How is it still only February?

Good morrow to you my gorgeous collection of cycling aficionados, how goes it out there in the big wide world? I hope you’re all keeping well, and haven’t had your minds blown by the truly astonishing amount of bike racing that we’ve been treated to over the past week or so. It was really quite the challenge to keep up, not only with the amount of racing, often involving several screens and separate brain compartments to manage, but also the sheer quality of the racing itself – AND IT’S STILL ONLY FEBRUARY! FEBRUARY, I TELL YOU!

This newsletter will hit your inboxes a few days BEFORE ‘opening weekend’, and yet we’ve already seen a rampant Pogačar, an all-round GC performance from INEOS (did somebody say ‘trident’?) and a race in which Annemiek van Vleuten did not win - hold onto your hats, folks, we’ve got a lot to get through.

NEWS, GET YOUR NEWS!

Puck on the road!

Fenix Deceuninck have announced that everyone’s favourite off-roader rider (probably) Puck Pieterse will race on the road this spring. Pieterse will make her elite debut on the road at Omloop het Hageland at the weekend, and will ride a short selection of races before shifting to mountain biking. Sadly for us, her schedule doesn’t coincide with that of Fem van Empel, so we will have to wait a while to see them battle it out on the tarmac.

Elisa Balsamo contract extension!

Everyone’s favourite social media account (and also they’re a cycling team) Trek-Segafredo released this adorable video this week to announce the Italian champion’s contract extension with the team through 2026.

RCS take over the Giro Donne!

The Italian race organiser, which currently puts on the Giro d’Italia along with a variety of other top level Italian races, has taken over the reins of the Giro Donne – this is undoubtedly good news as they bring their established team to the helm and speaks volumes to the improved standing of women’s racing in the eyes of the Italians.

Arnaud de Lie promoted to the big leagues!

After spending 2022 sweeping up points for Lotto-DSTNY mostly at 1.1 level, the team has been busy adding the young Belgian’s name to every race on the schedule he’s in with a chance of winning which, as it happens, is most of them. And a lot of them are BIG ONES. He’s a versatile rider capable of winning classics and sprints and will ride both Omloop and Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne this weekend; safe to say he’s in with a decent shot of winning whichever one he targets. The rest of the season will be a defining one for De Lie - you heard it here first! (Well probably not but I’m claiming it).

Pogačar’s calendar bit of a shambles!

The Pog-inator added Paris-Nice to his schedule a couple of weeks ago leaving many scratching their heads as to how he would manage to be at Strade Bianche on Saturday and in France on Sunday - not logistically impossible, but perhaps ill-advised. He - or his team management - presumably realised the error of theirs ways and he withdrew from Strade Bianche a couple of days ago, much to the dismay of many fans who were looking forward to seeing the battle ensue between the Slovenian slayer and the Vans Aert and Der Poel, among many others. He’s also added the Amstel Gold Race and will now compete in all the Ardennes Classics - as it stands.

British domestic scene in crisis…

In UK news, the Tour Series announced this week they would take a one-year hiatus in 2023. It’s a setback for domestic teams with very little racing on the calendar in the UK, and suggests a troubling reality of a lack of funding for race organisers, which is a real body blow for the domestic scene, already floundering due to the loss of some of the conti teams in recent years. Hoping for the best, and that we will see top level racing on British roads again in 2024.

RESULTS ROUND-UP

There have been SO MANY RACES though. Too many, really. I’ll summarise a few results before launching into a more in-depth review of the past week’s four – count them – FOUR – stage races.

Movistar’s Matteo Jorgensen took his first pro win at the Tour of Oman, winning a stage and the GC overall. The American has been on the fringes of a big win – most notably in the breakaway with Hugo Houle at last year’s Tour de France – and he finally cracked it. It was great to see.

He showed great promise at last season’s classics and already INEOS Grenadiers’ Ben Turner has a win under his belt this season, proving stronger than Simon Clarke in the final drag to the line at the Vuelta a Murcia on 11^th Feb to take his first pro win (at this point, I feel like we need a ‘FIRST PRO WIN’ klaxon because we’ve had so many already this season).

At the Clasica Almeria the following day, it was victory for Q36.5 Pro Cycling team’s Matteo Moschetti over Arnaud de Lie and a whole bunch of other strong sprinters. Soudal QuickStep’s Casper Pedersen won the Figueira Champions Classic the same day.

Tadej Pogačar returned with a bang at the Clásica Jaén Paraíso Interior. It was only the second edition of Spain’s answer to Strade Bianche, and Pog took the opportunity on his first race back in the fold to decide ‘actually I just remembered, I don’t like these guys after all, before storming away to a deeply impressive solo victory.

