Ciao, Grand Tour season is here!

Greetings fair cycling fans, how the heck are you all? Summer has come early to northern Europe, and with it we are seeing plenty of racing, and somehow, goodness knows how it’s humanly possible that we’re here already – but it’s only the bloody Giro d’Italia today? Grand Tour season is well underway already with the women’s Vuelta this week which has been excellent so far, and all in all, it just feels like we’re beginning to bite into the juicy middle of cycling season, with all its delicious climbs and long, luxurious stage races to dine out on for the next few months. Happy days.

I’ve gone a little light on news in this edition as quite honestly, I’ve meant to send it out like, every day this week, but other stuff keeps getting in the way, and I’ve found it easier to keep up with the racing than the news – so if there are any glaring omissions, headline-wise, well, oops. Sorry about that.

Anyway yadda yadda LET’S GET HYPED FOR THE GIRO!

ON THE WEBSITE

A brilliant piece to sit down and savour - Mathieu Fraisse takes a trip down memory lane, revisiting the best stages in Giro history, by number, to build the ultimate Giro d’Italia for the ages. Plenty of nostalgia and video clips to enjoy here so take some time out and enjoy!

And I reflect on the races I loved in the Ardennes block in this piece on my Substack

ON THE POD

The podcast is back! We return after a bit of a hiatus to bring you a round-up of the Ardennes and a look ahead to the Giro, considering the main contenders and generally having a good old catch up. Have a listen ahead of the Grande Partenza in Albania!

NEWS! NEWS! HERE IS SOME NEWS!

Top story: Caleb Ewan retires

In a shock move, the Aussie pocket rocket sprinter posted a long and heartfelt statement on his Instagram on Tuesday announcing he is retiring from pro cycling, effective immediately. He thanked INEOS for allowing him to finish his career on a high – he returned to winning ways this season after what was a bit of a low period for him last season. Tributes to Caleb flooded social media from various races, teams and teammates, and though he’ll be missed, it’s great that he was able to bow out on his own terms.

OTHER STORIES:

Contract extensions abound!

Pre-Giro, there’s been a spate of contract extension announcements, presumably to lessen press speculation and allow riders to focus on the job at hand as they prepare to kick things off in Albania this weekend. Among the headlines, Adam Yates has extended with UAE Team Emirates until 2028, Mikel Landa with Soudal-QuickStep for one year, and Silvain Dillier and Oskar Riesebeek with Alpecin-Deceuninck, who also promote Aaron Dockx and Lennert Belmans to their World Tour team in 2026.

Jonas Vingegaard opts for less racing in Tour build-up!

Following his crash at the Volta Catalunya, Jonas Vingegaard is back on his bike, but confirmed last week that he would not race prior to the Criterium du Daphine – this will be his only race before the Tour de France as once again, he opts for a schedule light on race days.

Tour of Britain Women news!

The routes and teams have been confirmed for the upcoming Tour of Britain women. Four stages across the north-east of England and Scotland will be taken on by 18 teams – the biggest field in the race’s history – and featuring the most World Tour teams that we’ve ever had gracing our shores, including Team SD Worx, Lidl-Trek, Movistar and Canyon//SRAM. The race will centre on the north-east of England and south of Scotland across four stages, from June 5-8.

Another race, another idiot ‘fan’!

The occurrences of fans pulling stupid stunts shows no sign of easing this season. At Liege-Bastogne-Liege women, Fenix-Deceuninck’s Pauliene Rooijakkers found a man dressed in full UAE Team Emirates kit suddenly on her wheel – the fan rodeo not the the course and followed Rooijakkers closely as she attacked in the late stages of the race, a stupid and somewhat creepy way to get yourself on television. Can we PLEASE just leave the riders alone?

Red Bull Kilometre promises surprise in Rome!

The Giro d’Italia has a new competition in 2025 – the Red Bull Kilometre. Basically replacing the intermediate sprint competition, the sprint points will be fought for separate to the ciclamino jersey competition, with Red Bull promising a special surprise for the overall winner of the standing when the race arrives in Rome on 1 June.

Kooij to Decathlon likely, Jorgenson extends with Visma, while transfer rumour mill begins…

Yes, it’s silly season in cycling again, as the transfer rumours begin apace with the approach of the Grand Tours. While no deals can officially be made until 1^st August, this is the time when all the hard work is going on behind the scenes, with agents and team managers presumably waving their hands around wildly and shouting a lot as negotiations and counter-offers and probably a bit of last minute gazumping (remember gazumping?!) give all of us fans plenty to speculate about even though we have quite enough going on with all the racing, thank you very much.

