Tabla de contenidos para November 2019 en Procycling

EDITOR There was something for everyone at the Vuelta a España this year, especially with the final podium. On the top step: Primož Roglic, a rider who has confirmed the huge promise he has shown in the last few seasons by winning a grand tour. Alejandro Valverde, the runner-up, stood on one side. The world champion just seems to keep on going forever. On the other side stood Tadej Pogacar, a first-year pro who had stunned the cycling world with three stages and third overall. The podium pictures were a cycling version of Titian’s Three Ages of Man. Here stood the 2019 winner with the 2009 winner. And since Pogacar will only be 30 years old then, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he were to be the 2029…

You can’t fault the UCI for trying something new, even if the mixed relay team time trial at the Worlds made its debut in Yorkshire to a reception that was divided at best. If this is the future of TTTing in cycling, and a sign of greater equality in the sport, then there’s plenty of work to be done, not least to persuade the riders that the event is actually worth their time. Just 11 countries took part in Yorkshire, with Australia and the USA notably missing. The calibre of riders was, with all due respect, also below that of the best time triallists in the world. Last year’s trade team TTT saw six TT world champions compete, compared to just two this year, and the Netherlands won the gold…

The famous celeste colours of Bianchi clash terribly with the red of the Vuelta’s leader’s jersey and the yellow of Primož Roglič’s Jumbo-Visma kit, but out of this chromatic discord arose a grand tour win of control, organisation, team harmony and strength in Spain this year. Slovenia’s first grand tour win came aboard Bianchi’s Oltre XR4, the Italian company’s all-round aero highperformance bike. Bianchi say that the frame and fork of the Oltre XR4 tip the scales at a smidge over 1,400g, so Roglic’s need for a lightweight bike on the long mountain climbs of a grand tour is satisfied. However, the Jumbo-Visma rider is one of the two or three finest rouleurs in the peloton, and it is the aero and ride qualities of the Bianchi which make this…

After a solid three and a half months spent far away from any airport or airplane, which must be the one big upside about my injury, I’ve had a busy past week making up for lost travel again. Oh how I haven’t missed crammed airports, bike bags and flight delays. But how I missed being at my adopted home in Girona, and also at a place where a bike race takes place! And those two things are exactly what I’ve been squeezing in recently. I’ve slowly started to build my training again, trying to integrate some intensity to see how I react with my head. I found it didn’t make things worse so we’ve slowly stepped up the workload, but prioritising recovery. Realistically, I had almost three months off the…

2023 The year to which Primož Roglič extended his contract with Jumbo-Visma, meaning the Dutch squad will boast one of the strongest grand tour rosters next season, after Tom Dumoulin confirmed he is transferring from Team Sunweb, too. “I’m already thinking about 2020, which will be a very important season for me” After his Tour abandon Thibaut Pinot called time on his season early, and will not defend his Il Lombardia title, citing exhaustion. Team Ineos principal Dave Brailsford has revealed he was diagnosed with prostate cancer around the time of the Giro d’Italia and underwent surgery after returning from the Tour de France. The 55-year-old said he began experiencing symptoms, including chronic fatigue, at the start of the year, before being persuaded to have an MRI. BAD BREAK Bad…

IAN GARRISON Garrison, 21, won bronze at the 2016 junior Worlds and this year became the national TT champ. The all-rounder is now in his third year with Hagens Berman Axeon. BRANDON MCNULTY The Arizona-born climber is tipped as America’s next big star, and got his first pro GC win at the Giro di Sicilia this April. He’s joining UAE Emirates next year. NEILSON POWLESS Now at the end of his second season with Jumbo-Visma, the gifted 23-year-old climber has signed with EF Education First for 2020.…

I’m not very good at walking. I guess if I put my mind to it my body is fairly well shaped to go far by foot, but I’m your classic old school cyclist who moans about walking around the shops. It doesn’t take long for the ache to set in, but after dragging myself around Spain for three weeks, I’ve reached a new level of uselessness. Even a predinner amble of the the city wall with my girlfriend was too much for my legs and resulted in a DNF, or more accurately a DSQ, as I took the hot line to the Irish pub and parked up knowing that walking 800m home was too painful to contemplate. I’ve come out of grand tours fatigued before but this one has cut…

After more than a decade in which almost every Vuelta a España has lived up to the race’s topsyturvy reputation - and the 2019 edition had its moments, too - there was a kind of chilly predictability about PrimožRoglič stepping up to receive the final roja jersey in Madrid late in the evening of Sunday September 15. Roglic’s victory was predictable because he’d been widely regarded as the top pre-race favourite. Alberto Contador, himself a triple Vuelta winner, was among those predicting that the Slovenian would go the distance, and the 29-year-old Jumbo rider duly delivered. It wasn’t a classic Vuelta cliffhanger. Halfway through the race in the time trial at Pau, Roglic established a clear advantage over his opponents, which he then settled down to defend in the mountains…

