“I’m definitely very excited to get back to the peloton,” the 29-year-old said about his first race of the season, the Tour de la Provence, which begins on Friday. “Races are very motivating for me. My form is improving but it ended up being a 12-week off season so it was quite long. It’s going to be three good, hard days of racing. We’re going with Luke for sprinting ambitions and Michael for the climbing stage. I’ll be there to support the team and hopefully come out of the race better than I went in and want to keep on improving for the rest of the spring.”

Neilson had always planned to start his off season a little earlier than usual, but it ended up also being longer than he had expected.

“I took a longer off season already just to be around to help out with our second baby. Our son, Remy, was born in October so I took five or six weeks off and then towards the end of that, I injured my knee and created tendonitis off the injury so I had to sort of halt my training. It just took a really long time for that to heal. I didn’t need any surgeries but it was just injured in an area that would get agitated even from just walking so it was a difficult one to fix but now it’s all good. I’m four weeks into training and just trying to build my fitness up again. It was better at least that I was injured in November and December than in June or July, but at the same time it pushed my goals back by a couple of months. Originally we weren’t sure how long it was going to take but now we have a pretty clear plan of when we think I can start racing for the win,” he said.

During the three stages of the Tour de la Provence, Neilson will ride in support of new teammates Luke Lamperti and Michael Leonard, and alongside four riders from our development squad, EF Education-Aevolo.

“At Provence, we’re going for stage wins,” Neilson said. “We’ll go for some sprints with Luke on stages one and three. We’ll do everything we can to deliver him to the final K in a competitive place for him to compete for the win. Michael will be our rider for stage two. I think it’s a 15-kilometer climb so all you can do is keep him safe until then and hope that he has the legs in the end. I’ll be there to support him as long as I can but I’m not really expecting to make it through the first 10k of the climb with the leaders. We have clear goals for each day which is the reason why I’m going. I’m not really going for a result myself but it’s really motivating to help my teammates try to achieve a result and help the team. Even if my fitness isn’t great, I think I’ve become a rider who’s able to contribute a lot of value even just by supporting other riders on the team.”

With the majority of the roster hailing from EF Education-Aevolo, Neilson recognizes the importance of development riders racing with their WorldTour counterparts.

“We’ve got Gavin Hlady, Tomos Pattinson, Magnus Carstensen, and Josh Golliker from the development squad,” Neilson said. “I’ve raced with some of the development riders before and we’ve mixed around at some of the team camps. It’s a cool opportunity. I think it’s really valuable for them to be able to compete alongside riders who have been in the WorldTour for a while and just show them how to move around the peloton a bit better and be either good support or a good leader. Hopefully I can share some of my knowledge with them.”

After this weekend’s racing, Neilson will have a couple of weeks to prepare for his first block of the year.

“I’m starting in Provence, and then I’m planning to go race in Italy at Trofeo Laigueglia and then Strade Bianche, Milano-Torino, and Milano-Sanremo. They’re all races that are quite close to where I live in Nice. I can drive to most of them, which is great. After the Italian block, I will head up to Belgium for almost all of the classics. That’s been the most motivating thing for me, being able to compete in the classics, from the Flemish classics to the Ardennes and Roubaix in between. I’m really hoping that by the time I get to the Flemish classics, I’ll be firing on all cylinders and ready to compete for the win. Everything before that, it’s nice if I can reach competitive shape but we’re not really expecting it until I get up to Belgium. We’ve got E3, Dwars Door Vlaanderen, Amstel Gold, Paris-Roubaix, La Flèche Wallonne, and Lèige-Bastogne-Lèige. It’s quite a long block and I’d like to race all of those. I think this time off the bike will just give me more freshness for the classics,” he said.

For Neilson, the biggest challenge of recovering from tendonitis was having to take such an extended period off from sports.

“This is the longest injury I’ve had to come back from. I’ve had minor bouts of tendonitis, but in the past I’ve only needed to take three or four days off and then it would go away. This was the longest time I’ve had to take off and I think it was the longest time in my life I’ve ever taken off from sports so that’s pretty wild. I was always into basketball or cross-country running or swimming or triathlon or mountain biking or, of course, road cycling. I think the hardest point throughout the whole thing wasn’t necessarily reshaping my goals for the season because I know how many races there are in the season. The hardest thing for me was just not having the outlet that I’ve had for the rest of my life,” Neilson explained.

Knowing that it was just a matter of time until he had recovered and would be able to fully train and race again kept him focused and grounded throughout the process.

“I knew this was something that was going to heal, it was just going to take some and that was ok to accept. I didn’t need any surgeries or anything invasive which was great. It just took a long time which was frustrating for life in general but I was pretty accepting about shifting my professional ambitions,” he said.

Until the flag drops on Friday at the Tour de la Provence, Neilson will be counting down the hours.

“Racing is what excites me the most,” he said. “Getting back in the peloton and feeling that camaraderie with the team and going with a real purpose of what you want to get out of the week, all of that is really motivating for me. I like training and I like the process but there’s no rush like a bike race can give you.”