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Welcome bicycling enthusiasts to another packed edition of the writebikerepeat newsletter sponsored by Ciclos Major, in which we look back at some racing, look ahead to some racing, and indeed, generally roll around in all the lovely, lovely racing like metaphorical pigs in muck.

There’s been a lot of it, you see, and with plenty of results to bring you up to date with, plus a Monument looming on the horizon like a vast 288km monolith, it’s probably best if I quit waffling and begin to layer up the meat (or meat substitute) in this great wedge of a sandwich of a newsletter. Hungry? Good.

ON THE WEBSITE

There is plenty to read over on the website, including the latest instalment in the Devonshire Duo blog, featuring the adventures of Saint Piran’s Harry Birchill and Will Tidball, as they go on training camp (or stay home), take on championships (and illness), and prepare for the first road race of the season. It’s a real, honest look at the realities of life as a pro cyclist at the continental level, and these guys are worth your time – check it out.

Our sponsor Ciclos Major played host to the Lee Valley Youth Team as they took on the final two legs of a racing series in Mallorca – see what happened in this special race report from the sun.

And Saint Piran’s women’s branch launched a brand new initiative designed to get women on their bikes and going off-road, last week on International Women’s Day. Find out more about it here.

NEWS!! NEWS!! NEWS!!

Helmet-gate

If you’ve been stranded on a far flung desert island, or on some kind of screen detox, there’s a chance you may not have seen the, um, interesting new Visma-Lease A Bike time trial helmets – fairly sure the rest of you will have seen multiple images of the giant monstrosities which I have no doubt have been rigorously tested and designed much like their predecessors (all the other weird and wonderful time trial get-up over the years). But anyway, for those of you just emerging from two weeks off grid, here are some pictures of the meme-worthy headgear.

Helmet-gate, Episode II – The Revenge

In the wake of the Visma-LAB helmet furore, the UCI saw fit to ban some time trial headwear – but it wasn’t the Visma helmet. No, their target was the Specialised head sock used by both BORA hansgrohe and Soudal-QuickStep. The timing seemed a little strange, given the aforementioned furore, and it caused some consternation within the team camps, with Remco Evenepoel in particular outspoken on the matter. Luckily (perhaps) the aero snoods had the chance to have their final run-outs at Paris-Nice and Tirreno-Adriatico before the news broke.

Martinez contract wrangle

Groupama-FDJ’s break-out star of the season Lenny Martinez has been involved in the rumour mill this week, with suggestions that Team Bahrain-Victorious are offering a hefty sum for the signature of the diminutive climber, who rose through the ranks in the Groupama development team set-up.

Suggestions that Martinez may be looking for Tour de France leadership are just rumours at the moment – will bring you the latest on that as and when anything changes.

Ellen van Dijk returns to peloton and notches up victory

Five months after giving birth to her first child Faas, Ellen van Dijk returned to the professional peloton, at the Vuelta Extremadura in Spain. Not only did she ride but she also won, taking victory in the individual time trial and proving that she is more than ready to return to her best in time for a big summer of cycling, including a Tour de France Femmes beginning in her homeland of the Netherlands, and the Paris Olympics.

La Vuelta Femenina reveals race route

The youngest of the three Grand Tours for women, the second edition of the expanded Vuelta Femenina sponsored by Carrefour will take place in April. With eight stages, one more than last year’s seven, the race will begin with a time trial and conclude in the Pyrenees, visiting the mountain range for the first time in the race’s history.

New AG2R jersey

Just three months after they launched their new 2024 kit following the addition of new title sponsors Decathlon, Decathlon-AG2R La Mondiale launched another new kit yesterday, following the rebranding of Decathlon.

The ‘Galaxy’ design replaces the light blue and white, and though there are sadly still no sign of the brown shorts returning, the jersey itself is pretty lovely, in my humble opinion.

Rod Ellingworth to lead Tour of Britain

The former head of cycling at INEOS Grenadiers, Rod Ellingworth, was yesterday appointed by British Cycling as race director for both the men’s and women’s editions of the Tour of Britain in 2024. He was announced alongside a team that would support Ellingworth in delivering the races in 2024. Further details are expected soon.

