Lots of things about bike racing

Hey there lovely folk of the cycle-verse, it’s good to be back, albeit a day late (I’m actually sending this from a train on my and though we have finally bid farewell to road season – yes, really, for real this time – the weather has brightened up here in the UK and I’m feeling optimistic about off-season – or rather, cyclocross season, as it’s called when you have all things mud and mayhem to look forward to.

For those of you who are relatively new to the newsletter, or who joined because of the Tour de France posts – perhaps you’re not into cyclocross, and that’s absolutely fine by me. This bi-monthly email comes to you throughout the calendar year, regardless of where we are in the season (aside from that weird blip we called ‘September’), and though there’s no road racing to report on over winter, I’ll still be bringing you bang up to date with everything else that’s going on in the world of pro cycling, from late transfers, to new kit news, to any other stories that break, including all the lighter stuff that we really need to see us through those cold winter months (in the northern hemisphere at least).

For those of you who do enjoy off-road shenanigans, this edition of the newsletter features the return of the Cyclocross Dispatch, rounding up all the action from that discipline from now until the end of the season in February. If CX isn’t your thing, there’s plenty more content for you to enjoy, so stick with me, and we’ll be back on the road before you know it (seriously, the Tour Down Under is only 12 weeks away).

MORE FROM WRITEBIKEREPEAT

Chances are you may have originally discovered me via my musings on Twitter, and while I’m still relatively active on there, I’ve also added Threads and BlueSky to my social media repertoire, in the hope that more cycling friends will migrate across – do add me on those platforms – @writebikerepeat – if you have either of them. The cycling communities are growing rapidly, particularly on Bluesky where a few active participants are curating lists you can follow. Check it out!

I’ve published a piece I have written this week on the Cyclist Magazine website – I’m always delighted to find a home for my work with this publication. The piece is entitled ‘The Gentle Art of Coming Second’ and considers how, in an era of superhuman riders, the best that most riders in the men’s peloton can hope for is second place. Is that really so bad? Celebrating everything that’s great about not winning. I hope you enjoy it.

NEWS! GET YOUR NEWS!

Pidcock drama – will he stay or will he go?

Since last we spoke, the Tom Pidcock uncertainty has rumbled on. Following his ‘deselection’ from INEOS Grenadiers’ Il Lombardia team, it was assumed that the Yorkshire multi-discipline star would definitely be on his way out of the British team come the end of the season, with unrest behind the scenes and Pidcock openly expressing his dissatisfaction with them. He was strongly linked with a surprise move to Doug Ryder’s Q36.5 Pro Cycling team, but the latest according to transfer expert Daniel Benson is that this deal has fallen through, with Pidcock now looking more likely to remain at INEOS in 2025 – a situation which doesn’t appear to be a positive for either side, given what we know. More on that as the story develops.

INEOS announce management restructure!

The British team have also announced a number of changes to their management structure, including the establishment of new roles and the appointment of a number of new members of staff. For full details on that one, head to the News Page at the website.

Development teams announced!

Both Lidl-Trek and Red Bull-BORA-Hansgrohe announced the names of the full line-up of riders who will represent their development teams in 2025. They include some exciting names to look out for in the future, including a handful of Trinity Racing riders - the UK-based development squad whose riders often go on to experience great success in Europe on the World Tour.

Additionally, there are rumours that INEOS Grenadiers are in line to adopt a development team, though the details of this have yet to be confirmed.

Transfer season still in full swing!

Sadly I still can’t bring you news of Demi Vollering’s destination (though it’s still strongly rumoured to be FDJ-SUEZ), but there’s been plenty more action on the transfer front – here are a few of the latest moves:

Young Brit Max Walker moves from Astana-Qazaqstan to EF Education-EasyPost

Rémi Cavagna’s ill-fated year at Movistar is over, he heads to Groupama-FDJ

Chiara Consonni leaves UAE-Team-ADQ to join Canyon//SRAM

Urška Žigart heads from Liv-AlUla-Jayco to AG-Insurance Soudal

Marlen Reusser is the latest departure from Team SD Worx-ProTime – she heads to Movistar for 2025

Clement Champoussin leaves an uncertain future at Arkéa-B&B Hotels, destination Astana Qazaqstan Team

And most recently, Larry Warbasse announced he would continue his career at Tudor Pro Cycling, after a long stint at AG2R.

As always, to keep up with the latest news headlines, including transfers, in between newsletters, don’t forget to head to the website.

OH HAPPY DAY!

