Midsummer madness

Hi everyone. How are you all? Please accept my apologies for the ridiculously late nature of this newsletter, but I hope you’ll forgive me as I’ve been… quite busy. In case you’ve been travelling in the wilds of Siberia and lost track of the months, a little race called the Tour de France has happened, and in a perennial case of terrible scheduling, so has the Giro Donne. And of course, who could forget the Tour of Austria? And then some more Tour de France and some other races and SOME NEWS HAPPENED and also now the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift is almost halfway done and Worlds is NEXT WEEK and quite honestly, HOW? I don’t know where the time has gone.

So, I must beg your forgiveness once again, if today’s edition is a little shorter than usual. Please direct your faces squarely at the website instead as we’ve covered both men’s and women’s Tour de France (and the Giro Donne), bringing a group of brilliant folks together to deliver a whole bunch of content which personally I think is well worth a read. Take your time and work your way through our Tour Dispatches, and do let me know what you think. When I say it’s eclectic, I’m being conservative. There is something in there for everyone, from food and drink to stats to French phrases, and plenty of unique race analysis, including a focus on the daily Lanterne Rouge and a look at the riders of different nations. AND SO MUCH MORE. You’ll have to read it, to find out why I’m so proud of what we’ve put together.

NEWS ROUND-UP

The news has centred almost entirely around the Tour de France, along with a glut of transfer rumours, but given the intentional brevity of this newsletter we will only focus on things that are actually confirmed rather than deal with conjecture. On that note…

La Vuelta Line-up Evolves

After Remco Evenepoel confirmed his participation in the third Grand Tour of the year earlier this month, Jonas Vingegaard is the latest heavyweight rider to throw his hat into the ring. The recently crowned Tour de France champion will attempt a second Grand Tour, in a dual leadership role with Primoz Roglič, as Team Jumbo Visma attempt to win all three Grand Tours in one year – quite the aim, and one that with those two leaders, suddenly becomes that bit more achievable.

Trek-Segafredo have become Lidl-Trek

The American outfit unveiled their striking new kits just before the Tour de France, you’ll have seen them by now, buy relevant goods in the middle aisle and embrace the affordable cycling brand of choice! Here’s Mads Pedersen proving just that.

Dutch Depart for TDFF 2024

Rotterdam will host the opening to the 2024 Tour de France Femmes. On the one hand, it feels relevant given that 18% of the Tour de France Femmes peloton this year are Dutch. On the other hand, it feels slightly too soon; it will be only the third edition of the revamped race, and with just 8 stages to play with, to begin the race outside of France when there’s still a vast swathe of the host nation left unexplored by the race thus far feels a bit unnecessary. But here we are, and I’m sure Rotterdam will do a great job of hosting.

Tony Gallopin retiring

Announced during the Tour, the French veteran, currently riding for Lidl-Trek, confirmed this would be his final season. Gallopin is a two-time Grand Tour stage winner.

Contract extensions for French Stars

Two contract extensions were announced during the Tour de France – newly crowned French champion Valentin Madouas extended with Groupama-FDJ until 2027, and surprise winner of stage 2 Victor Lafay silenced the rumours of a transfer away from Cofidis by extending with the team.

UCI Decisions – MAL, Maciejuk

The UCI released a couple of pieces of news this week – first, that Miguel Angel Lopez has been notified of a potential anti-doping violation, dating back to the 2022 Giro d’Italia. Second, that Filip Maciejuk of Bahrain Victorious has been retroactively suspended for a period of weeks following the move at the Tour of Flanders that resulted in a mass crash. The decision comes bizarrely late given the incident took place in April and one wonders quite what the UCI have been doing all this time in order to reach a decision – one that it should be noted, rules Maciejuk out of the World Championships in Glasgow next week.

Cav to extend?

We all felt the heartbreak as Mark Cavendish crashed out of the Tour, without the stage win that he wanted so badly. It felt like a cruel curtailment of a story, and since then Astana have offered Cavendish the option to remain with the team into 2024 for one final shot at number 35. It’s been rumoured that they will also consider signing Michael Mørkøv, who worked as Cavendish’s lead-out man at QuickStep. There’s no confirmation on this yet though (yes I know I said I’d only focus on things that had actually happened - but it’s Cav!).

RACING RECAP – 23^rd June – 26^th July

Though it’s been a few weeks since I last wrote to you, precious little racing has actually occurred. The main reason for this is that it was nationals week, and then everyone had a week off before Le Tour.

I’d love to give you a run-down of ALL the new national champions, but it feels like old news now, and only two of the nations’ races were actually televised in the end (for us in the UK at least) – those of Great Britain and France.

In the British championships, Pfeiffer Georgi regained her national stripes at Saltburn-on-Sea by a margin of just 5 seconds over Israel-Premier Tech Roland’s Claire Steels, and Fred Wright was victorious from a breakaway group of three in the men’s race, a relentless slog round a hilly circuit in the rain that genuinely felt as though it would never end. But end it did, with Wright raising his arms as he crossed the line ahead of James Knox and Stephen Williams, and he dedicated his victory to his late teammate Gino Mäder in emotional scenes after the race.

