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Higher ground
We travel from the cobbles to the climbs, as the Ardennes classics get underway
Katy Madgwick
April 19, 2025
Friends of the world! Who also like cycling! Hi. How are you? I’m great, thanks for asking, it’s been the most incredible week or two weather-wise and the sun has really lifted my mood, and I know many of you out there will be getting back out on your bikes which I’m sure is having a similar impact for you! It’s also been pretty lovely weather for the races that have been taking place, and while I’m on the subject, I must extend my apologies for my late arrival in your inboxes – I’ve been on a family holiday and well… honestly? I just didn’t get this done in time. No excuses. But it will be a little hit and miss, in terms of detail, so please forgive me. I promise I’ll do better next time.
Right, off we go.
ON THE WEBSITE
I’ve been splitting my (already very stretched) attention between the site and the Substack over the past couple of weeks - I have a couple of things for you to read, though.
First, and most recent, a quick preview of the women’s Ardennes Classics - quick, read it now! Before they start!
On the Substack, I wrote about good memories from a vintage edition of Itzulia Basque Country (OK, it was only 4 years ago but whatever) as I reflected on the chaos from stage 3…
I also wrote about the human side of sport… and how bloody nice some of these bike riders are, and how we can honestly do them the courtesy of being nice in return, even when they make mistakes.
Now, on with the news!
THE NEWS! IT’S THE NEWS!
Top story: Grand Tour wildcards announced
News of the final Grand Tour wildcards has been released in the past couple of weeks. La Vuelta Espana’s wildcard announcement raised a few eyebrows, as they included Q36.5 Pro Cycling, while Spanish teams Equipo Kern Pharma and the Basque Euskatel-Euskadi were snubbed, though Burgos BH-Burpellet and Caja Rural-Seguros did make the cut.
Another Grand Tour to announce its invitations was the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift. In addition to the 15 World Tour teams, the two highest place continental teams from 2024 EF Education-Oatly and VolkerWessels Cycling Team were guaranteed a place, plus five ProTeams receive wildcard invites: Arkéa-B&B, Cofidis, Laboral Kutxa-Fundación Euskadi, St Michel-Preference Home-Auber93 and Winspace Orange Seal. The most notable team missing out is arguably Lotto.
OTHER MAIN HEADLINES:
Marianne Vos signs ‘forever’ contract with Visma-Lease A Bike – following on from Wout van Aert, Vos becomes the latest rider to pledge her future to the Dutch team, however long it lasts
Fan who threw full bidon at Mathieu van der Poel at Paris-Roubaix hands himself in to Belgian police – he expresses ‘deep shame and regret’ at the act. Van der Poel is pursuing legal action
INJURY LIST:
A great many riders have sadly appeared on the injury list since I last wrote to you. Here are a few of the headlines from the sick bay.
Fabio Jakobsen (Team Picnic-PostNL) successfully underwent iliac artery surgery but his team confirmed he would miss the Tour de France this year.
Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep) revealed his calendar, and since I started writing this newsletter, he’s already won his first race back at Brabantse Pijl. He has added races to his calendar, including Tour de Romandie and the Belgian national championships, where he could win his second title in the road race and the ITT.
In a second example of ‘rider comes back from injury and wins at Brabantse Pijl’ (what are the chances of it happening once, let alone twice?!) Elisa Longo Borghini (UAE Team ADQ) sustained a concussion in a crash at the Tour of Flanders, but was miraculously back on her bike and able to win yesterday – quite an incredible recovery from the Italian champion.
OTHER BITS OF NEWS:
Soudal-QuickStep extend the contract of young sprinter Paul Magnier through the end of 2027.
And finally, Omar Fraile (INEOS Grenadiers) has announced he will retire at the end of the 2025 season, following a 14-year career in the sport. The Spaniard has eight career wins, including two Grand Tour stage victories, from the Giro d’Italia in 2017 and the Tour de France in 2018.
OH HAPPY DAY
Celebrating the lighter side of the sport…
This is so lovely. Cofidis’ soigneur is so overjoyed at Alex Aranburu’s win in Itzulia. Good job he had the win reinstated after all that kerfuffle.
It’s official. Emma Norgsgaard thinks Paris-Roubaix is shit.
REALLY RATHER RADICAL ROAD RACING RESULTS ROUND-UP
The title is um… probably better than the content this week. You’ll see what I mean as you get into it. It’s been a busy time. Forgive me?
The Flanders Classics continued apace, and this first segment of the results round-up covers all of those, with Holy Week in all its glory – everything else is below.
The first race since I last wrote to you was Dwars Door Vlaanderen (2 Apr). A nightmare race for a few key contenders in 2024, with Wout van Aert and Mads Pedersen most notably crashing out, this year’s edition was a good clean fight with the returning Van Aert clearly intent on vanquishing any demons he may have been harbouring following that incident last season. He used the climb of the Knokteberg, at 93km to go, to lay down an immense burst of power, shredding the bunch and catching the day’s early break, from which point the race really kicked off.