The first WWT stage race of the year was the women’s UAE Tour – rather than re-cap it here, I’ll simply link you to the review piece I wrote for rouleur.cc about the race, if you’re keen to relive what was actually kind of a fun race. Read all about it at the below link—

Emilie Fortin of Cynisca Cycling won the women’s Clasica Almeria, and the UCI’s esports World Championships on Zwift was won by Dane Bjørn Andreassen for the men and Loes Adegeest of the Netherlands for the women, her second title in as many years.

RACE REVIEWS – IN DEPTH

Vuelta a Andalucia

It was a continuation of the Tadej Pogačar show in Andalucia, and the rampant Slovene was in no mood to give gifts at the Ruta del Sol, whose organisers somewhat contrarily put the hardest stage of the week on stage 1, with three category one climbs to contend with offering Pog the option of knocking the GC out of the park at the earliest possible opportunity. Of course, he bit. Just like he did at Clasica Jaen two days earlier, Pog rode away from the rest to solo to victory and set himself up with a comfortable 38 second lead – a fairly comfortable gap with a strong team to support him and just four stages remaining, when you’re Tadej Pogačar.

He won again the next day on the hideous, horrible, disgusting ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT final into Alcala la Real, despite a spirited effort from Enric Mas to stay with him – he almost managed it on a cobbled climb that seemed to go on for-ev-er. Bahrain and Movistar valiantly attempted to keep the GC interesting, but they were all fighting for second place, and it was Mikel Landa who snatched it ahead of his team mate Santiago Buitrago, with Bahrain filling four of the top 11 spots on GC in the end.

UAE Team Emirates monopolised four of the five stages, with Tim Wellens grabbing a stage win on the third day and Pog making it 3 in 5 on stage 4. Alessandro Covi was their nominated man on the final stage, and Pog launched an epic lead-out which almost saw his entire team and everyone else dropped, and it may have proven too much for Covi in the end, as he wasn’t able to finish the job – instead, Omar Fraile launched a perfectly timed attack to come through from way down to spoil the UAE party. Not that it was a bad week’s work for the Emirati team.

Volta ao Algarve

The field at the Algarve was arguably the strongest of the three stage races, or at least perhaps the most balanced, but with the UAE Tour beginning on Monday the sprint field on the other hand wasn’t all that deep. Alexander Kristoff scored his first victory for Uno-X in what turned out to be the only bunch sprint finish on stage one. His team mate Søren Wærenskjold stormed into third position, both of them and BORA-Hansgrohe’s Jordi Meeus able to beat Eruopean champion Fabio Jakobsen into fourth, after a less than perfect lead-out put the Dutchman out of position.

EF Education-EasyPost took control on stage 2 following another steep battle to the finish line, which saw reduced bunch surge for the line and Soudal-QuickStep’s Ilan van Wilder, in his first foray into GC leadership, made the classic oft-repeated erorr of celebrating as he crossed the line, just as Magnus Cort steamed through on the inside – his late attack and brilliant positioning to take the shorter inside line gifted him with not only the stage but the yellow jersey.

Former early celebrators Alberto Bettiol, Wout van Aert and Jasper Phillipsen were quick to lend their support to the young Belgian.

And then came stage 3 – WOW. What can I say about stage 3? If you didn’t watch it, of all of the action this is the stage I’d urge you to go back and watch on catch-up, probably from about 25km to go. The launchpad for the winning move was way back then, heading into the intermediate sprint. A group broke clear to fight it out amongst themselves for the bonus seconds, and in doing so, found themselves with a gap.

What happened next to transform the sprint group into a breakaway in unclear – likely Ganna and Pidcock agreed to keep their feet on the gas, and Tobias Foss appears to have said something to encourage Cort, and that was that – they were away. The supergroup breakaway – featuring Ganna, Pidcock, Foss, Cort, Madouas, and Rui Costa, worked as a team time trial unit with a peloton led by the sprint teams ruing their mistakes. They fought tooth and nail to make up the deficit and with 500m to go the peloton made the catch, but it wasn’t over - race leader Magnus Cort wasted no time, launching his sprint to power clear and win a second stage in as many days, and leaving the viewing public in disbelief at what they had just witnessed. Truly brilliant racing.

Stage 4 was the big climbing day, and a group pulled clear of the rest featuring Ilan Van Wilder, Tom Pidcock and Oscar Onley of Team DSM, the young riders showing the rest how it’s done. João Almeida did João Almeida things, pacing his way up and launching an attack with around 350m to go, but it wasn’t enough, Pidcock taking off to storm through to victory and take the yellow jersey.

The final stage’s individual time trial would prove decisive, but not quite in the way that everyone expected. Resplendent in Italian national kit and messing with everyone’s minds, Fillippo Ganna wasn’t able to pull off a victory, losing out to nearly-man Stefan Küng who was finally able to get the better of his long-time rival to take the stage win. Pidcock, riding in the yellow jersey, was the third best of the Ineos riders, his performance memorable only for his incredible save that was testament to his remarkable bike-handling skills – video evidence provided.

