Cycling Weekly June 2, 2022

Cyclists clip-clopping around Trafalgar Square in cycling shoes, team soigneurs taking selfies with the London Eye in the background, and tourists listening to a tour guide as a peloton whooshes past. It was great to see pro racing back in London at the weekend. The return of RideLondon was a pleasant surprise when it was announced after two years of Covid-19-enforced absence, as all races have faced an uncertain future. While a few niggles still need ironing out for the organisers, their place on the calendar one week before the Women’s Tour is a nice bit of planning that will ease the passage of European-based teams coming to race. As a result of the UK leaving the EU, teams now face a huge amount of paperwork to bring their equipment into the country,…

Jai Hindley went from nearly-man to history-maker in two short kilometres on the Marmolada last weekend, putting to bed the hurt of 2020 to become the first Australian to win the Giro d’Italia on Sunday. Having worn the leader’s maglia rosa for a scant 19 minutes in 2020 before Tao Geoghegan Hart took it from him in the final day time trial, Hindley always swore he would keep trying to win the race. When Richard Carapaz (Ineos Grenadiers) cracked in what were the final two climbing kilometres of the entire race on Saturday, Hindley was able to take advantage and open up a 1-25 cushion over the Ecuadorian – a gap which, barring illness or a crash, was unlikely to disappear in Sunday’s final time trial in Verona. So it proved, with Hindley…

Ben Tulett (Ineos Grenadiers) showed a very clear hand as a stage race winner for the future at the Giro d’Italia. Starting well with fifth place in the opening time trial in Budapest, he bookended the race perfectly with a second fifth place in the Verona time trial on the final day. After three weeks of racing in his first Grand Tour, such a strong finish is a great result for the 20-year-old. “I went out with the intention of giving my all, emptying the tank,” he told CW’s sister outlet Cyclingnews. “It was a hard time trial course with the climb and the technical downhill but I enjoyed it.” He described riding a Grand Tour as like “a year’s racing in one race”. “It’s crazy and very different to any other race. Of…

STAGES 16, 17, 19 MAKING THE CUT Stage 16 was the queen stage for me. You look at the distance and the high metres, and also stage 20. They were super-hard. I was a little bit nervous because you need to have good legs even to finish in the grupetto, which isn’t easy. Stage 17 and 19 were days for the breakaways. But the race was very active with lots of attacks – there was always a big fight for the break. The mountain days this week were all about suffering. It’s a race within a race to make the time cut, or the grupetto. It’s hard to explain it because you’ll never see me on TV. STAGE 18 FLAT! This was the only stage I was looking forward to this week. For one, it’s nice to…

DSM and Lorena Wiebes dominated the new look RideLondon Classique, winning all three stages and the overall at the weekend. It was a commanding performance by the Dutch team, orchestrated out on the roads of Essex and central London by road captain Pfeiffer Georgi. The British national champion guides DSMs sprint leadout, calling the shots in the final kilometres, and got it right three times in a row. “We came with a really strong team, with the clear goal in mind to go for sprints and the GC with Lorena,” she said after the final sprint win on Victoria Embankment on Sunday. “Saturday’s stage was the hardest and most unpredictable because it was a bit hillier with lots of small narrow roads and technical parts where you’re open to attacks, so we…

Zoe Bäckstedt (Acrog-Tormans) won both the road race and time trial junior national titles in North Yorkshire at the weekend. The cyclo-cross and road world champion unsurprisingly dominated the racing with a two minute win in the 17.5km race. In the road race she spent most of the race off the front with Awen Roberts (Liv CC) as the pair built up a lead of almost five minutes before Bäckstedt won the sprint. Matilda McKibben (Liv CC) won the sprint to take the bronze medal Joshua Tarling continued his run of TT wins across international and domestic competition when he took the junior TT title over a minute quicker than Ben Wiggins (Fensham Howes MAS design). Tarling (FlandersColor Galloo), who won the senior points race national title early in the year,…