Off-season over, everyone back to work

Welcome my cycling-loving friends from all around the globe to this week’s edition of the newsletter, which as always comes packed with news, results, and general thoughts on the sport that we love.

We’ve seen some cracking holiday snaps on Instagram this week as the pro pelotons share their travels with us, with Florian Sénéchal swimming with dolphins in Mauritius, Chiara Consonni and Vittoria Guazzani dressing up for Halloween in Sharm el Sheikh, Lorena Wiebes on a desert safari in Dubai and Thibaut Pinot trekking in the Himayala. (Yes I know Thibaut’s not technically in ‘off-season’ as he’s no longer riding but his adventures are awesome to follow nonetheless!)

Of course I envy them their stunning trips abroad but equally it’s really lovely to see riders in their civvies – or their Sunday best – relaxing, spending time with loved ones, and just being normal people for a while, after the exertions of a long and challenging season.

It’s not all sunshine and camel rides though. Plenty more pros are already back on their bikes, out running, or throwing themselves enthusiastically into off-road season – more on all of that later on. For now, let’s dive into the past couple of weeks in the world on two wheels. Enjoy!

ON THE WEBSITE

Finally I have some content to share with you after a fallow period (off-season, life, writer’s block and that sort of thing) and now the dam has broken, expect a flurry of stories to pop up over the next few weeks to keep you entertained during off-season.

This week’s piece is a biggie. It’s about my recent experience travelling around following the Tour of Britain. I don’t go into much depth on the racing itself (there’s not much point writing race reports for a race that’s two months old) but instead there are musings on following bike racing in person, interviews from inside a team car, insights into the logistics of race organisation and plenty more. It’s part memoir, part travelogue, and I hope you find it’s a worthy use of your time. It’s split into sections to make it more palatable as it’s certainly what classes as a ‘long-read’, but it you have some time and fancy reading what’s basically a novella about the unique experience of following a live race, then this is for you.

NEWS! GET YOUR NEWS!

Tour de France route reveal!

Yes, the headline news of the past fortnight is that of the Tour de France 2025 routes, which were revealed at the traditional presentation in Paris by organisers ASO.

The routes for both men and women were unveiled at a star-studded event, featuring a great many of the sport’s biggest names, and the two routes have received largely positive comments.

Beginning in Lille and Brest respectively, the entirety of both Tours will take place in France next year. While a more in-depth exploration of the routes is available online, and will feature in the coming weeks at writebikerepeat.com, the key takeaways include:

For the men, a traditionalist’s route with plenty for the puncheurs, extensive coverage of the north of the country, a tough Pyrenean time trial, Mont Ventoux, a few long transfers, and no controversial surfaces

And for the women, an extra stage (nine in total), no individual time trial, a back-loaded route once again, beginning in Brittany and travelling east to finish in the Alps.

Both routes below – look out for more analysis on the site.

Giro route announcement delayed!

Staying on the subject of route announcements, the Giro d’Italia was due to hold their own presentation to reveal 2025’s route in early November, but the announcements have been delayed for an unspecified amount of time, allegedly due to ongoing issues between the Italian government and that of Albania, the Balkan nation which was apparently due to host the 2025 Grande Partenza. Organisers RCS played down the issues, saying there were no problems, but have also been reported to be negotiating an alternative, using Sicily to host the first three stages instead. More news on that as we have it.

Steve Cummings leaves INEOS!

More turbulence at the British team, as seemingly disenfranchised DS Cummings announces his departure from the team as he heads to undisclosed pastures new, confirming what had been suspected ever since his unexplained absence from the Tour de France – that all was not rosy in camp. Having gained two years experience at the team, he will have plenty to offer, wherever he ends up next.

TRANSFER TALK

Of course, much of the news is still centred around transfers as teams continue to recruit and finalise their 2025 squads. Here are some of the key moves.

