At 28, Nathan Earle is approaching his peak years as an athlete. At 28, he is also facing the possibility of retiring from the sport of cycling with no contract forthcoming for the former Team Sky rider.
Earle spent the 2016 season with Pro-Continental squad Drapac, who are merging with the WorldTour Cannondale team from 2017, and having been unable to secure a place in the new set up finds himself team less and facing an uncertain future.
Drapac teammates Graeme Brown, Travis Meyer, Adam Phelan and Bernard Sulzberger will all retire at the end of 2016 and Earle is hoping a strong Australian summer can help him avoid hanging up his wheels for a few years yet.
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"Quite simple really, train well and look after myself and so everything right so that I turn up to nationals and ride my arse off," Earle told Cyclingnews of his plans to continue his career. "Assuming nothing pops up in December team wise, I will be team less for 2017 which is the first time I have ever raced nationals without a team at all. I don't really see the nationals course as being a problem. If you are strong and fit you are going to be there or you are not really. I'll just fly under the radar hopefully but who knows. If I am good enough, I should be there as it's quite a natural selection kind of course. It's all positive thoughts. Nothing daunting or scary. Just work hard and go there and be the best that I can be."
Earle's last race in the red Drapac colours came back in July at the Volta a Portugal, flying out of Lisbon a matter of of hours after the final stage back home to Tasmania. At the time, Earle didn't think it would be his last race for Drapac as he was hoping for starts at Tour des Fjords, Tour du Limousin, or Tour of Hainan and Abu Dhabi Tour which was provisionally on the team race calendar. However, with the team merger Earle explained that there was a plan of sharing around the racing between the riders.
"It was a bit of an anti-climax really, there wasn't any feeling that this was my last race and there wasn't any 'I won't see any of you guys again' because maybe I will, maybe I won't but I kind of thought I would. I got home and realised, that's it. I am not doing Hainan and so it was kind of all over," he said. "I didn't have any time around the team to say bye or have any feelings in that regard. Which I guess is nice to be in front of everyone and say thanks and wish them all the best but it is just the way it goes."
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