The Joys of Spring

Hello fair readers and welcome to this week/fortnight/month’s edition of the newsletter, which I can’t guarantee will contain EVERYTHING that’s happened since I last wrote to you but which will be as informative and entertaining as I can manage whilst remaining within a sensible word count.

So, I finally had life catch up me and fell off my schedule, and it’s fair to say that was a BIG mistake. So much racing has ensued, so much news has unfolded, so many talking points have cropped up, and I’m a bit daunted at the prospect of putting it all in one place. But here I am – just a cycling writer, standing before her virtual audience, asking you to give her a break if she misses something. Sound fair? Cool. Let’s go.

WHAT ON EARTH IS GOING ON?

SO MUCH!

Remember last time I wrote to you? No, I don’t either really because it was so long ago it was basically ye olden days, possibly even as far back as ‘days of yore’, but I honestly couldn’t tell you. What I do know is that it was in the dark times Before Omloop (BO). Everything that has happened since will be referred to as AO (after Omloop). As the nominal ‘Opening Weekend’ of the season, it seems only fair. I’ll approach today’s newsletter a little differently, and work my way through chronologically, with a mix of news and results along the way.  

BO (Before Omloop)

OK I checked. I last wrote to on Wednesday 22^nd February, and believe it or not, the UAE Tour hadn’t even finished. I know right?

We’d made it to stage 2 by then. Soudal-Quickstep had just won the TTT but INEOS Grenadiers’ Luke Plapp had retained the leader’s jersey, though he was tied on time with Remco Evenepoel. Stage 3 was the first of two familiar summit finishes, the smaller of the two up to Jebel Jais saw a solo win from Movistar’s Einer Rubio, who took his first World Tour win. The following three stages were sprints won by Sebastian Molano, Dylan Groenewegen and Tim Merlier respectively, from a start list that included almost all of the world’s top sprinters, and that just left the final stage and the climb of Jebel Hafeet, where UAE Team Emirates scored a second stage victory of the week through Adam Yates. It wasn’t enough for the GC though, which was won by Evenepoel with a gap of 59 seconds to Plapp, and Yates another second back in third.

Meanwhile in Spain, Jonas Vingegaard was riding his first race of the season, the four stages of Gran Camiño. The first was curtailed due to heavy snow – Spain in February apparently just as unpredictable as more northerly areas of Europe – but the Tour de France winner was the one to whitewash the rest of the race, winning the remaining three stages and – unsurprisingly – the overall race. Special shout-out to Trinity Racing’s Lukas Nerurkar who won the youth jersey at the race – a pretty impressive feat for the young Brit.

OMLOOP! FINALLY!

And so to Opening Weekend. Omloop Het Nieuwsblad (25^th Feb) provided the launchpad for the ALL NEW AND EVEN MORE IMPROVED VERSION 2 Jumbo-Visma Classics team, which is so stacked now it made for terrifying reading, when perusing start lists. They duly ripped the race to shreds early on, forcing the pace and breaking up the bunch, eventually launching a breakaway with two riders to choose from. It was Dylan van Baarle who made the move eventually, storming away to a solo victory and leaving scraps for the rest.

In the women’s race SD Worx mirrored Jumbo-Visma, displaying their impressive line-up and stating their intention to be the most dominant team in the women’s peloton in 2023. Lotte Kopecky rode solo to victory, and the following day at Omloop Het Hageland (26^th Feb) Lorena Wiebes made it two wins in two for the team.

Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne (26^th Feb) was the same story, with Jumbo-Visma dominant once again, this time Tiesj Benoot taking the win – the weekend in Belgium belonged to the two Dutch teams.

Over in France, two one-day races were taking place alongside the Opening Weekend hoopla. At Faun Ardèche (25^th Feb), Julian Alaphillippe took his first honours of the season, narrowly beating David Gaudu, and foreshadowing the strong form that the Groupama rider would show at Paris-Nice. The following day at the Drôme Classic, Cofidis scored a win with the incredible 40km solo ride of Anthony Perez.

The month was round out with a pair of races in Belgium. Le Samyn des Dames (28^th Feb) was up first, and UAE Team ADQ’s Marta Bastianelli proved the strongest rider on the day, with Milan Menten (Lotto-DSTNY) surging to victory in Le Samyn.

AO – After Omloop (otherwise known as March)

We’ve reached the actual month we’re in! Deep breath… and let’s continue.

Nans Peters (AG2R-Citroen) won Trofeo Laigueglia (1^st March) following a brilliant solo effort in torrential rain. Sam Welsford (Team DSM) sprinted for victory at the GP Criquielion (4^th March)

And so we reach my personal highlight of the season so far, Strade Bianche (4^th March).

It’s a breath-takingly beautiful race, usually very unpredictable, and with Tadej Pogacar and Wout Van Aert both withdrawing, the men’s race was wide open. It was a brilliant contest, with lively attacking racing throughout, and when Tom Pidcock broke away from the bunch and did what he does best on a descent from one of the gravel sectors, little did we know it would prove to be the winning move. The group that set off in pursuit of him was packed with hitters and there was a tense ‘will he/won’t he’ narrative that held us in thrall over the course of the next 50km, as the group came within touching distance and dropped away, not working together as well as they could have. Jumbo-Visma showed the first sign of weakness that we’d seen all season, with a bit of miscommunication between new boy Attila Valter and one of last season’s top acquisitions Tiesj Benoot among the issues in the second group.