The biggest name on the move in terms of status is 23-year-old sprinter Olav Kooij. While it looked possible that he might extend at Visma-Lease A Bike, Daniel Benson reported a number of teams with an interest in securing his signature, and with his desire to ride the Tour de France, it looks like he will depart the Dutch team. On 1 May Benson reported that Decathlon look to be the team leading the charge in terms of signing Kooij – it’s also been reported that they are close to signing Tiesj Benoot.

It's not all outgoings for Visma, as Matteo Jorgenson is one of the early riders to nail his colours to the mast, extending his contract with the team. He’s been a valuable asset since joining at the beginning of 2024; a versatile rider capable of making an impact both in the Classics and in stage racing, he’s arguably one of the best signings in recent seasons and his potential is huge. He’s also a vital cog in the team given the ongoing illness of Christophe Laporte, the glass collarbone of Dylan van Baarle and the aforementioned potential exit of Tiesj Benoot.

Stay tuned for a rumour round-up in every newsletter!

OH HAPPY DAY!

Celebrating the lighter side of the sport…

Fun bits for you this edition include:

1) UAE Team ADQ’s unique preparation for the Vuelta team time trial:

uaeteam_adq

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2. Bastian Tronchon (Decathlon-AG2R) riding around on a tiny bike being assisted by a giant ram (you might need to scroll through for this one)

3. Wout van Aert guessing cobbled climbs, blindfolded:

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ROAD RACING RESULTS ROUND-UP

The classics are over! Madness, I tell you. Since I last wrote to you, the Ardennes racing block has come and gone, with plenty to report on, and we’ve returned to stage racing in Europe, and begun our first Grand Tour if you please!

Here are all the results and reports from around the races.

Amstel Gold Race (20 Apr) saw two surprise winners – Mischa Bredewold (Team SD Worx-ProTime) and Mattias Skjelmose (Lidl-Trek). This race is always a highlight of the Ardennes racing block and it didn’t disappoint this time around, either. At the time of writing it was a few weeks back, and as such I’m not going to go into any detail about the races, aside from saying that in each case, it was not one of the pre-race favourites who went on to triumph.

In the women’s race, Bredewold got away with a group of riders and managed to stay clear, beating Ellen van Dijk at the final, while Skjelmose attacked in pursuit of Tadej Pogačar, was joined by Remco Evenepoel, and in a thrilling slow-motion chase they eventually caught the Slovenian. Pretty unheard of right? If that wasn’t exciting enough, in the final sprint, the Danish rider was able to hold off the combined might of the world and Olympic champion to take an amazing victory.

Watch this video of the contrasting approaches of the men and the women to the customary podium beers:

La Flèche Wallonne (24 Apr) – Tadej Pogačar doesn’t miss twice – the UAE Team Emirates rider made mincemeat of the Mur de Huy to take his second victory at Flèche Wallonne in two years, with the kind of uphill speed that a motorbike would envy. Kévin Vauquelin scored second place for the year running, proving that he really knows how to handle a wall.

The women’s race saw a long-range solo effort from EF Education-Oatlys Cedrine Kerbaol, a brave attempt that saw her gap drop below ten seconds twice, and yet she continued to labour alone, gaining almost half a minute as the finish line closed in. The Mur de Huy makes honest men and women with its devastating gradient, and despite the presence of the two most recent former winners in Kasia Niewiadoma and Demi Vollering, it was Puck Pieterse who was able to grit her teeth and drag herself up the Mur to take her first victory of the season. That one had been a long time coming.

Read more about my feelings on both these races in Substack post -

And then there was Liege-Bastogne-Liege (27 Apr). Yet again the women’s race provided a thrilling counterpoint to the one-man show of the men’s as Tadej Pogačar soloed to his 3^rd title, while the women’s peloton saw an open, attacking race that kept us guessing to the last, and provided a wholly deserving and yet surprise winner in Kim Le Court-Pienaar of AG Insurance-Soudal. The Mauritian only joined the professional peloton last year and has performed consistently ever since, and she beat an elite group to the victory, including former winner Demi Vollering.

ENOUGH OF ALL THAT ONE-DAY NONSENSE, ON WITH THE STAGE RACING!

In Austria, at the Tour of the Alps (21-25 Apr), the climbers went head-to-head in one of the final pre-Giro preparation races. It was a strange race wide open with no major players in the GC field, and therefore very little control over the bunch, resulting in 3 of the 5 stages ending in long solo victories.

Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek) launched his sunglasses after winning stage 1 – his trademark celebration landed him in hot water with the UCI, who fined him for tarnishing the reputation of the sport -his fine was later covered – by his sunglasses sponsor.

