Len Double dressed his youngest son Paul, just nine at the time, in a yellow jersey and red helmet, and plonked him on a £100 mountain bike. “We were in Cheddar Gorge and I told him to ride down the hill and then back up,” Len remembers. “I didn’t expect much, but he rode up it like a bloody rocket! I thought, Jesus, if he takes this up, he could be pretty useful.” The ride whetted young Paul’s appetite for cycling. “I felt very early on that if he persevered he could become a stage race rider,” his father continues.

To reach the promised land of WorldTour and Grand Tour racing, Paul – born and raised in Winchester, Hampshire – has taken a winding and unusually long path. Along the way, he has had to scrape by on pay as low as €3,000 a year, making ends meet by chopping wood on the slopes of Mt Etna and sticking foam to his bike to improve his time trialling. It’s been nearly a decade-long journey from novice under-23 rider to Giro d’Italia finisher – a path demanding both patience and perseverance, the very qualities his dad always said he would need. “I said he’d be a slow burner, and that’s what he’s become,” Len says. Finally, though, at 28 – half a decade later than most of his peers – Double has arrived at cycling’s top table, and he’s already started picking up some big wins. “Becoming a pro has always been the dream, the one thing I’ve always aspired to, and it feels like I’ve only just started,” he says.

This article was published by Cycling Weekly magazine in June 2025. You can read the full article here.