super exciting.”
‘I didn’t really know what I was doing with myself’
Skinny and of medium height, Double grew up on a small farm in the south of England, where his dad, former racer Len Double, ran a local bike shop. But cycling was never really in young Paul’s life until his later teenage years. “I was a bit of a bum out in college to be honest: I rode my bike a little bit with my friends but I didn’t really know what I was doing with myself, I didn’t really have a direction,” he says. “My dad was a butler up in London so I always had an interest in the service industry, and I thought about going into wine or coffee, but I also knew from my dad how much hard work it was.”
In July 2016, aged 20, he took part in the Welsh amateur race, the Ras De Cymru, fuelled on bananas and jam sandwiches. “And I won a time trial and a mountain-top finish up the Tumble,” he says. “Flavio Zappi [an ex-pro who has a junior and Italy-based U23 team] said he wanted me on his team.”
The cycling journey had started, but perhaps more importantly, Double had a focus, a purpose. “Flavio said it was this much money [to live off, besides paid-for expenses] so I worked over the winter and my brother said he’d help me out with the little bit extra I needed.” His time with Zappi’s team was a success, and in 2019 he joined Team Colpack, the then-defacto feeder team to UAE Team Emirates. But Double was certainly not rich. “I was on €300 a month, but because I had accommodation, food and travel paid before, I somehow still managed to save money on the €3,000 I earned over the year,” he says. “And get this: there’s this nightclub in Lombardy that Colpack always goes to at the end of the season. I remember having cash, and all Zappi boys were like, ‘woah, Dubbsy’s paying for us all!’ With the three grand, I still had some cash for drinks. For us Zappi boys, €3k was a lot of money.”
Double returned to Zappi in 2020, and remained on third-tier Continental teams until the middle of the 2022 season, managing what little money he had and persisting with his cycling dream into his mid-20s when most others would have called it quits. “If you get accommodation, that’s massive, because otherwise you’re talking €6k a year on a room,” he says. “I was spending about €50 a week on food, and because my travel to races was paid for, food was my only expenditure.”
New aero socks, shoes or glasses weren’t just a financial possibility, but neither was he bothered. “I’ve never been into kit or nutrition because I couldn’t afford it. I appreciate it’s necessary and part of it – it’s something I’m learning about now – but tech especially has never been my thing. I’ve just been raging at my bike computer before this interview, trying to set it up.”
‘I still feel very young’
It was 2022 when things finally started to turn a corner for the lightweight climber, specifically in that year’s edition of the Tour of Slovenia. “This is my favourite video of a cycling race,” he beams. “So it’s the last stage of Slovenia, I’m doing well on GC (seventh), and you see Pogačar attack. Matej Mohorič is on his wheel, Rafał Majka in red as the KOM leader… and then it’s me! We’re moving up, passing all the people on this steep climb, somehow we get a gap, and still, I’m with them. That was pretty special.” How many times has he watched it? “A few times, yeah! I was on a Conti team, a heavy bike, and I think people saw that day that I’m quite an aggressive rider.”
It certainly put him into the spotlight, and just a few weeks later Human Powered Health, a second-tier American team, recruited him on his first professional contract. He was immediately a success, winning a stage of the Tour of Bulgaria – “it was another glimmer of hope that I had it in me,” he says – but at the end of 2023 the team folded. “When they made the call in August and said it’s done, I said to my dad, ‘it’s done, there’s no point anymore, this is just not for me’. But then I was like: nah, come on, I’m decent, I’m not bad.”
Others agreed, and Polti Kometa, the team of Alberto Contador, came to his rescue for the 2024 season. Consistent result after consistent result – GC top-10s in three stages – alerted Jayco to Double and the rest, as they say, is history – a rather long, convoluted but ultimately successful one. “A lot of people would have quit, and maybe it was stupidity to continue, but at the same time, how I saw it was that if every year I was making progress and just about surviving financially, then I would continue,” he says. “And I managed to do both.”
Very few bike riders turn professional just before their 30s, but Double hasn’t done anything the conventional way. “I still feel very young – perhaps it’s because I look young as well,” he says. “And I’ll always feel like an amateur to be honest. The guys at Polti used to laugh at me, saying I would do things a bit funny, like walking down from the hotel room to the bus in my cycling shoes. Apparently that’s not a done thing!”
Now he’s in the big league – the goal he’s had his sights on ever since he won two stages in three July 2016 days in mid-Wales – he’s insistent that he still hasn’t reached his final destination. “My key to getting here has been my consistency in the last few years and I want to continue in that vein,” he says. “I know my role is going to change and it’ll be a case of learning to do the job of a teammate, something I’ve never done before as I’ve always been a leader, but where I get the opportunity I want to get results like I have before. Now everything is getting closer, it's just super exciting.” Who knows what his ceiling is now he has access to all the fancy gear that’s previously been out of reach. “I’m not a tech guy, never will be a tech guy, but I’m looking forward to having all the best stuff and seeing what it can bring out of me,” he smiles.