Michael Storer (Tudor Pro Cycling) soloed to victory on stage 2, with Paul Seixas (Decathlon-AG2R) winning from the bunch – it was an impressive week all-round by the incorrigible 18-year-old. Marco Frigo (Israel-Premier Tech) took a long-awaited first pro victory on stage 3 – the young Italian has been prominent in breakaways at the Giro d’Italia, among other races, and finally came good on his promise winning solo. Thymen Arensman (INEOS Grenadiers) won stage 4, not only solo, but a staggering 1:18 ahead of Derek Gee, who was second. And it was Nicolas Prodhomme who took the final stage for Decathlon-AG2R La Mondiale – was he solo? Well, not strictly. He beat his teammate, Paul Seixas to the line – but the two were away and clear. It was just that kind of a week. Oh – I nearly forgot. Michael Storer won the overall classification.

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The inordinately long Tour of Turkiye (27 Apr-4 May) saw a mixture of winners across its eight stages, along with some feisty racing and a bit of drama. Simon Dehairs kicked off proceedings for Alpecin-Deceuninck winning the bunch sprint on stage 1, before his teammate Tibor Del Grosso finally scored his first pro victory after coming close on a couple of previous occasions on stage 2.

The following stage saw torrential rain render the final descent almost impassable, so the race was neutralised and the sprint after the neutralisation was won by Lev Gonov of XDS-Astana – it was a great week for the team, as Wout Poels took his first victory since May 2024 and took over the race lead.

Stage 5 was cancelled due to apocalyptic weather conditions. Stage 6 was electric – with a fierce battle for the breakaway waged over more than 50 kilometres, a plague of crosswinds causing echelon chaos, and open and explosive racing on the climbs, the stage concluded with a masterclass by XDS-Astana, Martin Lopez taking the victory ahead of Poels – the momentum shift around Astana of late has been genuinely incredible to witness, as they pull themselves back from the brink of relegation ahead of the end of the UCI World Tour license renewal cycle.

The final two stages were both sprints, stage 7 a first win in Lotto colours for Elia Viviani, and stage 8 victory for Astana yet again, from a fourth different rider – Matteo Malucelli. Poels sealed victory in the overall.

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Tour de Romandie (29 Apr-4 May) began with its traditional teeny tiny Prologue. As always, over such a short distance (3.8km) the time gaps were negligible, leading to a nail-biting wait for UAE Team Emirates-XRG’s Ivo Oliveira who held off competition from the likes of Remco Evenepoel and Stefan Kung, only to be beaten by 0.02 seconds by INEOS Grenadiers’ Sam Watson. All the more impressive from the young Brit given he was only given the call-up for the race the previous day, and had done zero preparation for the stage.

Watson wore the yellow jersey on stage 1 but was forced to relinquish it to another Brit, the relentless Matthew Brennan (Visma-Lease A Bike), who won a strange sort of sprint to take the stage and race lead (strange in that Aurelien Paret-Peintre was second and Oscar Onley finished 6th).

Stage 2 was a tough day with a flat finish but a couple of significant climbs that did for the sprinters, and saw the GC group pull clear of the rest courtesy of a late attack on the final climb from Evenepoel. It was a five-man group who broke clear to contest the final though, and Lorenzo Fortunato jumped from the quintet with a kilometre to go to take a valuable win for his XDS-Astana team. What did I tell you about Astana and momentum?

UAE Team Emirates took over the momentum in this particular race after that. Jay Vine grabbed the win on stage 3, jumping late from the lead group and holding off Lenny Martinez at the finish. It was Martinez though, who imposed himself on the big mountain stage, with a summit finish on Thyon 2000. The diminutive Frenchman forged clear with Joao Almeida catching him and though the Portuguese looked the stronger of the two in the late stages of the climb, Martinez dug deep and found another gear in the final, kicking away to take the stage victory. He put in an impressive performance in the yellow jersey on the final time trial, but it wasn’t enough for him to beat Joao Almeida, on the stage or the GC – the UAE rider wrapped up both on the last day of the race.

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The Festival Elsy Jacobs à Garnich (3 May) was won by Marta Lach (Team SD Worx-Pro-Time) for the second year running, ahead of Maria Confalonieri (Uno-X Mobility) and Sarah van Dam (Ceratizit Pro Cycling). The next day, the Festival Elsy Jacobs à Luxembourg (4 May) was won by Martina Fidanza of Visma-Lease a Bike.

And to bring us bang up to date, the Vuelta Espana Femenina (4-10 May) is currently underway, kicking off Grand Tour season with seven stages in Spain for the women’s peloton. The opening stage featured a team time trial, and though there was controversy due to some late starts, Lidl-Trek were able to come through unscathed to take a well-earned team victory and propel Ellen van Dijk into the first red jersey.

Stage 2 was wet and sketchy but resulted in the expected bunch sprint, with the GOAT herself, Marianne Vos (Visma-Lease a Bike) taking victory number 256 on the road in her illustrious career.

