The Tour de l'Avenir is certainly one of the peaks in his season, but Colin Joyce can't refrain from doing his favourite joke in the peloton. The 21-year-old American, seventh in the first stage on Sunday, a round face with impish eyes, tells Cyclingnews he might do one of his favourite pranks in the coming days: "I tap the other side of my teammates and they think it's someone else!"
It goes without saying he never jokes like this in tense moments, too close to the finish line, but these 'kind thoughts' can help to enjoy the long days on a bike, like Sunday's ride at the 'L'Avenir': 192-kilometres of racing and 9 kilometres of a neutralised start.
"Colin is a super nice guy, the comedian of the team," smiles Mike Sayers, the sports director of the United States' national squad of the Under 23s.
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On March 28, 2014, nobody was in the mood for laughing, at the Volta ao Alentejo. During stage 3 of this UCI 2.2 event in the south of Portugal, Joyce was part of a big crash on a descent. "A horrific crash, everyone in the team was crying for him after the race," Sayers recalls. His rider broke both his leg and wrist, and could only come back to a UCI race in early August of that year.
"This is definitely one of my less favourite moments in cycling," Joyce says. "But it was also a bit of beneficial learning. This is not easy because we are always in the 'washing machine': food, recovery, training and we don't do anything else... So I try now to enjoy life a bit more. We are in Europe right now, participating to the Tour de l'Avenir: not everyone with 21 [years of age] can travel to Europe."
Raised in Pocatello, Idaho, in the Rocky Mountains, Joyce had a first successful trip to Ireland in 2012 where he won the UCI international tour. He had started cycling two years before after a few ankle injuries in soccer, his former discipline -- he still snowboards, though, but says he doesn't do big jumps anymore.
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