Is it cycling newsletter, or is it a birth announcements column? Sure feels like the latter lately, because wow the peloton have been a busy bunch of boys and girls this year, haven’t they? The latest new arrival is the gorgeous daughter of Sepp Kuss and his wife Noemi Ferré, named Martina. More birth announcements as we have them!

And if you’ve managed to miss this story, it’s a cracker. Yesterday it was revealed that the rumours were true, and Wout van Aert really WAS the squirrel on the Masked Singer in Belgium.

If that sentence makes entirely zero sense to you, you’re probably not alone – basically it’s a TV series featuring a series of characters singing, in which the judges have to try and guess which famous personality is hiding underneath the elaborate masks. The Colombian version featured Nairo Quintana, so van Aert isn’t even the first pro cyclist to appear on the show, but rumours have abounded since his first appearance last week that this might really be the Visma-Lease A Bike rider. And here’s the proof.

ROAD RACING RESULTS ROUND-UP

The road season stuttered to a close last week, following the final Monument of the season, which proved to be the one-man show that everyone had anticipated. After winning the past three editions of the race on the bounce, and carrying arguably the best form of his life into the race, fresh from winning the World Championships in Zurich, it was perhaps the most foregone conclusion in the entire season, that Tadej Pogačar would win Il Lombardia (12 Oct). It’s become a race synonymous with the Slovenian, a beautifully designed match for his particular skillset, and it’s been compared to Rafa Nadal at the French Open – the pinnacle of a top athlete finding their zenith in a specific event. Behind him, Remco Evenepoel banished the spectres of his crash at the race by recording a strong second place, and Lidl-Trek’s Giulio Ciccone showed his mettle to attack the final climb and take the final spot on the podium.

Elsewhere, the season wound down with a couple more one-day races in Italy – Corbin Strong (Israel-Premier Tech) won the Giro del Veneto (16 Oct), and Magnus Cort (Uno-X Mobility) won the Veneto Classic (20 Oct).

There was also one last chance for the time trial specialists at the Chrono des Nations (13 Oct), which was won by Groupama-FDJ’s Stefan Küng.

There were also races in Asia for both the men and women’s peloton. Emilien Jeannière (TotalEnergies) won the Tour de Kyushu (12-14 Oct) in Japan, while at the Gree Tour of Guangxi (15-20 Oct), five of the six stages ended in bunch sprints, with the wins shared between Lionel Taminiaux (Lotto Dstny), Warre Vangheluwe (Soudal-QuickStep), Matevz Govekar (Bahrain-Victorious) and two for Ethan Vernon (Israel-Premier Tech). The decisive stage, stage 5, saw Lennert van Eetvelt (Lotto Dstny) overcome a challenge from Oscar Onley (Team dsm-firmenich PostNL) on the steep uphill finish, to claim the stage and the overall win.

In the women’s Tour of Chongming Island (15-17 Oct) it was a clean sweep for Ceratizit-WNT, with the three flat stages split between Mylene de Zoete and Marta Lach with two victories. The women’s peloton then headed to the one-day Tour of Guangxi, where Ceratizit-WNT had cause to celebrate once again, with a win for Sandra Alonso.

The season was rounded out by the Japan Cup (20 Oct), which was won by Neilson Powless (EF Education-EasyPost), who certainly closed out his season in top form.

And as they say in the movies…

CYCLOCROSS DISPATCH

CONTAIN YOURSELVES! You can’t? No, me neither. Yes after several months rest, the Cyclocross Dispatch is BACK to brighten up your autumn/winter wardrobe with fashion choices ranging from ‘bit grubby’ to ‘absolute filth’ and in fetching shades of brown, and also brown. Yes, the off-road action starts here – well it actually started with the keen beans in the UK back in September with the Hope Supercross series, and to be honest, there was plenty of ‘cross kicking off around the world, but we’ll start our coverage when the majority of the elite field decided it was time to join in – the Exact Cross in Beringen (12 Oct).

We were SO BACK. So back in fact, that even the world champion no less graced the scene with her presence, and after her first full road season, Fem van Empel had every right to be a bit tired, but it turned out, she was absolutely fine, and made short work of a race which could have been a bit more of a battle had last year’s World Cup winner Ceylin del Carmen Alvarado not had mechanical issues – plenty more to come from those two this season. The men’s race saw a big bunch of riders stay in close contention for a long time, with nothing to separate them until around the sixth lap when the race began to stretch out. From there, Michael Vantourenhout took the bull by the horns and attacked on lap seven of eight, but he wasn’t alone for long, as Lars van der Haar bridged to him and the two attacked the final lap together. Van der Haar proved the strongest in the end, and once again, we are in for a treat of a season, with all the top teams tearing chunks out of one another. Quite literally, in the case of Eli Iserbyt, who following an altercation with Ryan Kamp, stomped on his bike – an action for which he was disqualified the race, and banned from the following three.

