Twenty-nine-year-old cyclist Aaron Gate has slipped back into the world of track cycling like pulling on a well-worn glove.

After two years focused on life as a pro road rider in Europe, Gate has returned to the track with staggering results during the recent World Cup campaign in Glasgow, Cambridge and Brisbane.

He played a key role in the near-national record effort by the Vantage New Zealand men’s team pursuit and paired with Campbell Stewart to win the madison in Cambridge before dominating the omnium on Australian turf before joining with Tom Sexton to win silver in the madison.

It has been a massive three weeks for Gate, wife Kirstie and four month old son Axel with success on the boards, and also the announcement that he has signed with the exciting new Black Spoke professional continental team, backed by Kiwi businessman Murray Bolton and run by well-known former professionals Scott and Vanessa Guyton.

“It’s really exciting to be back as part of a very successful Vantage team for the last three World Cup rounds. It’s been a fantastic week and I’ve been happy with my performances as well individually and looking forward to hopefully making the team for worlds and on to Tokyo as well,” said Gate.

“The transition has been a lot smoother than what I was expecting. I have been doing what I could to prepare over the last few months to bridge some of the gaps that I knew would be there in terms of power, strength and standing start work.

“I have been trying to complement that in the gym and some of the training efforts from my personal coach, Simon Finnell, to make sure those gaps were minimised as much as possible and I’ve been really well looked after by the Cycling New Zealand team since I’ve come back in.”

Gate, the 2013 omnium world champion, has mixed life on the track with the benefits of road racing, initially signing up with the Irish An Post-Chain Reaction team, before signing with pro continental team Aqua Blue Sport until they folded in 2018 and this year with EvoPro Racing, which has also folded.

“I knew quite early on what the new format of the omnium requires so it was good to take a couple of years away from the track and work on my aerobic endurance on the road. It is nice to come back into a great team and deliver what I have gained physiologically over the last two years for the team pursuit and the other events.

“I prefer the new format with bunch racing. I had a taste of it when I came back early in 2017 and did the new format for the first time at Worlds when I was second to Benjamin Thomas, the Frenchman, who won that year when it all came down to the last sprint.”

But he was initially reticent about how life back on the track would pan out.

“I have to say watching the Worlds early this year was hard when we were out in the first round of the team pursuit with a very young and inexperienced squad. I had been away from the TP for a while, we had some injuries, some illness and some ineligible in terms of UCI points. It meant we had a really young team thrown together. I was standing trackside and watched the Aussies set the new world record, I thought this is looking pretty challenging for Tokyo.

“Now we are challenging that time and the boys were only 0.2s off the world record in Brisbane which is bloody exciting and puts us in really good stead in terms of Tokyo to be really challenging for that gold medal not just across the Team pursuit but we have also shown with Campbell in the omnium and the madison as well. I am bloody excited about what is to come.”

CAPTION: Aaron Gate celebrates during the omnium at the Tissot UCI Track World Cup in Brisbane. (Photo credit: Guy Swarbrick).