Paddy Bevin’s first Instagram post in more than two and a half years was a big one. “Today marks the end of an era, my last day as a professional cyclist,” the 33-year-old New Zealander wrote on November 1. After nearly 15 years spent racing his bike, the last nine of it at the WorldTour level, Bevin is leaving the sport behind.
His reason for retiring wasn’t clear from his Instagram post. And Bevin was actually contracted with DSM-Firmenich PostNL through the end of 2025. But as it turns out, a recurring heart issue is to blame for Bevin retiring earlier than he’d planned.
As first reported by Escape at the 2024 Tour Down Under, it was a heart condition that saw Bevin miss a significant portion of the 2023 season. And while doctors told him the issue was unlikely to return after an ablation in June 2023, the reality was quite different. As you’ll read below, it was shortly after racing the 2024 Tour Down Under and returning to Europe that Bevin started noticing the arrhythmia again, ultimately leading to his early retirement.
Bevin’s career has been an intriguing one. After several years spent racing with the Bissell Continental team in the US in the early 2010s, the Kiwi really started turning heads with Australia’s dominant domestic setup, the Avanti Racing Team, in late 2014 and 2015. By 2016 he was in the WorldTour with Cannondale-Drapac, a versatile rider trying to find his niche. In the years since, he’s proven to be a flexible and malleable allrounder – a hard-working domestique at times, the best-remaining sprinter in some hilly races, and a time-trialling specialist at others.
When Bevin spoke to Escape a few days ago, he was at his wife Abbie’s parents’ house in Te Awamutu in the centre of New Zealand’s North Island. He and Abbie are house-hunting, having moved back to New Zealand from Andorra less than a week ago. In the conversation you can read below, Bevin reflects on his early retirement, how he looks back on his career, and what might be next.
Matt de Neef: The last time we spoke was at the Tour Down Under in January and you were talking about your heart stuff and how you were on the improve. You did a bunch of races in February and then I don’t think you raced after Volta a Catalunya in March, right?
Paddy Bevin: I didn’t really race [Milan-]San Remo or Catalunya either. It [the heart condition] kind of flared up. At TDU I was talking a big game, everything was alright, and I kind of got back to Europe and wasn’t right. And it pretty quickly was apparent that, yeah, it was still there.
It kind of came up in the middle of a race block, and the team [DSM-Firmenich PostNL] … I was there, so they needed a body to sign on. And so those last couple of races I didn’t even race. Just had to kind of tick the box. I really never got to race again in Europe. Did the TDU and, yeah, got back to Europe, and it kind of started to crumble a bit there and that was the beginning of the end.
MdN: Was it the same issue as before, the Persistent Premature Ventricular Contraction?
PB: More or less, to keep it really simple. When we last spoke, I’d been through the ringer the year before and because I’d done so much with the cardiac stuff, the second something was there again, I pretty much knew that was going to be lights out.
You can absolutely chase these things around and get another ablation and do that. But even coming back last year, I’d spoken to Abbie, my wife, and I was kind of like, “Man, I only want to carry on if I’m good, you know? I’m not going to risk too much here with the cardiac stuff.” So once it did come back, it was a pretty swift process to just kind of put an exit plan in place.
MdN: So that would have been March this year?
PB: Pretty much by the end of March I knew I was done, and we just worked it out with the team.
MdN: How did the team handle it when you said you were done?
PB: They’re really good about it. Basically, I still had another year on my contract, and I just spoke to Rudi [Kemna, the team’s head coach – ed.] honestly, and I was like, “Look man, I’m not interested in not being any good,” because I was obviously not the same rider. And that may have come back, but with any kind of cardiac stuff, when you’re kind of that nervous about it, you’re like, “This isn’t going to work.” And they were really good.
I needed to do a bit of stuff when I was there. Obviously the doctor was heavily involved when it first started coming back, and we were monitoring it. And then I had another cardiologist, the cardiologist I’d seen in Andorra – I saw him again, and he sent me back to the specialist. We went through that process really fast, but yeah, the crux of it was it was a personal choice to kind of not pursue too much.
I’m 33. If I was 23 it might have been a different story. But yeah, 33 and I’d had a couple of goes at that point with cardiac stuff [Bevin also missed the 2020 Tour Down Under with a heart issue – ed.]. I was like, “Look, I’m not going to be the athlete you signed.” And I wasn’t interested in just riding around the back for a paycheck for almost two years at that point.