In the end, Pidcock stormed onto Piazzo del Campo with an unassailable lead and crossed the line to become the first British male ever to win the race. His post-race interview was classic, with him responding to the question ‘when did you know you had the legs?’ with the somewhat unexpected response of ‘on Tuesday.’ Peak Pidders.

The women’s race was a last-gasp affair after a small group got away from the bunch. Team Jayco-Alula’s Kristen Faulkner pulled clear and forced the SD Worx power duo of Lotte Kopecky and Demi Vollering to chase her down, which they duly did. The two stayed together all the way to the line, where they sprinted it out between them for the win, which went in the end to Vollering, perhaps somewhat surprisingly, given Kopecky’s strong finishing skills.

The finish prompted much debate over whether there was trouble in the ranks at SD Worx but most of us were able to step back and simply admire the superior level of the two riders, and appreciate the desire to race right to the line, even against a teammate. Top entertainment. (And a special shout-out from one cyclocross fan to Puck Pieterse, who came 6^th in only her second ever pro road race – I was proud as a mother hen over that one).

After that, there was more heartache for Caleb Ewan at the GP Jean-Pierre Monseré (5^th March). Ewan was pipped on the line by Intermarché’s Gerben Thijssen – or was he? Photographs post-race showed that it was almost impossible to separate the two riders on the line, and Caleb Ewan expressed his frustration on Twitter, though he did seem to take his continued ill fortune with good grace.

At the Trofeo Oro in Euro (5^th March) Trek-Segafredo’s Gaia Realini took her first pro win.

AND THEN… it was one of my favourite weeks in the cycling calendar – the dual-stage race week of Paris-Nice and Tirreno-Adriatico, and it was a hell of a week with zillions of talking points, so I zoomed in on the races and wrote all about them over on my website. Please do head over and check out the post for my thoughts on two eventful races, below…

A few more races to round up… Lorena Wiebes won the Ronde van Drenthe (11^th Mar) to keep SD Worx’s brilliant start to the season going – the race route was shortened and altered as a result of extreme weather conditions in the area (snow!) but it should be noted that her latest rival Charlotte Kool of Team DSM was ruled out of the race due to illness. A shame as it would have been great to see them cross swords once again.

In the men’s Ronde Van Drenthe (12^th Mar) the Jumbo-Visma development team rider Per Strand Hagenes proved that the future, as well as the present, is very bright for the Dutch team.

NEWSFLASH: Kristen Faulkner disqualified retroactively from Strade Bianche by UCI for wearing a banned glucose monitor during the race – debate rages on about this one…

Arvid de Kleijn won a hard-fought sprint finish at Milano-Torino (15^th Mar) for Pro Team Tudor Pro Cycling in a field of strong competition, and in another sprint classic on the same day, Tim Merlier (Soudal-QuickStep) was victorious at Nokere Koerse.

Undoubtedly the performance of the week so far, Lotte Kopecky rode to victory at the women’s version of Nokere Koerse (15^th Mar), just a few days after losing her elder brother Seppe. Kopecky understandably did not celebrate as she crossed the line, and it’s hard to even begin to imagine the mental and emotional strength it must have taken for her to even get on her bike let alone ride to such an assured victory.

NEWSFLASH: Miguel Angel Lopez has petitioned the UCI, accusing Astana-Qazaqstan Team of unfair dismissal (15^th March)

AND FINALLY, on a sunny day in Northern France, in a mad dash through the mucky cobbled farm roads of Denain, there were many crashes, Stan Dewulf rode into a pile of manure, and Sebastian Molano took his second win of the season at the GP de Denain (16^th Mar), and gave us all a little bit of a thrill of anticipation for Paris-Roubaix, which is now just a few short weeks away. Exciting, isn’t it?!

FINAL THOUGHT: The Monuments beckon…

With Spring in full flow, and races coming thick and fast, we have the first of the year’s Monuments coming up this weekend. Milan-Sanremo is the longest of the monuments, La Primavera, a stunning yet predominantly snooze-worthy 200km jaunt along the north Italian coast, followed by possibly the most fraught 30 minutes of so of racing of the entire year. Plenty of speculation has already taken place on social media over exactly how Tadej Pogacar can win the race, given he is clearly in the scintillating form that would see him win many other races. But Milan-Sanremo is not just any race.

Sadly, Tom Pidcock has been ruled out of the race following his crash at Tirreno-Adriatico, as has Michael Matthews, with covid-19. Other than that, an array of top contenders will line up for the race on Saturday, including favourites such as Wout van Aert, Mathieu van der Poel and last year’s winner, Matej Mohorič. It will also be the beginning of the end for Peter Sagan, who rides a career victory lap around the various races that made him one of the most iconic riders in the modern peloton.

If you’ve got the drive and commitment to sit through the entire 6 hours or so, I commend you, but it’s a long day and you’ll need something to do – I give you the new and updated 2023 version of MSR Bingo – print off and enjoy, as you wait for the approach to the Poggio.

The Last Word

It’s amazing how few words you can type if you’re really running out of time, isn’t it? We’re all up to date and I will endeavour to stay on top of things and be back with you in two weeks’ time, for my own sanity if nothing else.

Enjoy Milan-Sanremo and don’t forget, if you’d like to support my efforts at providing informative, entertaining cycling content, in this newsletter, on my site and on Twitter, you can buy me a coffee, and support independent writers. It’s hugely appreciated, always. Thanks, as ever, for reading and being a part of my one-woman cycling media journey.

Cheers,

Katy