BITESIZE CHUNKS OF NEWS, YUM!

- Chris Froome’s bad luck continues – the 4-time Tour de France champion fractured his scaphoid at Tirreno-Adriatico and was forced to retire – he does not require surgery however and should be able to race by the end of the month

- Jasper Philipsen has hired top sports agent Alex Carera as he seeks a lucrative long-term contract. His contract with Alpecin-Deceuninck is up at the end of the year, though he has not ruled out staying with the team

THE LIGHTER SIDE

Just one account for you this week, and it’s Tom Pidcock’s dogs Chestnut and Acorn, who now have their own Instagram page. Because this is the joy of the world we live in. Keep up with the antics of the adorable sausages and tell me your life isn’t better for it.

RACING RESULTS ROUND-UP

It’s been full gas the past two weeks, and we’ve seen two of the most important week-long stage races of the year and a major one-day Classic in Italy. Here are the results and news from around the world of road racing…

STAGE RACES

After a glut of early season stage racing there’s been just one stage race for the women in the past two weeks* - the Vuelta a El Salvador (results to come later), and two for the men: Paris-Nice and Tirreno-Adriatico.

Consistently my favourite week of the cycling year, I love the contrasts and similarities between the two races, as the peloton’s major protagonists divide up their resources and head to either France or Italy to test themselves across a week of varied racing.

So much do I love this week of racing in fact, that I dedicated two full posts to the races over at the website, so if you’d like to know what happened, how it happened, and read my take on exactly why I love this week so much, then head to the following posts –

Part One

Part Two

*the Vuelta Extremadura Féminas (8-10 Mar) is a .2 level race and I don’t usually cover those in this newsletter. It featured just two World Tour teams, including a stacked Lidl-Trek side, and was won by Movistar’s Mareille Meijering. It seems as though it was a great race, here’s hoping the UCI see fit to promote it to .1 in future years.

ONE DAY RACES

Le Samyn Des Dames (27 Feb) was a down to the wire thriller. A breakaway group of five were still clear with a kilometre to go, when the peloton admitted defeat and though one or two riders attacked out of the bunch, it was the breakaway’s day, with Vittoria Guazzini taking the victory for FDJ-SUEZ.

The men’s race was similarly exciting, though a much bigger bunch came to the line in the end. It was a photo finish between UAE Team Emirates’ rising star António Morgado and Intermarche-Wanty’s Laurenz Rex which took quite some time to be worked out, but in the end it was Rex who took the win.

The Trofeo Laigueglia (28 Feb) is traditionally a total slugfest, with an exciting finishing circuit, plenty of ups and downs and quite often horrible weather. The conditions weren’t too bad this year but the attacking nature of the course proved once again to bring out the best in the riders, with a group including Juan Ayuso (UAE Team Emirates) and Darren Rafferty (EF Education-EasyPost) pushing the pace at the front. In the end it was Lenny Martinez (Groupama-FDJ) who was able to break clear of Ayuso and move clear, to take a brilliant solo victory. Martinez has proven himself to be in scintillating form so far this season and he took his second win, and secured a last-minute call-up to the team’s Strade Bianche squad as a reward.

Alongside Strade Bianche weekend, two Belgian 1.1 races saw double joy for Lotto-DSTNY through two young riders – Alec Segaert won the GP Criquielion (2 Mar) while Jarne van der Paar was victorious in the GP Jean-Pierre Monseré (3 Mar).

FOCUS ON: Strade Bianche (2 Mar)

The white roads of Siena played host to the first of the Italian one day classics of the year, and while the debate over whether the race should be a Monument raged on social media, two races unfolded on a day that was largely dry, yet not altogether clean – rain the previous day meant much of the gravel turned to dirt, resulting in some seriously grubby riders.

The women’s race was first up, and with Team SD Worx ProTime having won the previous three editions, it was more a question of which member of their team would win, rather than if they would win. There were plenty of contenders though, and with a longer race and added gravel sectors, there were additional opportunities to launch attacks, and in the latter stages of the race those attacks came thick and fast.

