Evan Boyle

By Alex Kochon

Age: 18
Family: Don, dad; Cynthia, mom; Corinne, 17, and Elyse, 15, sisters
Hometown: Niskayuna
Favorite sports/hobbies: Road biking, soccer, swimming, chess

Evan Boyle’s twist of fate came in the form of an excruciating ankle injury in January 2020. A misstep at indoor soccer practice tore every ligament in his right ankle, sidelining him for the rest of the season, and leaving him unable to walk for three months. 

 During that time, the global pandemic began. Team sports were put on pause while Evan, then a 15-year-old soccer player and swimmer at Niskayuna High School, worked on healing his ankle. In March of that year, his doctor suggested biking for rehab. What started as 30 minutes on a stationary bike quickly progressed to longer outdoor rides, giving him a sense of independence. “As soon as we got into our Covid lockdown, I wanted to go out and do stuff, so I would explore places on my bike,” said Evan, now 18. “It was really a great way to explore where I lived and more… all of the Capital Region.”

If you ask Evan, before his injury, he wasn’t much of a biker – he just rode to school every day of fifth grade. But according to his mother, Cynthia, he had been biking since age four when he rode beside her on runs. “He refused to get into a stroller once he could walk,” explained Cynthia, a former triathlete and runner. Her brothers, Evan’s uncles, were competitive cyclists. One completed the Race Across America with the Wounded Warriors in 2012.

Evan raced his first triathlon when he was five, the “Anyone Can Tri” kids’ triathlon at the Southern Saratoga YMCA in Clifton Park. When he was 11, he won the Army West Point Triathlon in West Point. “He wasn’t exactly riding around the neighborhood like the other kids,” Cynthia noted. “He’s always had a lot more endurance and grit than most kids, and I think we just tried to channel his energy.”

On his 16th birthday, Evan received an upgraded road bike from his uncle’s son-in-law. With the DMV closed and his pursuit of a driver’s license paused, cycling became Evan’s outlet.

From Riding to Racing – That summer of 2020, Evan dabbled in road bike time trials hosted by the Capital Bicycle Racing Club. Because of social-distancing regulations, the time trials lacked some fanfare; riders showed up, raced individually on a 10-mile course, and had their time recorded. It didn’t take long for CBRC vice president Andy Ruiz to notice Evan. “His time was unbelievable,” Andy recalled. “I said to him, ‘Have you ever thought about bike racing? You have a lot of natural ability.’”

Andy invited Evan to join CBRC group rides, where he quickly caught the bug. “I started learning all of the race craft and the dynamics of racing,” Evan explained. “That year, I did about as well as you could expect I could do. I was pretty average, I guess. I won a race, and that got me hooked.”

One year later, at the start of a new cycling season, Evan turned heads at the 2021 Tour of the Battenkill, a 75-mile road and gravel race in Washington County. After starting about 10 minutes behind the pros, he caught many Category (Cat) 1, 2 and pro riders, and won the men’s junior 15-18 division by nearly 20 minutes. “From my perspective, that was kind of eye-opening,” said Evan’s father, Don Boyle. “That was shocking.”

With few races to enter due to the pandemic, Evan continued to train and compete that summer, learning more about race tactics like cornering, drafting, and pack riding over time. Andy started formally coaching him the following winter, and by the spring of 2022, Evan was winning more races and gaining recognition regionally.

Starting as a novice Cat 4/5 rider, he quickly rose through the ranks to reach Cat 1 as a junior at the USA Cycling Amateur Road National Championships. There, he placed fifth in the junior 17-18 time trial, “beating some of the best kids in the country with only a year of riding,” Andy noted. 