VOLLERING TO FDJ-SUEZ

By far the biggest transfer story of the past two weeks and the one we have all been waiting for – Demi Vollering’s transfer to the French team was announced with an elegant video, and confirmed what we had long suspected. Vollering will lead a formidable team of GC riders in 2025, with Evita Muzic and Juliette Labous flying the flag for France, and Marta Cavalli departs the team, her destination is expected to be dsm-firmenich PostNL.

CEDRINE KERBAOL TO EF-OATLY CANNONDALE

The Tour de France Femme’s first ever French stage winner Kerbaol left her current team, Ceratizit-WNT, earlier in the week by mutual agreement following a clause in her contract which was triggered when the German-based team experienced a delay in confirming their 2025 World Tour status with the UCI.

It allowed up-and-comer Kerbaol to seek a new home, and she found one in EF, who add her to a roster of positive, attacking riders who lit up the peloton in 2024 not only because of their pink kit, but because of their aggressive racing style. Featuring the likes of Olympic road race champion Kristen Faulkner, former Paris-Roubaix Femmes winner Alison Jackson and Kiwi breakaway star Kim Cadzow, EF seems to be the perfect fit for the versatile, attacking style of Kerbaol.

MTB WORLD CHAMPION HEADS TO THE ROAD

UCI cross-country mountain bike World Champion Alan Hatherley announced this week he would ride on the road in 2025 for Team Jayco-AlUla. The South African, who has focused solely on the mountain bike prior to 2023, raced his national championships on the road in 2023, and was on the books with EF’s development squad, but will bring more of a multi-discipline focus to 2025 with the Australian side.

Lots more besides!

Some other transfers to report…

Gal Glivar, Johan Price-Pejtersen -> Alpecin-Deceuninck (along with a number of other riders from the development and cyclocross squads)

Lucas Hamilton -> INEOS Grenadiers

David Dekker -> Euskaltel-Euskadi

Alex Baudin -> EF Education-Easypost

Maëva Squiban -> UAE Team ADQ

As always, stay up to date with all the latest news including transfers over at the website.

OH HAPPY DAY!

Good flipping lord do we ever need something positive to distract us this week and I’m disappointed to report that I haven’t spotted any social media posts about new babies being born – the great peloton influx of 2024 appears to have slowed down finally. Instead, we’ll have to rely on some animal content to see us through – and who better to start us off than the women of the moment, doing something heroic? That’s right, it’s the content you never knew you needed, as ‘Demi Vollering saves a goat.’

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From the subline to the ridiculous – here are a group of elite athletes, holding ventilation panels. Oh the glamour!

CYCLOCROSS DISPATCH - 26 Oct-3 Nov

The season is in full swing and though the likes of Mathieu van der Poel, Wout van Aert, Puck Pieterse and Tom Pidcock have yet to announce their participation schedules, there is plenty of depth within both the men’s and women’s fields in most races and there have already been some excellent battles. Here’s a round-up of the latest off-road results.

Exact Cross Heerderstrand (26 Oct) – Eli Iserbyt, on his return from his three-race ban, made a point of exerting his authority and taking the win. Pim Ronhaar, making just his second appearance of the season, came second. Ceylin del Carmen Alvarado won the women’s race, ahead of Inge van der Heijden, though the field lacked overall depth with a number of key names absent.

Superprestige Overijse (27 Oct) – Lucinda Brand won out over Fem van Empel in the women’s race, and in the men’s race, Baloise Trek’s Thibau Nys carved out a narrow victory over Eli Iserbyt, with his teammate Lars van der Haar third.

The X20 Trofee Oudenaarde (1 Nov), otherwise known as the Koppenbergcross, is always a real battle. The centrepiece of the race is the cobbled climb made legendary in the Tour of Flanders, and the slog up the vicious gradient which is positioned just before the finish line usually makes or breaks the race. After a filthy, grim edition of the race in 2023, it was relatively dry this time around, and in the women’s event it was something of an anti-climax, the field splitting up early, and Fem van Empel taking the win over Lucinda Brand by half a minute, though the race was incredibly short at just four laps, clocking in under 40 minutes.