In France, Victoire Berteau scored her first pro victory as a surprise breakaway winner, while Valentin Madouas won solo in the men’s race. If you ever find yourself with a couple of hours to kill, I’d urge you to go back and watch the French men’s road race. A more mob-handed maelstrom of a race you’re not likely to find. National pride is at its most fervent on road race day in France and with tough, repeated climbs and huge bunches from the French teams all vying for supremacy, well… Ooh-lala, basically.

AND THE REST…

In the BIG RACE NEWS, the Tour de France happened, and Jonas Vingegaard (Team Jumbo-Visma) won it. The Giro Donne happened, and Annemiek van Vleuten (Movistar) won that. I won’t go into any detail here given the intense level of detail I’ve been going into on the site so for more information on both of those, please go there!

Also some other races occurred about which I will NOT wax lyrical, mainly due to not having seen any of them due to extreme Grand Tour commitments. Here are all the other results since I last wrote to you…

MEN

Tour of Austria (Österreich-Rundfahrt) (2-6 Jun): Jhonatan Narvaez (INEOS Grenadiers) won stages 2,3 and 5, and the GC. Stage 1 was won by Pascal Ackermann (UAE Team Emirates) and stage 4 by Matteo Sobrero (Team Jayco-Alula).

Sibiu Cycling Tour (6-9 Jun): It was a great race for BORA-Hansgrohe, with Sam Bennett sprinting to victory on stages 1 and 4, and Max Schachmann winning stage 3. Lennert van Eetvelt (Lotto-DSTNY) won stage 2 from the breakaway, and Marceli Boguslawski (Alpecin-Deceuninck Development Team) was victorious on the stage 5 ‘epilogue’ (no idea if they actually called it that or not but it was a teeny weeny 3.3km time trial at the END of the race). Mark Donovan of Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team won the overall GC.

This week, it was the turn of the Tour de Wallonie to compete with Tour de France action, and the INEOS Grenadiers dominated the race, with Filippo Ganna winning two stages, the time trial on stage 4 (not all that surprising) and the opening day’s sprint stage (a bit more surprising). Arnaud de Lie (Lotto-DTSNY) marked his return to racing with a win on stage 2, with Timo Kielich (Alpecin-Deceuninck) taking stage 3 and Andrea Bagioli (Soudal-QuickStep) hanging on the take the final stage. INEOS were denied a 1-2-3 on GC at the last, with Ganna winning, Josh Tarling in second and Brent van Moer sneaking into the final podium spot, equalling the time of Connor Swift but edging him out on countback.

And the Spanish one-day race Villafranca de Ordizia (25 Jul) concluded in a victory for Marc Hirschi (UAE Team Emirates), with EF’s Ben Healy in 2^nd and Juan Ayuso in 3^rd, despite suffering a crash earlier on in the race.

WOMEN

The only non-Grand Tour race that’s taken place since last time is the Baloise Ladies Tour. It was a sprint-fest for the most part, and with no SD Worx present, Charlotte Kool was able to win stages 1-4 for Team DSM, in a super dominant display. Lucinda Brand won the time trial on stage 5 and was able to make enough of a difference time-wise to win the overall GC title, despite the final sprint stage being won by Movistar’s Jelena Eric.

FINAL THOUGHT – Congestion and fatigue – a modern phenomenon?

Ah, the fatigue. Sean Kelly talks about it a lot in his commentary and I know he’s referring to the riders, but with the glut of coverage and the wealth of racing on both the men’s and women’s side of the sport, it’s an affliction which I feel begins to take its toll on the sport’s audience too, as we move into the summer months.

Disclaimer: I’m not complaining. Honestly I’m not. I’m the first to mourn the loss of the cycling season when it’s over, and I’m endlessly grateful to the likes of GCN for enabling us to access many and varied races throughout the season. It’s simply a lot at this time of year, and I feel bad for races like the Tour de Wallonie, which I sure was a great race but is inevitably side-lined in the consciousnesses of the cycling fandom as all eyes fall on the behemoth that is the Tour de France.

This year the problem is exacerbated with the ‘Super Worlds’ in Glasgow beginning NEXT WEEK, meaning that the usual back marker of the season has shifted to midsummer and with it, not only a juggling act as riders shift focus and prioritise different goals, but also a saturation of racing, with the side effect that the late season is going to feel distinctly barren.

It is what it is, however, and these so-called ‘Super Worlds’ will put the season out of whack once every 4 years for the foreseeable future, so this year will be something of an experiment, both for the organisations involved and the teams and riders. As for the fans, we may have whiplash by the time the Vuelta kicks off at the end of August… but are we not entertained?

THE LAST WORD

Again, please accept my apologies for the radio silence – those of you who follow my work will hopefully have been enjoying all the content at the site, if you’d like to ensure you don’t miss anything please do consider subscribing. It’s free – unless you’d like to become a paying member, for various benefits – read more about that here. Alternatively, you can support me by buying me a coffee, or by heading over to the BRAND NEW writebikerepeat shop to pick up some of my exclusive merchandise. I really do appreciate your support, and hope you’re finding the content to your liking. I am always open to feedback, so feel free to drop me a line and let me know your thoughts.

In the meantime, Worlds is just around the corner so enjoy the racing - it promises to be a really great event, and one that for us Brits is particularly exciting - maybe see some of you there!

Cheers,

Katy