Josh Tarling doesn't remember how many time trials he won as a junior. As he sits opposite Cycling Weekly on a video call, he looks over his laptop screen, hoping to pluck a number out of the office air at British Cycling's Manchester headquarters. It's not that it was that long ago for the Brit, who only turned 20 in February. It's that, quite simply, he has lost count.
"Um," he begins, trying to force his memory. "It sounds bad, but I don't think I lost many… and if I didn't win, there'd be an excuse somewhere."
Since the age of 12, Tarling has been honing the craft of time trialling. In 2022, the year before he turned pro with Ineos Grenadiers, he won nine out of the 10 time trials in which he competed. He then became the European champion the following year, aged just 19, and will make his Olympic debut this Saturday as one of the favourites for gold.
Asked what his ambitions are for Paris, Tarling offers back a one-word response: "Win." It's the same attitude that he has held throughout his young career, a strength of will that took root as early as his first-ever time trial – a two-up he did with his dad, Michael, shortly after his 12th birthday.
"It was the same course as my dad's first TT," the 20-year-old remembers, "so we wanted to do it as a two-up to see if I was any good." The verdict quickly became clear. Even today, his dad jokes, "my legs are still aching".
A keen racer himself, Michael was a constant figure in the local time trial scene. It's thanks to him that Josh's passion for cycling began to grow. How much does he remember from his son's first time trial? "To be fair, quite a bit, because it was horrible," he laughs.
"He started when he was 12, because you have to be 12 to do a TT on open roads. I think it was either late February or early March. It was down in Slimbridge in Gloucestershire, and it was a two-up 25[-mile event] down the A38. It kind of went off around the lanes and back for two laps. It was probably the last time I did a decent turn [riding with Josh], to be honest."
From there, Josh's appetite grew. Still only 12 years old, he signed up to a 100-mile event, set along the carriageways near his home in Aberaeron, West Wales. "It was silly," he remembers. "I wanted to do it. I used to ride for a club and a lot of people used to do it. I think I was the youngest one to do it."
At the time, Michael was preparing for an Ironman event, and entered the time trial as part of his training plan. His son tagged along. "It was a big sausage-shaped circuit," Michael says, "and you do bits of it twice. My parents, and my wife Dawn's parents, and a family friend who was riding, and his family were at various bits along the course. The plan was that [Josh] was going to ride as long as he wanted, and then jump in the car at the next lay-by and come and watch me finish. As it turns out, I didn't finish and he did."
Josh completed the course in four hours, 49 minutes and 14 seconds, with an average speed of 20.7mph. It was, according to Michael, yet another sign of a "determined streak" he first noticed in his son when he was eight years old, battling through a wet and windy sportive in Pembrokeshire.
"We knew pretty much straight away that there was no way he was going to stop," Michael says of that day. "It was like that with the 100-mile TT too. We all assumed that he wasn't going to finish, and because we all assumed that, he was absolutely determined he was going to finish."
Into his teenage years, Josh and his younger brother Fin, now 17 and set to join Israel Premier Tech's development team, became regular competitors in Ystwyth Cycling Club's weekly 10-mile time trial, held on a Wednesday night. It was over this distance that the now Ineos Grenadiers rider first realised his own talent.
"When I did my first club 10 in Wales, I wanted to do sub-30 [minutes], so 20mph, and I think I did like 27 [minutes] or something, so I was quite a bit under," he says. "Then we kept doing them, and kept trying to set little milestones. I think only a couple of years later, we tried to do sub 20."
In 2019, aged 15, Josh broke the juvenile 10-mile record, stopping the clock at 18 minutes and 55 seconds – a speed of 31.7mph. Three years later, his brother Fin broke it again, shaving off 47 seconds on the same course outside Aylesbury. Josh has since managed "low 17s" as a senior over 10 miles, a speed of around 35mph, which he says is "not that fast".
Growing up, Josh ran, swam and did athletics, before settling on cycling. He raced criteriums and road events, most of which ended in a bunch dash to the line. "Josh was never the best sprinter in the country by a long way," his dad says, "so there were a lot of times when he would be quite frustrated".
What really appealed to him was the "all-in" nature of time trialling. "You'd just do one big effort," Josh says. "Strongest wins, and I quite liked that about the TTs."
He would toy with Fin on a Wednesday night, sending his little brother onto the course a minute early to then try and catch him. "He got pretty quick," Josh smiles. "He got further and further into it before I caught him."
For weekend races, which involved trips across the UK, Belgium, France and the Netherlands, the family would bundle into their campervan, together with their pack of Springer Spaniels. The local Wednesday night trips were more straightforward. "We'd probably get McDonald's on the way back," Josh says.
Michael laughs at the memory. "He shouldn't have said that," he says, but doesn't deny the facts. "Often the two of them [Josh and Fin] would ride up, do the 10, and then we would drive back again because it was getting dark, and always stop at McDonald's."
The fastfood chain, it turns out, wasn't only reserved for dinner time. "There's a McDonald's on the way to one of the fast courses in South Wales, so many a Sunday morning breakfast was in McDonald's, and then they'd go and smash a time trial."
Now in the early years of his pro career, Josh has remained vocal in his support of the scene that made him who he is today. His home now is in Andorra, but ahead of last year's National Championships, he returned to the UK to get his eye in with a local 50-mile time trial, which he won by over 25 minutes. He then went on to win the Nationals – a feat he repeated again this June – before taking home a bronze medal from the World Championships in Glasgow.
"I think it's such an advantage that you can get from the UK," he said after his Worlds podium. "There aren't many places where you can pull on a skinsuit on a Wednesday night and just hurt yourself."
As he looks back on those school nights spent racing, Josh has no trouble pinpointing the skills he picked up. "It helped with the engine a lot," he says, "and I feel comfortable on a TT bike. I don't have any problems cornering or sitting in a horrible position. It made me pretty versatile to changes in position."
Back then, he says, he never felt like he was racing against other riders. "You were sort of racing yourself. You've got your own record, your own fastest time, or your fastest time on that course. You just go in for that every time, and a bit faster.
"The by-product is winning the event, if you get me? It was more just about trying to get my fastest time. Now, with the UCI races, it's trying to win the event, but back then it was more about new PBs."
His next race, the Olympic time trial, is all about the win. On Saturday, Josh's family will be by the roadside, as they always are, this time swapping the lumpy Welsh lanes for the boulevards of central Paris. His chances are good; the bookmakers have him as odds-on. Still, perhaps trying to play down expectations, Josh says he doesn't see himself as a favourite.
"I know other people do," he says. "In my eyes, I watch [Filippo] Ganna, and I watch Remco [Evenepoel], and other people as well, like Magnus [Sheffield] and [Brandon] McNulty and Wout [van Aert], and I almost don't link myself to their level.
"Any pressure will be put on by me to do the performance rather than, 'I'm a favourite, I need to win,'" Josh says. He pauses. "I just want to win," he adds with a smile.
The Olympic men's time trial begins at 15:32 BST on Saturday 27 July, and counts a flat 32.4km course.