Lotte Kopecky kicked off the action and from there, an elite selection drew clear and though they came back together a few times, it was a clear battle between Kopecky, and her team mate Demi Vollering, Kasia Niewiadoma, Lidl-Trek riders Elisa Longo Borghini and Shirin van Anrooij, and EF Education Cannondale’s Kristen Faulkner. For a while Puck Pieterse was visible with her Fenix-Deceuninck team mates, but they were unable to sustain the pace put on by SD Worx and Niewiadoma, and eventually dropped back. With 10km to go, Kopecky put in a strong burst of power and pulled clear of the bunch. Only Longo Borghini was able to stick with her and that was the way it stayed all the way into Siena, with a chasing group of four around 20 seconds behind.

On the final climb of Via Santa Caterina, Kopecky called upon her explosivity to punch up the steep incline away from the veteran Italian, and she crossed the line well clear, raising her arms on the Piazzo del Campo for the second time in her career. Vollering beat a heartbroken Niewiadoma into fourth place to make it 1 and 3 on the podium for Team SD Worx ProTime. You can read a full race report penned by yours truly over at the GCN website:

The men’s race was a whole different kettle of fish. No doubt you’ll have seen the race or otherwise heard about it by now; it was another demonstration of sheer power and audacity from Tadej Pogacar. Before the race, the Slovenian, riding his first race of the season, announced his intention to attack from sector 8 on the Monte Santa Marie, and lo and behold, he was as good as his word. He pressed on with 81km remaining in the race, and unlike his usual attacks, it wasn’t an explosive, all-out detonation, but rather an innocuous acceleration. Behind him, the chase was disorganised, with no team taking control to hunt down the wily tufted one, and that, as they say, was that. He simply pushed on, pulling further and further ahead, while behind him, the sum total of nothing was done in response.

The show of dominance was a spectacle in and of itself, but robbed the race of any real tension. As Pogacar’s gap widened, an ever-decreasing chase group followed in the hope of battling it out for the podium spots. In the end, it came down to in-form Latvian Toms Skujins of Lidl-Trek and Lotto-DSTNY’s Maxim van Gils, and of the two, the experience and power of Skujins triumphed – he’s having a cracking season so far, it must be said.

So that was that – another year of sterrato done and dusted (pun borrowed and very much intended) – next up, in terms of major one-day races at least, our first Monument of the season – Milano-Sanremo.

ONE-DAY RACES, after that…

In Italy, Elisa Longo Borghini (Lidl-Trek) won on home soil the day after finishing second in Strade Bianche, going solo to win the Trofeo Oro in Euro (3 Mar).

A series of 1.1 races in El Salvador saw two chances for outside riders to take valuable UCI points. Antri Christoforou won the Grand Prix Surf City El Salvador (4 Mar) for Roland, the only World Tour team to travel to the races. They missed out the following day as Spanish conti team Eneicat-CM Team won the Grand Prix El Salvador (5 Mar) through Valentina Basilico, but Roland made up for it on the final day of the series, filling out the podium with the top three in the Grand Prix Presidente, with Elena Hartmann on the top step. A stage race – the Vuelta a El Salvador (8-12 Mar) – followed featuring largely the same riders. It was a top three on the GC podium for Roland, with Elena Hartmann victorious once again. The most recent race in the country, the Grand Prix MOPT (13 Mar), resulted in a big win for Panama’s Soltec Iberoamerica through Aranza Villalón of Chile.

Meanwhile back in Europe, Lorena Wiebes won a reduced bunch sprint in the Altez GP Oetingen p/b Lotto (6 Mar), proving that SD Worx sometimes show up even for a 1.1 race.

In the Drentse Acht van Westerveld (9 Mar), a continental team – VolkerWessels Women's Pro Cycling Team – took the scalps of some serious competition, courtesy of Sofie van Rooijen.

