Cycling Weekly May 19, 2022

I finally got a long ride in the legs last weekend. Almost four hours in the gloriously green Surrey Hills, and I loved every minute of it, even the last 30 minutes in the rain with legs on the verge of cramping. The fact they didn’t cramp was a minor miracle that came about due to the fact that my friend I was riding with was less fit than me so couldn’t do his normal trick of half wheeling me all the way home. I could have given him a taste of his own medicine, but I decided not to just in case I did cramp up, thus allowing him to ride slowly past me laughing his head off. I’d never have lived it down. It was my longest ride of…

The final few hundred metres of tarmac on the Blockhaus climb are cracked, broken and scarred, the unforgiving weather and wear taking its toll. But it was the cracks at the foot of the mountain that would prove decisive for Simon Yates’s Giro d’Italia GC hopes. The much-reduced peloton had only just started to ascend the famous Italian climb on stage nine when the BikeExchange-Jayco leader drifted off the back of the group. He fought valiantly to start with but as the GC favourites started to fire shots at each other, the gap between him and any hope of claiming the pink jersey opened. By the time he crested the mountain, made famous by Eddy Merckx’s victory there on its Giro debut in 1967, he was 11.15 behind stage winner Jai…

REST DAY NETFLIX TIME Everyone has different rest day routines, some people have to push a little bit to stay in the rhythm. When I was young, I always struggled with rest days. I’d struggle the day after. But as I’ve gotten older I go more easy. I did 30 minutes on the rollers with just a five-minute effort at threshold just to sweat a little bit. Then I watched the second half of the fourth season of Ozark on Netflix. STAGE 4 JERSEY ON When I will look back on my career, spending this day in the mountains jersey will surely be very special. Even though I couldn’t enjoy it too much because it was quite a hard stage. I finished in the gruppetto. I didn’t feel great and so in the end I was just…

Arnaud Démare, resplendent in the ciclamino jersey, emerged as the sprinter to beat at the Giro d’Italia during the race’s first week after taking two stage wins on the trot. Following the race’s return to Italy the Frenchman first struck gold on the stage to Messina. On that day the mid-stage climb of the Portella Mandrazi had caused complications for the sprinters. Caleb Ewan, Mark Cavendish and Démare were all dropped from the peloton on the climb but Démare’s group was further up the road than his two rivals and managed to regain contact with the peloton. His lead-out was executed to perfection and he never looked in trouble as he romped to the line ahead of Fernando Gaviria (UAE-Emirates) and Giacomo Nizzolo (Israel-Premier Tech). He said: “The climb was hard, and we…

FRED WRIGHT Perfecting the art of the nature break Peeing is a task almost every rider will undertake at least once a race. Not so long ago Peter Sagan suggested younger riders were peeing in the middle of the bunch, and I would first like to clarify that, as a younger rider, I have never done that. During Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne this year someone decided to go for it on the bike on a tight, twisty descent while there was a bit of stress in the peloton. This caused a fair bit of shouting in the bunch and I wonder if that’s what led to Sagan claiming that riders “just pee on each other”. I don’t know if the rider managed to get any on anyone but I do respect his ability to relieve himself…

Ineos Grenadiers road star Ethan Hayter showed he can still mix it up on the track at last weekend’s Nation’s Cup track event at Milton, Canada. The Londoner trounced allcomers in the omnium and also took a silver in the Madison, for which he paired up with Rhys Britton. The pair finished eight points down on the Dutch winners, with Germany taking bronze. Welshman Britton also got his own gold medal in the scratch race. On what was his 23rd birthday, he skipped off the front of the field with nearly 30 laps remaining and put a lap into the bunch. With nobody else able to copy the feat, Britton was able to sit tight to take the win. Silver went to Erik Martorell Haga (Spain) after a last-minute surge out…