There was a Danish duo breakaway for a time after that as Mikkel Bjerg and Casper Pedersen forged clear, with another trio following behind – Neilson Powless, Josh Tarling and Fabio van den Bossche chasing. The gap opened to the peloton again and the five riders eventually came together at the front, just as Visma-Lease A Bike launched their killer move – four riders TTT’ed away from the group on the Berg Ten Houte, powering up the climb and bridging across to the front group with relative ease.
The chase behind was led by Stefan Kung and Mads Pedersen, with Tarling dropping back and regrouping, and INEOS took control, pulling a group of around 30, but the gap began to open as cooperation seemed to disintegrate. In the lead group, only Powless was able to hang with the Visma trio of Van Aert, Tiesj Benoot and Matteo Jorgenson, and they were able to maintain their gap at around 30 seconds, as the chase group launched attacks but also spent a bit too long looking at each other. About 20 riders remained, and there were crashes for Nils Politt and Laurence Pithie – Paul Magnier crashing out earlier on too, having no luck at all over the past few weeks.
With 32km remaining, EF positioned themselves so they could block the road and it was game over; the pace went out of the chase and it would come down to the four riders. And the rest, as they say, is history. Clearly going all in for Van Aert, Visma squandered any opportunity to try and work Powless over heading into the final, despite Benoot temporarily allowing the wheel to go – Powless was quick to sew up the gap, not falling for Benoot’s bluff. Van Aert launched his sprint and head-to-head with Powless, came off second. It was something to see – Van Aert’s devastation was clear, but he shouldered full responsibility for the defeat, as Powless proved that he has a worthy kick on him and should never be underestimated. I wrote a bit about the reactions to the race on my Substack - link above.
The women’s race was won by Elisa Longo Borghini, prior to her accident in the Tour of Flanders. Honestly, how is it even possible that I’m trying to finish this newsletter and haven’t even written about Flanders or Roubaix yet?
And here is the biggest admission of the newsletter – I wonder if anyone has made it far enough to notice? – the Tour of Flanders (6 Apr) was won by Tadej Pogačar and Lotte Kopecky and Paris-Roubaix Femmes (12 Apr) was won by Pauline Ferrand-Prevot and Paris-Roubaix (13 Apr) by Mathieu van der Poel.
But I won’t be writing about any of them at length. You can read my women’s race reports at TNT Sports (links below, though apparently they don’t always work so apologies for that too), but more excitingly, my review of Holy Week in all of its beautiful, memorable entirety will be featured in this year’s Road Book. So that’s my excuse. And I think it’s a pretty good one.
Scheldeprijs (9 Apr) the famed ‘sprinter’s world championships’ saw a stellar line-up in the men’s field, though it was destroyed just a few kilometres from the finish line as a huge crash brought down or impeded a large percentage of the peloton. As a result, a reduced bunch sprint was on the cards, and with a number of big names still present, tension was still extremely high heading into the final 5km. Tim Merlier (Soudal-QuickStep) who once again proved his dominance over his rivals, winning in convincing fashion over Jasper Philipsen and more.
The women’s race has only been running for four years, and Lorena Wiebes has won every single edition. It was probably a relief then that she wasn’t on the start list for this fifth edition, opting to miss the race to ensure she had the best possible legs for Paris-Roubaix, and Elisa Balsamo (Lidl-Trek) was able to benefit in Wiebes’ absence.
SOME STAGE RACES WERE ALSO HAPPENING…
Itzulia Basque Country (7-12 Apr) was a race marred by that infamous crash last year that saw many of the biggest names in the sport sidelined. This year, the race hoped to be remembered for its usual brand of exciting and unpredictable racing, and it started out with its customary individual time trial, which was won by Soudal-QuickStep’s Maximilian Schachmann. Stage 2 concluded in a bunch sprint which was won by Caleb Ewan – his second win of the season for INEOS Grenadiers, and another confidence boost for the Aussie.
Stage 3 was where things went a little off the rails. If you haven’t read about it yet, I cover it a bit on my Substack, but basically, there was a bit of confusion at the end – check out the highlights if you want more info, as it’s kind of complicated to explain – in short, Alex Aranburu (Cofidis) took the stage win. Eventually.
Stage 4 featured a strong breakaway group that included Mauro Schmid, Sepp Kuss, Ben Healy and Quinn Simmons among others, but the peloton, led by Bahrain-Victorious, was motivated and closed them down ahead of the ridiculously steep Izua climb with 16km remaining, though it was Lidl-Trek who led the charge onto the climb. The ascent really sorted the men from the boys, and it gave a determined João Almeida (UAE Team Emirates) the launchpad he needed to take the race by the horns. He pulled out a thirty second lead on the climb, and was able to solo to victory, and take over the lead of the race, despite a spirited performance from Max Schachmann.