At that point, Andy knew he needed to get Evan racing at the international level. He convinced a fellow coach to bring Evan with his team to the Tour de l’Abitibi, a junior road-biking stage race in Quebec. In Canada, a few US national-team athletes could not race due to Covid, and Evan – a strong albeit inexperienced rider – was asked to fill one of their spots. “Long story short, two days in, he wins the individual time trial, and he beats the junior world champion,” Andy explained. “That’s like, OK, this kid’s going somewhere. He was riding like 31 miles an hour. That’s ridiculous.”

After six straight days of racing well over 400 miles total, Evan finished eighth overall in the Canadian tour. Then, with Andy’s help, he took his racing to Europe and won a stage race in Austria against some of the world’s top juniors. Then he went to Spain, where he placed fifth in the first stage of the Vuelta Junior a la Ribera Del Duero, a 64-mile road race. “It’s one thing to be great in your country, but it’s another thing to be one of the best in the world,” Andy said of Evan’s results.

Nature of the Beast – At the second stage of the Spanish tour, Evan suffered the worst crash of his career. A previous pileup had punctured his front wheel, but he kept riding on the flat while he waited for another bike. While doing so, unable to maneuver his front wheel, he collided with a team car. His bicycle slid underneath the car, snapping the handlebars in half. “There’s an Evan-sized dent in a Spanish team car,” Evan recalled with a laugh. “I ended up getting another bike from our team, and I rode for another maybe 30 minutes.”

At that point, he realized his leg was bleeding badly and was in significant pain. “I felt really grim, so I called it in… I wish I didn’t,” Evan said. 

The crash shook him up, but it didn’t deter him from continuing to pursue cycling professionally. “Racing is stressful because you have to worry about crashes, positioning yourself, and all the other riders on two wheels that are trying to be where you want to be,” he explained. “Just knowing eventually I’m going to crash and I have to be prepared to pick myself up and keep riding, that’s probably the most difficult part for me to deal with, where I have to just accept it’s going to happen.”

It’s also been stressful for Evan’s parents, who worry about his safety when sharing the road with motorists. Don said he steered him away from football for fear of concussions. “We were apprehensive about it,” Don said of road biking. “Imagine your children are out on a bicycle 30 miles away, and in this case, he’s 16, 17 and gets a flat, gets hit by a car, you’re kind of worried about that sort of stuff.”

Last month, while training at his grandfather’s home in Arizona, Evan had planned on riding with the West Cycle Valley Club on Feb. 25. He overslept and missed the ride. That morning, a driver crashed a pickup truck into the group, killing two and injuring 11 of them. “Cycling safety is of paramount importance and it never leaves my mind,” Cynthia stated.

Two years ago, when Evan began venturing farther from home on his bike, they put a Life360 tracking app on his phone. That way, if he had a mechanical issue or needed their help, they could locate him. “I think for a kid that age, it was channeling that need for independence as well as rehabbing and developing,” Don recalled. “It’s a positive thing when kids are doing stuff like that, so you can’t argue with it too much.”

The Big Stage – An experienced coach and cyclist who raced at a high level, Andy instantly recognized Evan’s potential and urged him to take cycling to the next level. As last season drew to a close, they reached out to several semi-pro teams, pitching his work ethic, natural ability, and what Andy called a “huge engine” above his lack of experience. 

At 6-feet, 2-inches tall and about 170 pounds, Evan is built for time trials and going really fast on flatter terrain. He swam competitively until last year, excelling in the freestyle and butterfly distance events, and has muscle mass remaining from that sport. He’s not a twig like many of the riders in the professional peloton, and he hasn’t been racing for nearly as long as many of the top juniors. Most get their start around age 11 or 12. Evan started at 16.

This past January, he signed with Aevolo, a U23 elite cycling team. He’s the youngest of 10 riders on the team, ages 18 to 23, and the only one born in 2004. As it was explained to them, Evan was Aevolo’s “wildcard selection in that he’d only been racing for a year,” Don said. “But he had what looked to be some remarkable capabilities.”