So they were really, really good about it. They agreed and so I didn’t race through to October, and the contract finished on the 31st of October.
MdN: How did you feel coming to that decision to retire? Was it a pretty easy one?
PB: Honestly, it wasn’t that hard. It didn’t come out of the blue. If it had come out of the blue and it was something that’s going to end your career, then it probably would have been a very different story. But having gone through last year, I knew deep down inside that I was probably on my last go round with the health stuff.
Cardiac stuff is scary no matter what it is. And they keep telling me I’m OK, there’s no immediate danger, but as a professional athlete, if you want to be out there 30 hours a week, on the limit, it’s a slightly different story.
So honestly, for a while, I felt like I was just putting a brave face on it, and I didn’t really know inside. But as it kind of played out as the year went on, I didn’t really have any wobbles or was like “I’ll go to the bitter end of this.” I was pretty happy if I could turn around and walk away with my health at the end of it.
I stopped training. I didn’t touch the bike for quite a long time, just to give the body a rest and then everything kind of settled down. And actually, in the last few months, I’ve done a little bit of riding, and I’ve really enjoyed it. I like being out on the bike. And so at the end of the day, if I put it on balance, and I say, “Look, I exited, not how I wanted to exit, of course, but I finished my career with my health – I can go about life normally now,” then that’s probably the best-case scenario, given the the cards I had in February and March.
MdN: What have you been doing with your time since March?
PB: For a while it was a bit funny – we had to go through the medical stuff. It still took some time. And then there was a period where the team was like, “Cool. You’re still on the books. If we need you for some sponsor stuff, activation stuff, then you kind of have to be on call for that.” So that was all good.
I just kind of hung around. And it was nice to have a bit of a decompression where we weren’t rushing around and we were just kind of living in Andorra, enjoying the time in the mountains, the easy times there. And then, as the year went on, we had to start the process of exiting a residency and a life that we’d spent nine years living there. That takes time.
By the end of the year we did a bit of travel. Things like the America’s Cup was in Barcelona. We got to go and see that, and got to hang out in Barcelona quite a bit, actually. It was nice to jump in the car and drive down to one of the most beautiful cities in the world. But between that and just a life in Andorra, just enjoying being part of that was really the last three months.
MdN: How long do you think you spent off the bike in total?
PB: Without touching the bike there – probably only three or four months. And then you’re kind of like, “Well, a certain amount of exercise is healthy.” So it was just trying to figure out what was the healthy amount.
MdN: Were you given any recommendations about the riding you should or shouldn’t do? Or can you basically do everything you want?
PB: The cardiologist in Andorra, he was pretty good about it. When I came back into his office he said, “I didn’t want to see you again.” He was like, “Yeah, you probably should really consider stopping [racing professionally].” And he was like, “Look, you can ride; we’ll figure it out.”
The specialist in Barcelona was a little more open. They were like “If something causes symptoms, then obviously you’re not going to do it.” So then it was just purely, what’s the minimum amount I can do just to be healthy and enjoy it and go to the cafe and do that kind of stuff? There’s no real hard recommendations.
MdN: Do you get any symptoms at all now, either in daily life or if you’re on the bike?
PB: Actually no. I had quite a few through the first part of the year, and then, as I took the time off and was careful with my health and all those things … The last couple of months, none. So that was kind of the best-case scenario where, like, look, it’s probably something that’ll have to be sorted out, possibly. I don’t know if it goes away forever. No one was that keen on saying, “Oh, it’ll just go away.” But at the moment, nothing.
MdN: You spoke before about how you’ve had to come to terms with the fact that these are just the cards you’ve been dealt. But how do you look back on the last couple years of your career? From the outside, it looks like it’s been pretty frustrating.
PB: Yeah, no, I’m not particularly fond of the last couple of years. Absolutely not. Nothing good about it, on the bike at all. And yeah, I think that might have played into it when it [the arrhythmia] came back, because I’d kind of been through that for six months the year before, and it’s like, “Well, this is unsustainable, isn’t it?”
MdN: And how do you look back on your career more generally? Because you’ve had some great success in there, and a lot to be proud of. Do you see it that way, or is it kind of clouded by how the last couple years have been?