It was in fact Dani Martinez who put in the most consistent performance of the week, proving that to win a GC, you don’t always have to be front and centre in stages. A brilliant TT performance followed a solid ride the rest of the week to deliver Martinez to the GC win, with Ganna in an unlikely second place.

Tour des Alpes Maritimes et du Var

The race with ALL the names, the Tour of the Maritime Alps is a short three-stage romp around southern France, with strong showings from all the French teams while many of the other teams were in the Algarve or at Ruta del Sol. I’ll be honest, this wasn’t winning my ‘battle of the screens’ most days, simply because I was more invested in the Algarve race, so I have less to say about it, but as feels right and appropriate, the race was dominated by French riders for French teams. Kevin Vauquelin of Arkea-Samsic pipped Neilson Powless and Kevin Geniets to victory on stage 1, with Trek Segafredo’s Mattias Skjelmose storming through to take stage 2 ahead of Powless (again) and Vauquelin. Aurélien Paret-Peintre won stage 3 for AG2R Citroen, with Vauquelin sealing the deal on GC. Allez!

Setmana Ciclista

Most of the top sprinters were in the UAE, leaving Elisa Balsamo to open her account with two wins in two stages, with flawlessly executed team work from her Trek-Segafredo team and in particular lead-out woman extraordinaire Ilaria Sanguineti. The following two days would decide the GC, with Annemiek Van Vleuten back for the first race of her final competitive season. She was, of course, the strong favourite, with FDJ’s Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig also tipped to be in contention.

It was not to be for the World Champion though. Van Vleuten’s most recent conqueror got the better of her in the end – with a breakaway of three riders on stage 3, Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio bested Amanda Spratt and AvV in the dash for the line to take the overall lead. It turned out to be a fantastic race for Moolman-Pasio’s new team, AG Insurance-Soudal QuickStep, as on the final day her team mate Justine Ghekiere was one of two riders to gap the peloton, Ghekiere losing out on the stage win to Elise Uijen of Team DSM but taking enough time over the rest, including Moolman-Pasio, to win the general classification.

IN PROGRESS…

The UAE Tour is underway, bringing featureless deserts to your screens for an entire week. Day 1 was a sprint, well, sort of - vicious crosswinds forced echelons and many of the sprinters who were expected to be involved missed out, when Remco Evenepoel and Lucas Plapp powered away from the peloton to contest th GC. Enough of the fast men caught up for there to be a bunch sprint though, and Caleb Ewan was denied victory by the finest of margins by Tim Merlier. And when I say the finest of margins, I mean that it was genuinely impossible to see who had won from the photo finish. Should have been declared a dead heat but the UCI don’t seem keen on those.

Stage 2 was a team time trial and absolutely no-one was surprised when Soudal QuickStep came away the victors in that one. Stage 3 has just concluded, with Movistar’s Einer Rubio riding to a solo victory on Jebel Jais, and Evenepoel taking enough time to win the yellow jersey from Plapp. Three more sprints and a climb of Jebel Hafeet are in store for the next few days, and with the line-up of fast men on display in the UAE, if the peloton can stay together we are in for some serious fireworks.

In Muddier News…

Cyclocross is still going on? What?! No seriously, you know me, right? I am a HUGE CX fan, but the post-Worlds February crossover is where I begin to lose the plot… I mean come on people, there were four stage races on this week, I’m just one small human woman (OK That’s a lie, I’m 5’10”, but you know, I still only have one set of eyes and one already fairly overloaded brain). Simply put: I’m really sorry, but I didn’t watch the races. I will surrender my ‘I LOVE MUD’ badge. (No I won’t - NEVER!)

So – here are the results from the past few cyclocross races. I’d love to say that I’ll go back and savour the action at a later date but with another stage race underway tomorrow and opening weekend coming up, it’s entirely possible that… I may not.

WINNERS:

8th Feb - Parkcross Maldegem - Michael Vantourenhout / Annemarie Worst

11th Feb - Superprestige Middelkerke - Eli Iserbyt / Ceylin del Carmen Alvarado

12th Feb - X2O Trofee Lille - Laurens Sweeck / Fem van Empel

18th Feb - Exact Cross Sint-Niklaas - Laurens Sweeck / Annemarie Worst

19th Feb - X2O Trofee Brussels - Eli Iserbyt / Fem van Empel

THE LAST WORD

No final thought from me today as I’ve taken up enough of your time, and cycling has taken up enough of mine, so I’m off for a family trip to Malham in Yorkshire - don’t worry though, I’ll be in front of a TV come Saturday, when the spring classics season gets underway, and I am sure you won’t be surprised to learn that I CAN’T BLOODY WAIT!

Enjoy the racing, and feel free to buy me a coffee if you’ve enjoyed the newsletter.

See you next time. Cheers,

Katy