PAUL Double is unusual for a few reasons, but perhaps the thing that distinguishes him more than anything else among professional cyclists is his former habit of riding in yellow rubber washing-up gloves.

“Stuff like that was always fun,” he says over the phone from his flat in Girona, Spain. “Even now people say I do some things that make people think, ‘God, you look like such an amateur’, and I remember cycling with washing-up gloves on a rainy ride or cycling in the dark with terrible lights.”

Paul is talking about the days when he used to ride for Winchester’s very own cycling club, VC Venta, and laughs at how his journey to the pinnacle of his sport was frequently less-than-professional.

Now, however, Paul is anything but an amateur: he has just signed a two-year contract with Jayco-AlUla, a team which rides in the “Premier League” of cycling – the UCI World Tour.

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Paul on the charge for Polti Kometa (Image: Contributed)

Even if he has now reached the summit of his sport, Paul is Winchester through and through: he grew up on a farm near Sutton Scotney and went to South Wonston Primary School and Kings' School before becoming, by his own confession, something of a vagabond at college. 

"I did also go to Peter Symonds, but that was a bit of a waste of time," Paul says. "I was a bit of a bum at that time, so cycling probably saved me. I wasn't a bad person, I was just a bit immature. I didn't study."

Few people might believe that a "bum" from Winchester could reach the top echelon of cycling, but Paul's achievement seems even more astounding when you consider his age. Not many cyclists make it to this level – doing so at the age of 28 after having turned professional just two years earlier is almost unheard of.

“Turning pro at 26 is pretty rare these days,” Paul explains. “I only became a full-time bike rider at 21.”

That was the age Paul was invited to race as a semi-professional in Italy, trading in the familiar Venta chain gang for the brutality of the Italian under-23 circuit.

“A chap called Flavio Zappi, who runs a junior team, persuaded me to come out. It was a long bumpy road from that moment onwards.

“For the first few years I was getting my head kicked in. I found myself at the back of the peloton, crashing, being scared and not knowing how to handle my bike.”

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Paul during his time cycling for Zappi Race Team in Italy (Image: Contributed)

All this led him to question what he was doing so far from home to the point where he considered giving up the sport, but Zappi had seen some glimmers of hope in his form towards the end of that first season and invited him out for a second.

That year, in 2018, he had some good results at an amateur level and just about scraped a contract with a continental team.

“I got a contract for peanuts as a semi-professional. Then in 2019 I had an awful year because of crashes and injury,” Paul says.

Once more, he was on the verge of giving up, but once more Zappi persuaded him to give it one more year as COVID came into full swing.

This precarious state of affairs continued for years, with Paul suffering multiple setbacks and periodically questioning whether he would ever be able to make a living from the sport.

On his time in Italy, he says: “I’ve had some great experiences, some hard experiences, a lot of lonely times, especially in the last two years. I would say I was pretty lonely out there, but maybe that’s helped me to get where I am now. I’m a pretty resilient kind of person, I think.”

It was not until he signed with the American team Human Powered Health team that he turned fully professional at 26 – a feat rarely achieved for a cyclist of that age. But the tale had yet another twist in store for Paul.

“This is cycling,” he explains. “Although I thought I had some security, after one year the team folded and I had no contract. I was in the UK again and I thought, ‘alright, this is the end of the road’. But then I sat down and thought, ‘no, I’m good, I’m still progressing’.

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Paul aged about 18 back in his VC Venta days (Image: Contributed)

“I sat down with my agent, who helped me secure a contract with [my current team] Polti Kometa, which is where I feel the tables have turned. I’ve had a great season and I can’t complain.”

For someone who just a year ago did not know whether he would be able to continue as a professional cyclist, his results this season have been remarkable since he joined his new team and moved to Girona.

Going toe-to-toe with some of the top riders in the world, he came third overall at this season’s Tour of Turkey and sixth at the Tour of Slovenia, proving he can ride a bike with the best of them.

When Paul pulls on the Jayco Alula kit next season, he will be in the running to line up at the sport’s biggest events, including cycling’s three grand tours: the Tour de France, the Giro d’Italia and the Vuelta a España.

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Paul on a climb (Image: Sprint Cycling and Maurizio Borserini)

“Now I’ve reached the highest level of the sport and I can hopefully reach my full potential,” Paul says. “To even ride a grand tour – it’s going to be super exciting and I’m looking forward to seeing what I can do.”

So after all those years struggling to break through as a professional, can he finally relax a little in the knowledge he has a degree of security?

No, is the answer: “I think we’re at this level of the sport because we always strive for more,” he says.

“I think there’s maybe some security now, yes, but it’s never a case of thinking ‘I can relax now’. I want to perform well for the rest of the season [for Polti Kometa], so I want to keep focussed. I want to perform for myself and I want to be at the highest level of the sport for as long as possible, so you can’t relax I don’t think.”

Paul will be in good company at his new team, with Australian star Ben O’Connor and Dutch veteran Koen Bouwman set to swell the ranks of Jayco-AlUla after fellow Brit Simon Yates’s departure, and he hopes to draw on the wealth of experience surrounding him.

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While he has high hopes, he recognises he needs to do his bit within the group: “Cycling is very much a team sport and I will have my role, whether that be a domestique role for the other guys in the biggest races or maybe a lead rider in the smaller races. That’s how it’s likely to start. Then, if the chance arises, maybe I can go for stage wins.”

Although it’s difficult for Paul to find the time to come back to Winchester, he has kept his connection with the city and its cycling community, including the South Downs Social cycling café on Middle Brook Street.

Speaking about cycling as a rider for VC Venta, Paul says: “It was a special time, I was a Winchester boy – it was just a fun environment. They helped me out a lot, and if they hadn’t, I wouldn’t have won some races and I wouldn’t have been invited out to Italy.”

He also recognises how his early experiences at the club have made him the kind of cyclist he is today. While some of his fellow riders are used to fancy bikes and high-tech kit costing thousands of pounds, these things still excite Paul – he has not always had these luxuries.

“I’m good at making do,” he says, perhaps in reference to the good old Winchester days of rubber gloves and faulty lights.