Neah Evans admits that she would have liked a little longer to recover from the Commonwealth Games than she has been afforded.

The 27-year-old from Aberdeenshire has only been home from Australia for a couple of weeks but already, she is back in the thick of elite racing.

Today, Evans lines up in the two-day Tour de Yorkshire and having spent her entire winter on the track in preparation for Gold Coast 2018, at which she collected a silver and a bronze medal in the velodrome, she admits she is somewhat apprehensive about beginning her road season already, despite finishing in eighth place in the Commonwealth Games road race.

“All of my winter training has been focused on the track and the road race in Gold Coast was probably the longest ride I’ve done this year so I wasn’t even sure if I would ride Yorkshire,” the Storey Racing rider said.

“But I decided that I’d clear my head, get over Gold Coast and go again so it’s going to be a shock to the system I think.

“I’m just going to see how it goes, I’ve not set myself any targets. I can’t go in with any expectations or hopes. And this year, with it being two days, I know it's going to hurt a lot. But it should be fun and kick-starts my road season with a big event.”

Evans’ two medals in Gold Coast in the scratch race and the points race contributed to Scotland’s impressive total of ten medals on the track and while she admits she was delighted with her final medal haul, she is struggling to shake those inevitable thoughts of ‘what if’.

“I’m really happy to have come away with medals - that was my main target so to get two was fantastic,” she said.

“Although the more you think about it, the more you think if, but and maybe. I find it really easy to be super-critical of my results so I’m trying not to get drawn into that and remembering that I did everything I could on the day. I need to try not to be too hard on myself.”

Evans would, she admits, have liked slightly longer than she has had to enjoy her success of Commonwealth Games but she has spent the past fortnight doing everything she can to get herself ready for today’s Tour de Yorkshire while at the same time recovering both physically and mentally from the strain that inevitably accompanies a major championship.

“I got off the plane from Australia and the next day I went for a road ride and then the following day, I was in the gym,” she said.

“I think that’s because when you’ve got so much momentum from training so hard, you feel rubbish when you’re not training. It’s about getting that balance of recovering both mentally and physically but also being very aware that the road season is right here and so we didn’t have the luxury of having two weeks off to lie on a beach before getting back into training.

"So you need to be smart about things and make sure I’m doing enough but still maximising my recovery.”

Evans has had an interesting journey to this point of her career having only become a full-time athlete only a couple of years ago.

She has established herself as a hugely formidable track rider and admits that she sometimes views the road as a necessary evil.

The stylistic differences in the two disciplines are, for her anyway, significantly but she is too smart not to realise that even if the road can be something of a struggle at times, the positives she can glean from it are huge.

“There’s something about the track that I love and even when I’m having a bad day, I still enjoy it,” she said.

“I get that when I train on the road but not really when I race on the road. I find road racing frustrating because the races can be quite on-off and often, they come down to a bunch sprint at the end so it comes down to who’s been the laziest during the stage.

“That’s a different mindset from how I like to race but it’s something I need to get on board with and just accept that’s road racing.

“But I’m able to look at it as it will help me massively on the track - this summer is going to give me such a good fitness base to work from next year so it means that when I go into the track season, I don’t really need to think about my fitness because it should be in a very good place from the road season.”

Also on the start line today will be Evans’ compatriots Katie Archibald, who rides for Wiggle High 5, and Rhona Callander, who will ride for GB, well as Olympic road race champion, Anna van der Breggen from the Netherlands while in the men’s race, Mark Cavendish is the star name alongside three-time Tour de France stage winner Sylvain Chavanel and Olympic road champion Greg Van Avermaet.