Stage 5 featured another strong breakaway, and with around 55km to go Ben Healy (EF Education-EasyPost) took off solo, such as is his modus operandi, leaving his breakaway colleagues – Julian Alaphilippe among them – in his wake. He began to open up a gap and it got bigger and bigger, with the remainder of the breakaway unable to make any headway and the bunch behind, led by UAE Team Emirates, riding tempo. Despite being on his own for 55km, Healy was able to take the win – a hugely impressive ride from the Irishman.
And stage 6 saw João Almeida take the stage win and wrap up the overall victory. UAE Team Emirates just cannot stop winning this season.
Région Pays de la Loire Tour (8-11 Apr) was difficult to watch in the UK so I’ll have to wrap this one up briefly.
I managed to fire up the VPN and watch live on L’Equipe for the final stage, which blew apart with about 40km remaining, with Arkéa-B&B Hotels taking the initiative in order to try and win the race overall. As the race moved into the final few kilometres, a breakaway attacking group split up, with a group of five riders heading into the lead of the race. Arkéa-B&B Hotels’ plan was coming to fruition, as they enjoyed the advantage with two riders in the group. The strongest rider at the finish was Kévin Vauquelin, who was able to sprint from the group to take the win both on the stage and GC – a perfectly executed plan from the Breton team.
Other selected one-day races…
Paris-Camembert (2 Apr) saw a breakaway group fight for the win, comprising some seriously strong young talent.The eventual winner was Lander Loockx (Unibet Tietema Rockets).
The next leg of the French cup, the Route Adélie de Vitré (4 Apr) saw another rider join the ‘first pro win in 2025’ club, as Stian Fredheim triumphed in the final sprint for Uno-X Mobility.
Thibau Nys (Lidl-Trek) joined the peloton late following a full cyclocross winter and notched up his first victory on his very first appearance for the team on the road in 2025. Nys won the GP Miguel Indurain (5 Apr).
Dion Smith finally broke the duck for Intermarché-Wanty, who were languishing without a single win so far this season, at the Volta NXT Classic (5 Apr). They became the final World Tour team to take a victory in 2025 in the process.
Milan Fretin (Lotto) stayed on strong form to win the Ronde van Limburg (16 Apr).
It was three wins in four stages for the irrepressible UAE Team Emirates at the Giro d’Abruzzo (15-18 Apr) with Alessandro Covi taking stage one, and Ivo Oliveira winning stages 2 and 4. Stage 3 saw an incredible first professional victory for Colombian Edison Alejandro Callejas of Mexican continental team Petrolike – a team who hadn’t won at category 1 or higher since last July. And somehow despite the UAE dominance, Georg Zimmermann recorded the most consistent overall performance to take the GC and add to Intermarché-Wanty’s tally.
Two more French cup races in a trio taking place in the east of the country this weekend have seen Guillaume Martin-Guyonnet (Groupama-FDJ) take two from two at the Classic Grand Besançon Doubs (18 Apr) and Tour de Jura (19 Apr).
FINAL THOUGHT – The Ardennes Approach
It’s time to bid farewell to the cobbles, as we head for higher ground.
The gradual shifts in the cycling season, at least in terms of the most significant races on the calendar, feel like they reflect the changing seasons in Europe, with tough, attritional days on the cobbles in the often unforgiving conditions of early spring giving way to the more the rolling climbs of the Ardennes, representing a kind of opening up – of the legs, the spring itself, and the season – the Ardennes classics are the perfect transition, at least from a fan perspective, as we move from watching the cobbled specialists to the climbers, most of whom will then head to Italy or France and become a part of a longer narrative, as we transition into the major movements of the season – the Grand Tours.
If you care to extend the thought through to the conclusion of the season, once the Grand Tours are done we return to one-day racing, with the Canadian races, the world championships and Italian Classics ushering the season to its natural close, and then everyone has about three days off before heading to Spain for seemingly endless training camps as the whole thing begins again.
For me, the Ardennes block is a short but necessary gear shift, that feels as if it’s in the perfect place. Alongside it, more French cup races, also with longer climbs, less cobbles, and as we’ve seen so far this weekend, more sunshine. It’s a good time to be a bike racing fan. The best is yet to come. But first, the fourth of five Monuments.
THE LAST WORD
Thanks to you all for reading, and apologies once again for the rather hurried and somewhat curtailed nature of this newsletter. I’ll be back on form shortly. Honest. If you’d like to support me in my endeavour to stay up to date with ALL THE THINGS IN CYCLING despite y’know… life… you could be a wonderful human and buy me a coffee – thank you as always to those of you who do choose to support me as it means the world.
For now, let’s go get hyped for the Ardennes. Next time I write to you we’ll be getting ready for the ACTUAL GIRO D’ITALIA, whaaaat?!!
Until next time,
Cheers,
Katy