PB: No, it’s actually not clouded. There are elements of my career that I’m very proud of, and the way it stopped – no one wants to finish like that. It’s a horrendous way to watch your career circle the drain for 18 months. I don’t wish that upon anyone. But at the end of the day, for me, it didn’t change what happened before. And I was really lucky there were some results, some milestones in there that I am really proud of, and I have those, and that was my career more than what happened in the last 18 months.
MdN: What are the moments that you look back on most fondly, or the things that you’re most proud of?
PB: The most important to me were the Olympics. So I did Tokyo. OK, it was a COVID Olympics. It was weird. I had this really lonely build-up. Because we couldn’t get to wind tunnels I’m out in Andorra doing roll-down tests by myself in the valley off the mountain, with equipment, with tyres, with wheels, and I had this really lonely, very individual build-up. And then, the Olympics roll around.
Growing up in New Zealand, I didn’t grow up with cycling. I didn’t grow up in a cycling family. So you always have a soft spot for the Olympics. And I got to go to the Olympics, and I went there, and I was 10th on the day. And it wasn’t an absolutely perfect day. But with all the data we have, I can look back and say, “Man, if I had really had a real top day, I might have been seventh or eighth.” And you look back and say, “Well, seventh or eighth or 10th, it doesn’t really move the needle.”
The Olympics is a very hard thing to do. So as an athlete, that was a very cathartic experience, where you were like, “OK, that’s how good I was in that realm.” As an athlete, I would have been really disappointed to stop without having that. There’ll always be what-ifs – no matter what you do, there’ll be what-ifs. But to go through that process and be like, “Well, that’s where it was. You’re 10th at the Olympics.”
Personally, it might not have been my best result on paper, but internally, that was one that really sticks out in my mind, where I was like, “I had that experience, and I wouldn’t trade it for the world.”
MdN: That’s awesome. Are there any wins that stand out?
PB: It was nice to win a stage at Romandie [in 2022 – ed.], because it was a genuine WorldTour race. I picked up some other small results – a stage win at Down Under [2019] and a tour win in Türkiye [2022] are nice results. But I would always say Romandie is one of the proper WorldTour-tier races and that was a good one to have.
And then outside of that was a few second places in the years before in the time trials that I really would have loved to convert to a win. There was a Vuelta stage [second to Primož Roglič at the 2019 edition – ed.], there was a California stage [second behind Tejay Van Garderen in 2018 – ed.], there was a Basque Country stage [also second to Roglič in 2018 – ed.]. I was like, second in all of them. I missed the podium at Worlds by about two seconds that year.
So there’s definitely a certain amount of “nearly there” results, but where I was at the time and what I was doing, they were genuine results for about as far as I could take my physiology. So I was pretty proud of some of those as well.
MdN: What about the 2019 Tour Down Under where you won that stage, were leading overall, then had that bad crash on the second-last day?
PB: *Laughing* I could have done without crashing. That’s bike racing, though. We went into that race and it wasn’t even on the radar for the team [CCC – ed.] to be anywhere near the front of that race. So to be there was … look, I would have much rather have won it *laughs* but that’s life, that’s bike racing. I’ve always loved that race. I really have but no I don’t lose any sleep over that.
MdN: What do you think you’ve learned about yourself over the journey?
PB: I am a better human being coming out of my cycling career than when I went into my cycling career. It depends on how you want to measure it. But honestly, I left school on a gap year to go to the States to race my bike, much to my parents’ dismay that I was not going to university. I had no idea what I was doing. It was a really cool experience.
The person that you come out the other side as – you’ve just had so many life experiences, you’ve lived in foreign countries, with foreign languages, with all of that, foreign cultures, and you deal with all of that. And then, outside of that, I kind of bounced around a lot with the type of rider I was, which made my career quite hard. You found yourself being thrown into races last minute.
But I felt like there were times where I enjoyed being and was a good teammate. I enjoyed that side of it. And then going back to when you were talking about the results, I was part of a team time trial team that won a Tour stage [at the 2018 Tour with BMC – ed.]. And I look back at that, and I was like, “I was an integral part of that team time trial team.” I wasn’t even on the long list. I went to that Tour for that stage.
Outside of your personal results you want to be good in a team. And I felt like I survived nine years in the WorldTour because you generally got on with the job and you were someone that could be relied upon to try and do the job as best you can.