Stage 3 was fairly chaotic in the final 30 kilometres, with an intermediate sprint giving way to an exposed crosswinds section and some dramatic chasing, along with a few crashes. Femke Gerritse (Team SD Worx-ProTime) was able to overpower Vos at the finish for the stage win and a third race leader in as many days.

It was the turn of another comeback queen on stage 4, as following a hilly stage Anna van der Breggen made it two wins in two days for Team SD Worx-ProTime, soloing to victory just under 7km from the line. And today, Demi Vollering put in a flawless performance following a day in which her team set a savage pace to take the stage and the race lead, on stage 5, the first summit finish of the race. It was a day of brutal aggression from the FDJ SUEZ mountain train, and left three minutes between Vollering at the top of the GC standings, and 10^th place.

Notable performances came from Marlen Reusser in second – she is really coming into her own as a GC leader at Movistar, Usoa Ostolaza of Laboral – expect a World team to snap her up this off-season – and Cedrine Kerbaol, who has been attacking all week, and has really sharpened her skills on longer climbs to be able to stay with the select group almost all the way to the line. Check out the final two stages this weekend.

I’ll round off that one in the next newsletter, but more on Demi, next…

FINAL THOUGHT – Vollering shows what it means to use your platform for good

I have meant to send this newsletter out literally every day this week, to no avail. I’d like to say it’s because I’ve been snowed under with other work, and though I have been quite busy, covering the Vuelta Femenina on live text and doing other bits and bobs, it’s partly just my own fault for not sitting in the chair and just DOING THE THING.

It’s serendipitous I guess, that it will go out just prior to the Giro – in whatever state it’s in – but I couldn’t hit send without passing comment on Demi Vollering. I’ve literally just closed down the live page and I don’t usually make a habit of writing ‘fresh’ from a race, as I prefer to take some time to assemble my thoughts, assimilate the interesting points of view on offer on social media and in post-race interviews, or just generally have a bit of brain space to process, before coming back to it.

I am striking while the iron is hot today though as it’s not really racing I want to write about. Demi Vollering, sitting on the rollers fresh from putting in a devastating climbing performance to take a commanding lead at La Vuelta Femenina, gave a race interview that was only just over a minute in length, yet left me reeling.

She’s often emotional in interviews, so seeing her trying to hold back tears as she spoke was nothing new per se; that’s not to say I don’t relate – as a highly emotional person, I absolutely do. But her words, so few of them, so well chosen, so eloquently delivered despite her own high emotion, were so deeply significant that not only was I struck by their meaning, and her sentiment in and of itself, but I felt an almost visceral seismic shift in the unprecedented way she is using her platform. It’s in such stark contrast to the media-trained ‘taking it day by day’ and ‘the legs were super good’ copy and paste interviews we so often get after races. And it goes beyond post-race interviews, too. Every time Demi posts on social media, or opens her mouth to give an interview, she is using her platform to get people talking. Mental health issues are clearly close to her heart, and she posted an in-depth post about periods and their impact on elite sportswomen last week that had male commentators discussing periods live on air by Wednesday. As they should. As we all should, and this is the impact she is having. Daily. She is using her voice to start important conversations, and creating a legacy at a rate of knots. Her power is seemingly infinite at the moment.

Fresh from delivering an absolute boss performance on the bike, she was able to work through her own emotion to deliver a powerful message immediately afterwards, completely unfiltered, unpolished, and so raw with emotion that I have no doubt will stay with those of us who heard it for a long time, and will impact upon many more, as it will undoubtedly go viral later. Here is what she said:

‘I see that too much around me, young people struggle, so today, I did everything I could because mentally I know I'm very strong, because my mentality, I can win beautiful races. But some people, their mentality, their brain, is bit too strong, in the wrong direction, and they struggle and suffer so much with their mental health. And it's still such a unknown problem in this world. So, today my win was a sacrifice for all the people who have a really hard time mentally.'

This is what it means to use your platform to inspire real change. Women’s cycling is all the richer for having her in it, as not only is she drawing eyes, sponsorship, and money to the women’s side of the sport, but she’s opening up dialogues that will visibly improve life for her fellow riders, and for women and girls and men and boys too, in the wider cycling community and beyond. I have nothing else to say other than Demi, you rock.

THE LAST WORD

Thank you wonderful subscribers for taking the time to read, I hope you’ve enjoyed today’s edition of the newsletter. I’m a bit on the back foot in terms of my plans for the Giro but I’ll be writing about it, that much is certain - you may hear from me a little more regularly, or you may not, either way, I hope you enjoy the race!

If you’d like to support this newsletter which has always been and will always be completely free, you could buy me a coffee and that would be quite delightful of you.

Until next time, ARRIVIDERCI!

Katy

PS I just saw this fun video of a drawing challenge set for the riders by the Giro admin - so here it is, it’s better than a preview anyway 😆 

giroditalia

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