Making memories afresh

As a super-ambitious young racer, Tom Townsend devoted himself to chasing results – until two serious crashes forced a change in perspective

- David Bradford

In 2018, his last year at school, Tom Townsend added 80 watts to his threshold power and only A-levels stood in the way of his making a serious tilt at bike racing. By summer 2019, school was finally out and he was free to unscrew the lid on his teenage ardour. “That season I went from fourth-cat to second-cat and raced a few National Bs,” says the 22-year-old, speaking to me by video call from his living room in High Wycombe. “But then the first crash wiped me out.”

The last thing Townsend remembers is riding along near Henley an hour before the crash; his next memory is waking up in hospital two days later. “I had a neck brace on, and I remember thinking, ‘What on earth is going on?’ I had broken my neck, both my cheekbones, my pelvis and my collarbone, and initially the doctors had no idea whether I was going to be a vegetable or be mentally fine.”

First blood

It turned out a car had pulled across Townsend’s path and the impact, recorded by his Garmin at 30mph, had knocked him unconscious for more than 20 minutes. He was airlifted to hospital where scans revealed he had sustained a traumatic brain injury with multiple haemorrhages and a very uncertain prognosis. “Over the next few days and weeks, I was telling everyone I was fine – that my brain was OK – but my parents weren’t convinced,” he shrugs. “I had just signed for Vredestein-Basso [now Stolen Goat RT], so I was eager to rebuild over the winter – I had a carrot to aim for.”