MdN: I was watching highlights from the 2015 Herald Sun Tour earlier where you won that uphill finish on Arthurs Seat. And it got me thinking about how versatile a rider you’ve always been. Steep uphill finishes like that, you and Caleb Ewan fighting for stage wins in Korea later that year, then the time-trialling stuff later on. Do you think that versatility in your riding was one of the things that allowed you to be in the sport for so long? Or do you think that maybe you would have had more success if you had specialised in one thing the whole way through?
PB: I think as an athlete, it makes your life quite hard [being versatile]. I came to the sport late, I came out of Australia, after being in the US, came back to Australia, and I kind of got to Europe, and was like … they just had no idea. You didn’t race in Europe. You had no credentials in Europe. Even to my very last year, every year I’d just dread the December calendar meeting when they’re talking about your race schedule, because you’ve just got no idea. Everyone has got the best idea for you, you know?
It definitely made it really hard. It definitely made it easier at contract time, because you could fit into whatever they wanted – you were whoever they wanted you to be *laughing*. But yeah, deep down inside it probably really did hamstring results along the way. Especially with race programs – you’ve got the idea you’re going to this race, and then you get a phone call on a Wednesday to be on a plane on Thursday for a race you had no idea you were doing. I would say it was better later in my career than earlier in my career. Race programs started to get much more set. But I just remember my first couple of years, I thought there was just someone spinning a wheel in the service course being like “Where is he going to go?”
I feel like I would have benefited from focusing on the time-trialling earlier. I had the physiology, but didn’t have the aero; didn’t have that kind of package. Your results were coming on pure grunt, not really any kind of time trial finesse. And I think there was probably potential earlier on. If that had been jumped upon there might have been a bit more space there.
But no, look for career longevity, it [versatility] was an absolute blessing. For the rest of it, it made my life quite hard.
MdN: What’s next for you now?
PB: I would really like to go into agriculture, back to the farm. I grew up on a farm. My parents are still there. I would like to be somewhere in that realm. That’s not an easy transition *laughing* – that’s going to take some time, and we don’t really know how that looks. There’s 1,000 options out there, but that’s where I’d like to go next. But we’ve got some time up our sleeves.
MdN: What sort of farming do your folks do?
PB: Dry stock.
MdN: What’s that?
PB: Beef. Finishing beef.
MdN: Does that sort of thing interest you or are you just keeping your options open?
PB: I spent 15 years getting as far away from the farm as I could. You’re a different person when you come home than when you left. And that’s very healthy. No, my options are very open. It’s a huge industry in New Zealand, especially where we are. My wife’s from Te Awamutu. I’m from Taupō. They’re an hour and a half apart, and there’s nothing but ag in between. It’s that kind of area, but it’s a very big transition. So it’s just one of those things that I would like to see work, but we’re just working through how that could look.
MdN: You should have a chat to your former teammate Will Clark. He’s gotten back into farming too.
PB: Ah, Wilbur! Yeah, yeah he did.
MdN: What does your wife do?
PB: She finished study while we were in Europe. She’s got a Master’s in psychology, and she has basically just got to do a registration, and she can be a qualified clinical psych, and that’s what she’s going to do.
MdN: Very cool. Looks like you two are set for a brand new chapter.
PB: Yep. The thing about cycling was, it’s sport – it was always going to end. And we were lucky where we were always going to come home. There was never a question whether we were going to stay in Europe, whether we were going to stay in cycling and do the DS thing or coaching or whatever. That was never on the cards. There was a finish date. It was earlier than we would have thought or hoped. But that also makes the transition to moving home easier. It was going to happen and it was always the plan.
MdN: That’s all the questions I had. Was there anything you wanted to add, or reflect on before we wrap up?
PB: I was very fortunate with the NRS [National Road Series] in Australia to end up with Avanti, with ACJ [Andrew Christie-Johnston] and Steve [Price] and Neil [Walker] running that team. I wouldn’t be where I got to without them. I absolutely loved that experience. I had already bounced around a bit before I ended up there, but that was kind of the catalyst. I really hope that that pathway in the future will continue in Australia, with the NRS, no matter how it looks, no matter what it’s called.
I often reflect on that being kind of the moment where my career really started. I’d done a few years in the States before that, having fun and kind of just on a wild ride. And so I was very fortunate to have that. That’s an element where I’m really thankful for them and for the work they did.
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