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Cycling Couples: Spalding CC's Dominic and Evgeniya Righini-Brand tell us about their cycling life together.

CTT: Did cycling play a part in you getting together?

DRB: When we met at university neither of us cycled. I had a bike which I had brought from home (Huntingdon), but just used it as a campus runaround! So nothing serious. Evgeniya was a foreign student, so did not have a bike.

CTT: When did you start cycling?

DRB: When we finished university we moved to Moscow where we married and worked until 2014, when we moved to Germany. This is when our cycling journey together began.

I was quitting smoking at the time and so we bought a couple of mountain bikes which we used to explore the local forests and fire roads. It was a fantastic place to ride, with a lot of hills, gravelly trails, castles and WW2 bunkers.

CTT: That sounds like a lot of fun! How long were you in Germany?

DRB: We returned to Britain in late-2015, but it was not until 2019 that we both got into road cycling. Living in Lincolnshire we did not have much use for the mountain bikes, so eventually we both got road bikes and joined the local club. It was here that we were both introduced to time trailing.

Chris Close suggested that I take part in the club’s two-up team time trial, however this was at the beginning of the pandemic and it was cancelled. It was not until the restrictions were lifted that I got to first time trial. Evgeniya started the same year, but a little later.

CTT: So tell us about your first time trial?

DRB: My first time trial was on my winter road bike with clip-on aero bars. It was not until a few time trials later that I first tried a TT bike, borrowed from the late Matthew Everton.

CTT Do you train together much?

DRB: In terms of training I write both of our training plans, but we train separately, unless it’s an easy / fun recovery ride!

CTT: Do you take your bikes on holiday?

DRB: We don’t, mainly because we spend so much time racing that it’s nice to have a few day’s break. For example we recently had a week’s break at the end of our TT season in Southwold and Walberswick, eating fish and chips and hiking.

However racing in the UCI Grand Prix Fondo World Championship last year in Scotland we did take the bikes and had a few days exploring the area. And whilst not a holiday per se, exploring the country for the CTT Classic Series was a lot of fun!

CTT: Is there any rivalry between you two?

DRB: There’s not really any rivalry between us as we kind of function like a team, but we have different targets so things are easy to separate. Cycling for us has become a way of life, and when we are not working we are cycling or training.

Cycling sets our year, much like the seasons. Time trialling for both of us is the main focus, with the bulk of our training in spring. But we also both do some cyclocross for fun and I do some road races (both BC and TLI).

CTT: Do you buy each other much cycling kit? For Christmas and birthdays perhaps?

ERB: We don’t buy any actual cycling kit for each other as presents, but I have a habit of buying books about the cycling history (eg, We Rode All Day) which I’d love to read myself as sort of presents for the both of us.

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