Since then we’ve had another Exact Cross in Essen (19 Oct) – won by Marion Norbert Riberolle and Laurens Sweeck – and the first round of the Superprestige series, in Ruddervoorde (20 Oct), which produced some seriously spicy racing. Four riders were in contention for the women: van Empel, Alvarado, Lucinda Brand and Italian champion Sara Casasola, who’s been going really well so far this season. Brand was aggressive, taking the race on from the front, opening up a gap with Alvarado on her case heading into the final lap. Alvarado caught and passed Brand and was looking strong but she crashed on her face on a corner (ouch) allowing van Empel to join the leading group. It was a nail-biting finale, with Alvarado exerting her authority and winning, and van Empel mugging Brand on the line, for second place. In the men’s race, Gerben Kuypers was the aggressor for much of the race, pushing the pace to try and distance as many of his competitors as he could. A group of five remained with two laps to go, and the rain beginning to fall. Joran Wyseure took his chance to attack, and opened out a significant gap. Despite a late charge from Niels Vandeputte the young Crelan-Corendon rider was able to hold onto his lead to take his first victory of the season.

FINAL THOUGHT – Rest, reflect, relax

My ‘writebikerepeat’ handle began as a tongue-in-cheek play on words when I first threw it together for my new cycling-based Twitter account back at the end of 2020. I didn’t give it a great deal of thought and since then, have not reflected on its significance, and the fact that I essentially began to manifest my current career into being, simply by stating my intention, via the medium of social media username.

I write about bikes a lot (well, bike racing, to be more specific – if you’re looking for tech reviews or beautiful travelogue style pieces about bike-packing in the Alps then I’m not your girl). But most of you reading this will probably know that about me by now.

Anyway, I digress. Over my four seasons of building the cycling writing element of my career it’s been fascinating to observe the way in which the season unfolds in a media sense – it has a rhythm that, probably by design, reflects the hype of the fans more than the actual quality of racing, with the early season races and spring Classics given a great deal more attention than basically everything after the Tour de France. There’s a brief flicker of excitement for Worlds but aside from that, there’s a sense of media fatigue that perhaps reflect the waning attention span of even the most dedicated fans, and also mirrors the tired legs of the peloton (well most of them – we get it Pogi, you’re a Duracell bunny).

The jaded sense of needing a break from thinking about it, writing about it, obsessing over it seems to take hold somewhere during the summer, and by the time October rolls around, however wistful we may be about the season that’s drawing to a close, secretly I think we’re all in need of a break, however much we know we’ll miss seeing our favourites doing their thing week in, week out. While the majority of riders are jetting off to sunny locations around the world to enjoy some well-deserved down time, it seems the off-season is growing ever shorter, and – if you’ll excuse the pun – the cycle begins again, for many teams, even as they are just finalising the last few names on the squad list. Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe posted this week about carrying out testing in its labs with the riders on the 2025 squad, and other teams planning meetings of key staff, to begin planning the 2025 season. Astana have even had a team building day – which seems warranted given the number of new personnel they’ve recruited – see below image for evidence of what they did!

And as the cyclocross season is just kicking into gear, in November and December, teams will take to the south coast of Spain for training camps and team media days. Before you know it, January is rolling around, racing in Australia kicks off, and we are just a few weeks away from the cobbles. It’s a brisk, relentless schedule that doesn’t offer much down time to anyone caught up in its thrall, from riders to team staff to media to fans, but would we have it any other way?  I guess what I’m trying to say in a roundabout way is, even if we are not heading to tropical islands to relax like the riders, we should also take this opportunity to allow ourselves a bit of space away from the sport, so when we return to it we’re refreshed and ready for more.

I’ll be busy writebikerepeat-ing every two weeks to keep you up-to-date, and we’ll all be bouncing with excitement about Omloop before you know it.

THE LAST WORD

Thanks for reading as always, especially if you’ve made it this far – and welcome once again to all my new subscribers, it’s great to have you here. If you have enjoyed this newsletter please feel free to share it with your cycling pals, and if you’d like to support my quest to continue providing free, entertaining and informative independent cycling content, I would be forever grateful if you did so in the form of virtual coffee.

I appreciate each and every one of you for continuing to be a subscriber. In the meantime, enjoy the off-road action and I’ll speak to you all in two weeks.

Cheers,
Katy