Just Abi

In the last in our series on the surge of excellent young British female riders, Owen Rogers talks to 2022 World Tour debutant Abi Smith

- Owen Rogers

Abi Smith has quite a lot going on. When she’s not busy dominating the UK domestic racing calendar as she did in 2021, she’s either playing one of multiple instruments, painting or simply nerding out. Though the 19-year-old’s WorldTour cycling career at EF Education-Tibco is in its first months she’s already drawing up plans for university for when she hangs up her wheels. Maybe her biology A-level will aid a medicine degree. Her overall athletic prowess made PE an obvious A-level, and she links her geography studies to mapping her rides, studying wind direction and being outside.

“I’m really nerdy about it. Well I am really nerdy,” Smith laughs when CW speaks with her. She plays piano and viola, and one look at her painting of the Ribblehead Viaduct on her noncycling Instagram feed (abijesmith.art) is proof of her artistic excellence.

“That took about a million hours, but landscapes are definitely my forte. I like to do places I’ve been or want to go.” She’s even turned her artistic bent to cycling, with occasional forays into Strava art; her 62-mile Flamingo Fun ride from June 2020 is our favourite.

“Art takes a long time, similar to cycling,” Smith tells CW. “So when I finished school it was either art or sport and I chose sport, which thankfully has gone quite well.”

Quite well is an understatement. The GP Ecostruct in May 2021 was her first race in 13 months and her debut senior UCI event. There, riding for Great Britain, she attacked a strong international bunch, bridged to a breakaway, dropped them all, only to be caught inside the final kilometre. She still hung on for a top 20 place.