Monk's journey from Drouin to Norway

by Jack Morgan

Halfway across the world, pro cyclist Cyrus Monk trains in the green, but flat countryside. He lives with his team in a town called Aalter in Belgium. In size, it’s similar to his hometown of Drouin. 

The EvoPro Racing team is made up of 12 international riders, who live out of their team house and train together over the busy European cycling season. 24-year-old Monk is the only Australian on the team.

Recently, they rode in the Tour of Norway, up against Olympic gold medallists returning from Tokyo. 

“We were pretty happy to even get an invite to this race so it was definitely a challenge for us, racing against some of the best guys in the world,” Monk said.

Picturesque fjords and mountain ranges dominate the Norwegian landscape, it’s these climbs and scenery the race is known for. Monk said it made for a hot topic in the peloton.

“Everyone was talking about how crazy the landscape was and how cool it was to ride there.”

“You’d be racing along these cliff faces with a big valley on the side and huge lakes and mountains,” Monk said.

It was a stark contrast to Belgium’s relatively flat geography, which made it difficult to prepare for the climbs.

Some team members travelled to France, finding they can develop fitness easier on the country’s mountains. But with travel restrictions, it’s no cheap task to leave Aalter.

“Usually we’d do training camps in the mountains each year to get that really high level of fitness but it’s just a lot more expensive basically to get all the testing done, jump through all the extra hoops,” Monk said.

Monk takes the role of the road captain for EvoPro Racing, which means making critical decisions for his teammates while helping them race with each other.

The team didn’t get a result in the six-day race, but Monk said it will give them form for the next events on the calendar. 

Following Norway, the crew were back in Belgium to compete in a Kermesse race, followed by the Classic Grand Besançon Doubs in France, a new race that makes up part of the larger UCI Europe Tour.

Despite the increased costs of COVID testing and travel, Monk said things are now fairly normal in most of Europe.

If proof of vaccine is shown, most places are open to the public besides nightclubs and bar service.

Monk left Australia months before the vaccine was available for his age group, but he said after searching, he was lucky to be vaccinated in France.

“It’s impossible to duck back to Australia for a week just to get one … and that’s just opened doors now, I can travel pretty freely,” Monk said.

It’s an experience he’s feeling lucky to have, and he said he’s grateful to be competing during a difficult time back home.