On the men’s side, Thibau Nys was defending his title, his 2023 win arguably the peak performance of his last season’s campaign, but it was his teammate Lars van der Haar who was victorious on the day, putting in an assured performance to take his second victory at the race, by a comfortable margin. So, neither of the editions provided quite the excitement or drama we’ve seen in recent seasons, but the winners were worthy and deservedly raised their cobblestones (and giant cuddly ducks) aloft – chapeau.

The European Championships in Ponteveda, Spain (2-3 Nov) produced some excellent entertainment, with both men’s and women’s elite races going down to the wire, and some stand-out performances to note.

The leading trio of the 2024 women’s scene thus far found themselves together at the front of the race and though both Lucinda Brand and Ceylin del Carmen Alvarado showed their aggression and intention with multiple attacks throughout the race, it was the more measured approach of Fem van Empel which won the day for the Netherlands, which in women’s cross has all but dispensed with the pretence that it’s anything other than a glorified national championships. That being said, the season’s fourth best rider so far, Italy’s Sara Casasola, managed to claw her way up to the leaders by the end of the race, and finished just outside the top three, in what’s been a stand-out season for her so far.

The surprise package in the men’s race was Spanish champion Felipe Orts, who really brought his A-game on home soil, taking the race to the Belgians and Dutch and riding at the head of the race with Thibau Nys for the final few laps, to wild support from the Spanish crowd. The pair went head-to-head on the final lap, but Nys was able to pull clear of Orts after the final time over the planks, the bunny hops paying dividends for the Belgian as the Spaniard opted to dismount, and another error later in the lap offering Nys the opportunity to race for the win, and his first ever senior European title. For Orts, the high point of his career so far.

While Pim Ronhaar and Michael Vantourenhout both showed promise earlier in the race it was Eli Ibseryt, Lars van der Haar, and Niels Vandeputte who challenged for third position, with Iserbyt completing the podium in the end.

And with that, we’re bang up to date, as we head ever closer to the first UCI World Cup fixture, which takes place in Antwerp, two weeks tomorrow.

FINAL THOUGHT

After my musings last week on the off-season, and the opportunity to step away from cycling and reflect, it has been somewhat alarming to see riders returning to training this week – yes, Mads Pedersen was bemoaning the lack of racing, and Kevin Geniets posted an ‘end of off-season’ post on Instagram which led me to further thoughts over the amount of down time cyclists really have, and how off-season really does seem to be getting shorter every year.

genietskevin

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On the flip side, while I declared myself a bit jaded by the relentless schedule a few weeks ago, I can no longer deny there’s a real frisson of excitement beginning to build as I consider the season ahead. The women’s season in particular holds a great deal of promise, with the return of some huge names and the shifting around of a number of major players – a full article exploring the reasons why I believe the 2025 women’s season will be so exciting will be published on the side in the near future.

In the meantime, we must note the inexorable passage of time, and despite the fact that it seems many of them only just stepped off their bikes, accept that for many riders, it’s already time to start getting into shape for 2025. The ever-increasing depth of the fields in both men’s and women’s pelotons, and the constantly rising levels of performance required to perform in races of all levels, means that they really can’t afford to rest on their laurels. I’ll also explore this in more detail, in next week’s website article.

As fans, we can enjoy a few more weeks of thinking about other things, or indeed, we can begin to allow ourselves to get just a teeny bit excited about the new season, as it really will be with us before we know it.

THE LAST WORD

Thanks as always for being a subscriber, I really do appreciate you all and hope you’re continuing to enjoy the newsletter. Keep an eye on the site for more articles coming your way over the next couple of weeks, and in the meantime, if you’d like to support my quest to provide engaging and informative pro cycling content, all without the need for a paywall, your contributions would be most welcome, via my Ko-Fi page, or a visit to my shop where you can grab some merchandise to show your support.

Until next time, thanks for reading, and look after yourselves.

Cheers,
Katy