Cycling Weekly May 26, 2022

It may be weeks away, but we’re deep into Tour de France preview mode. The amount of work involved in producing our race guides means we start work on them early in the year. It starts in a relaxed manner, looking at the stages and planning stories, then gets ever more frantic until we reach our press day the Monday before the race and a team changes its line-up! Imagine our stress levels last year when Mark Cavendish was drafted into the Quick Step team with just hours to go before we hit send on the magazine. I’ve just been working through our stage previews, getting them through to our production team, ready to be sent to the printers. Every year I do this I’m struck by how hopelessly obsessed with…

Could it be three in a row for Ineos? With Richard Carapaz ensconced in the maglia rosa having edged ever closer to it since the start of the race, there is a serious potential for the British team to score its third consecutive Giro d’Italia this weekend. The 28-year-old Ecuadorian took the jersey on stage 14 to Torino, when he finished in a select group just behind winner Simon Yates (BikeExchange), ending the hard-fought 10-day tenure of Juan Pedro López (Trek-Segafredo). Carapaz would follow in the wheelmarks of Egan Bernal (2021) and Tao Geoghegan Hart (2020), and it would also be a double for the Ecuadorian, who himself won in 2019 with Movistar. “The chance to take the jersey was a motivation for us,” Carapaz said after stage 14. “It’s better to have…

I believe in Simon Yates. That’s why I want to see him quit this Giro d’Italia. The last week of racing at the Giro has confirmed that had he not had the knee injury which scuppered his GC bid on Blockhaus he would probably be current pink jersey wearer Richard Carapaz’s main challenger for the overall – alongside Jai Hindley. That’s why I’d much rather see him try and take the form that won him the stage two time trial to the Tour de France in July and put it up against Tadej Pogačar, than win another stage. Even the man himself didn’t seem to be brimming with excitement at his stage win. Asked if it made up for the disappointment on Blockhaus he said: “Not really. Not to put a downer…

STAGE 11 FASTER STILL This was the first of what would prove to be three stages that would all be above 35kph average – the first time that’s ever happened in the history of the Giro. There were crosswinds predicted but nothing really happened. Everyone was still nervous. Often it happens like that, crosswinds always work when you surprise most of the peloton, but when everyone is prepared for it then it’s stressful but nothing really happens. It was a day of the full lead-out for Giacomo [Nizzolo]. We waited until 5km to go. At 2km to go we were perfectly in position but we lost the race against Groupama-FDJ into a corner. We tried to come from behind but we weren’t fast enough and then we got boxed in. From there it’s pure instinct.…

Zoe Bäckstedt continued her dominance of the junior women’s category with victory at the junior Tour of Flanders on Sunday. The Welshwoman, resplendent in the rainbow jersey she won on roads not far from the Tour of Flanders home town of Oudenaarde last autumn, soloed clear of the bunch on the final lap, catching a group from the U17 race that was happening on the same circuit at the same time. “It was really warm, so hot out. I’ve had a couple of races where it was sunny so I have adapted to it a bit,” said Bäckstedt. “On the climbs some of the girls were pressing on a fair bit and on the last lap at the bottom of the first climb I got caught in a crash; I didn’t come down but…

ELINOR BARKER How I’m hunting out serotonin I’ve always rolled my eyes when hearing health experts talk about the benefits of exercise for wellbeing. Improves mood! Reduces stress! Gives you energy! On the hardest days spent chasing power numbers in the Manchester rain, I’m not convinced. Where’s this good mood I’ve been promised? What energy? It wasn’t until I was one month postpartum and climbing the walls that I realised I’d developed such a reliance on exercise that like a caffeine addict drinking espressos before bedtime, I need to reach a certain threshold in order to function. Since my son arrived in March, my world has become much more beautiful, and so much smaller. I’m used to covering a few 100km of changing scenery a week, so the distance I can reach by pram is…