Evan graduated high school half a year early in mid-January 2023, finishing his senior year after completing all his necessary credits. An exceptional math student, he had fulfilled all his math requirements by ninth grade and took a multivariable calculus course at the University at Albany last fall. He also captained his high-school soccer team and was named MVP this past season.

Now a fully supported cyclist with Aevolo, which covers his travel and most living expenses while on the road, Evan – who’s also on the US national U23 team – is adjusting to life as a full-time athlete. Shortly after finishing up at Niskayuna High, he flew to his grandfather’s in Surprise, Ariz., to train before his first team camp in Los Angeles. 

The team provided him with a “home bike” to keep at home and other bikes for training and racing on the road. In all, Evan said he has about 10 bicycles. 

Looking back on his rapid rise in cycling, from biking to school to riding 500, sometimes 600 miles a week for training, Evan said it’s been fun. He doesn’t struggle with motivation; he gets out and rides all the time – to the tune of about five hours a day, five days a week. “It’s not quite an addiction, but it might be,” Evan said with a laugh. “It’s something that if you really love it, it’s not really a problem. It’s not a chore; it’s not a job.”

At his first training camp with Aevolo in February, Evan learned a lot about bike handling and descending at high speeds. It was also his first-time riding in a team environment. With CBRC, he often rode alone because, frankly, no one could keep up with him. “There are so many guys that are so much more adept at racing, so there’s always things I can learn,” he said of Aevolo and cycling at an elite level. “It’s just a wealth of information that all these guys have, and they’re willing to share with you.”

 After the weeklong team camp, he was selected to Aevolo’s A-squad and given the opportunity to race on the Aegean Islands in Greece. These races, which Evan called “proper Euro races,” each entail four to five hours of racing over 100 miles per day. He’s signed up for three events from March 3-18: Visit South Aegean Islands, International Rhodes Grand Prix, and International Tour of Rhodes stage race. “I’m pretty much the dead bottom of my age group, so if I show that I’m good in Greece, it opens up a lot of doors for me for the rest of the season,” he said. 

While he was nervous about testing his form in Europe, he was also excited. His coach, Andy, who said he’s never had an athlete progress to this level with so little experience, is eager to see what he can do. “What makes Evan incredibly unique is that he went from racing local races, and within a couple of years, he’s turned pro and is racing at some of the biggest U23 races in the world,” Andy said. “Of all the years of coaching and being in the Capital District, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anybody make the leaps that he’s done in that short of time.

“His focus is unbelievable, probably the best I’ve ever seen of anybody,” Andy added. “His ability to train relentlessly, week in and week out, month after month, without getting tired, never letting things deter him. He has one of the most incredible mindsets of any athlete I’ve ever met.”

Given his physiology, genetic disposition, and relatively new entry into the sport, Andy said he thinks the sky is the limit for Evan – even if less than 1% of the population makes it to the top-tier pro level. “He’s going to get quite a bit stronger,” Andy predicted. “This is the first year of his professional journey… who knows what will happen.”

In terms of his long-term goals with cycling, Evan said his dream would be to win world championships. At the same time, he doesn’t see himself chasing this sport aimlessly. “Where I get to the point where the road ends, I don’t want to force it beyond that,” he said. “I’d like to see where I can get to, but I don’t want to blindly carry on if I’m not really going to get that much better.”

“To be 18 and have that kind of adventure, it’s really cool,” Don acknowledged. “It’s entirely possible he’s good enough that he will be able to continue with cycling, but also, he’s really good at math. I work at the Naval Nuclear Laboratory. I work with a lot of engineers, and Evan reminds me of those guys. They can figure out a problem really well.”

Alex Kochon (alexkochon@gmail.com) of Gansevoort is a freelance writer, editor, and outdoor-loving mom of two who enjoys adventuring in the Adirondacks. A longtime journalist and former ski reporter, she has covered Olympics, world championships, and athletes of all calibers. She shares her passion for sports and recreation as a sales and content contributor for curated.com.