Lorena Wiebes broke records the following day at the Ronde van Drenthe (10 Mar), becoming the first rider ever to win four editions of the race. The Dutch classic race features multiple ascents of the VAM-berg and with the finish at the top of the climb this year, there was doubt over whether it would come down to a sprint or not. In the end, Wiebes had the motor to power away from the rest and take her place in history. It was an exciting race despite the potentially obvious result, with Puck Pieterse in particular animating the race in the latter stages.

Bringing us bang up to date, two one-day races in Italy and Belgium. Milano-Torino (13 Mar) warmed us up for the weekend, and though it was a start list stacked with sprinters, it was a bold breakaway move from Alberto Bettiol (EF Education EasyPost) that won the day. The Italian broke free after a lively final climb saw the bunch split apart, and though he was hotly pursued in the final couple of kilometres he managed to triumph on home soil.

Nokere Koerse (13 Mar) was also one for the sprinters, and so it proved. On a day beset with crashes on the Belgian cobbles, Tim Merlier (Soudal-QuickStep) stormed clear in the final 100m to win the race with time to sit up and celebrate - his hat-trick at a race he owns.

The women’s race marked a year since Lotte Kopecky (Team SD Worx-ProTime) won solo in the wake of her brother’s tragic death. She marked the anniversary with another win, surging clear late in the race to stamp her authority on the Belgian one-day race.

FINAL THOUGHT – The Monuments Beckon

We’ve made it to the week of the first Monument of the season for the men’s peloton, with the long, beautiful and back-loaded Milano-Sanremo on the horizon. This weekend, Tadej Pogacar returns to the Italian roads, where he recorded a stunning solo victory almost two weeks ago at Strade Bianche. This time, he has reigning champion Mathieu van der Poel to contend with. The World Champion returns to the road for the first time this season and it’s safe to assume he will come in at an extremely high level, and will be the main obstacle to the Slovenian’s hopes of victory.

The race is perhaps the toughest to call in the entire calendar of one-day racing, despite its length, as all the action is stacked at the end of the race, beginning on the iconic Poggio, where those with the power to do so will explode away from the bunch and rip the race to shreds. With Mathieu van der Poel the main aggressor in 2023, it’s easy to imagine a similar outcome in 2024, but with Tadej Pogacar in startling form, it presents an ‘unstoppable force meets immovable object’ scenario, the outcome of which is impossible to predict.

Can anyone else challenge? It’s difficult to say, but with positioning vital, daredevil descending a plus, and a dauntless approach to the final kilometres a must, there are factors at play which mean the race is far from a foregone conclusion.

Lidl-Trek bring a stacked team, with Mads Pedersen and Jonathan Milan a pair of powerhouses who will both hope they can stick with van der Poel and Pogacar over the climbs. Perhaps it’s Toms Skujins who stands the best chance though, given his current form, and it would not be wise to write him off. Former winner Matej Mohoric has proven he has no fear and will try his best to engineer a situation in which he can win on the descent again. And last year’s runner-up Filippo Ganna surprised many with his ability to hang on up the Poggio with the top classics riders in the peloton, and was rewarded for his efforts. Though he hasn’t looked quite as sharp so far this season, he will hope to challenge again. His teammates Tom Pidcock and Jhonathan Narvaez will also be hoping to make an impact.

Whatever happens, it’s a long day, so make sure you’re stocked up on snacks and drinks, or perhaps just tune in late – if you do plan to stick around for the duration though, why not print off a copy of my Milano-Sanremo bingo card and see how many you can check off?

THE LAST WORD

Thanks to all my subscribers, old and new – your loyalty is really appreciated! If you’ve been thinking about supporting the newsletter, March is a brilliant month to do so – I’m offering 15% over at the writebikerepeat shop, so you can pick up a Classics cap, bidon or tote bag for a bit less than usual until Paris-Roubaix. Alternatively, I’m always eternally grateful to my supporters over on Ko-Fi, you can buy me a coffee there if you’re feeling generous, I might even spend it on actual coffee.

Enjoy Milan-Sanremo this weekend and I’ll see you all in two weeks!

Cheers,
Katy