1. CHRIS FROOME Team Ineos Four times Tour champion and Giro and Vuelta winner. Compromised by his 2019 crash, but the GT rider of his generation 2. EGAN BERNAL Team Ineos Current Tour champion, and only 22. Already one of the best climbers in the world, though still vulnerable in TTs 3. PRIMOŽ ROGLIČ Jumbo-Visma The time trial specialist won this year’s Vuelta, to follow up on third in the Giro and fourth in last year’s Tour 4. GERAINT THOMAS Team Ineos The 2018 Tour champion who then came second in 2019 at the race behind his team-mate Bernal 5. TOM DUMOULIN Team Sunweb 2017 Giro winner who was also runner up in the 2018 Giro and Tour. Injury curtailed 2019, but he’s the best time triallist here 6. VINCENZO…

There’s one thing that really stands out about the GP de Wallonie and that is the finish. The Citadel, at Namur, looks amazing, and it has a cobbled climb of about two kilometres which twists around itself, all against the backdrop of the ramparts and fortress walls. The first time I saw it, I thought, ‘Woah, this is really nice to photograph.’ I was on a moto, so I could get a couple of positions on the climb ahead of the race to get the bunch coming up, but I still got to the finish in time to get the winner. I know the climb a little – from my home, you can do a loop of maybe 100km, climb the Citadel and get an ice cream at the top…

Close your eyes as you listen to Kasia Niewiadoma speak, and you could easily mistake us for being sat in a hospital. It’s not because I’m perched on the edge of her single bed that makes it feel a bit like I’m visiting a patient on a ward, and Niewiadoma isn’t injured or unwell. But there is a constant puff of air in the background, beating out a soft rhythm throughout our conversation, like a ventilator. Thankfully, it isn’t breathing apparatus, but rather Niewiadoma’s Normatec compression trousers, like giant, puffy sleeping bags, pumping air around her legs. She’s not able to move too far right now - we’re midway through the Women’s Tour at a hotel in Stratford, it’s pouring with rain outside, and for Niewiadoma saving energy and recovering…

STRAVA-BASED SPIKED CLIMBING EFFORTS IAN BOSWELL Katusha-Alpecin At the start of 2015, I began to work with Dario Cioni as my coach at Sky. It was a bit of an experiment for him and me, but after two sub-par seasons in the pro ranks I was eager to try something new. Dario was a rider himself so he knew the mind and the physical demands of a rider. Sky, now Ineos, are known for attention to detail and emphasis on training. On joining Sky in 2013 I began doing a lot of spiked zone 3 efforts, riding at a high pace, surging and then settling right back into that vicious pace. After two-plus years of these efforts, I began to get a bit burnt on them. It led me to…

I was born in Milan but soon moved to where I am living now, Vicenza. I started cycling pretty early, I was six. Now we are three brothers but at the time I had just one. My parents needed to get us into sport and there was a chance to go to this cycling team because my father was a friend of the owner. We decided to try it. I was pretty good, I was big compared to the other guys. I started to win immediately and obviously for a kid, when you win it’s even more fun. Back then cycling was a more important sport in Italy; now everyone is scared to let the guys train on the road. They are doing much more off-road training, which is cool…

The build up to the Worlds has been as good as I could’ve hoped for. I feel like I’m ready. By the time you read this you’ll know the result but I’m writing on Monday evening, two days before race day with no more to do other than stay healthy, well fed and rested. These final weeks have been really productive but also stressful, questioning my coach about each training session more than I have done all year. It’s a fine balance between doing enough training but not doing too much, in between stage races which serve as high training loads. The Worlds TT isn’t my final race, I have three one-days left but form for these are simple as you just carry the Worlds freshness through. My team’s uncertainty…

On the evening of 16 August, news emerged that Felice Gimondi had suffered a heart attack in Sicily. Gimondi’s health had been a worry to his nearest and dearest since he fell off his bike five years ago, but he was nothing if not obdurate. He fell off again in 2017, but he was still getting out with his cycling-mad daughter and was still, at the age of 76, one of his country’s best-loved sportsmen. That the soccer-centric Gazzetta dello Sport dedicated its front page to his passing was entirely illustrative of his stature here. Since Gino Bartali’s death in 2000, Gimondi had been irrefutably Italy’s most emblematic cyclist. However there was much more to him than his palmarès. Like all genuine champions he was bigger than the races he…

WINS Women’s Tour, stage, 2019, 2017 Amstel Gold Race, 2019 Tour Cycliste Féminin de l’Ardèche, 2018 Tour Cycliste Féminin de l’Ardèche, stage, 2018 Trofeo Alfredo Binda, 2018 Women’s Tour, 2017 Boels Rental Ladies Tour, stage, 2016 (2) National Championships road race, 2016 National Championships time trial, 2016 Giro del Trentino, 2016 Giro del Trentino, stage, 2016 Festival Elsy Jacobs, stage, 2016 Festival Elsy Jacobs, 2016 Euskal Emakumeen Bira, 2015 SECONDS Women’s Tour, 2019 Women’s Tour, stage, 2019 Tour Cycliste Féminin de l’Ardèche, stage, 2018 (2) Strade Bianche, 2018, 2017, 2016 European Championships road race, 2017 National Championships time trial, 2015 Euskal Emakumeen Bira, stage, 2015 Durango-Durango Emakumeen Saria, 2015 Tour de Feminin, stage, 2013 THIRDS Giro Rosa, stage, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016 Strade Bianche, 2019 Ladies Tour of Norway, stage,…

IN ASSOCIATI ON WITH At the start of 1987 I began riding my bike several times a week around the slopes of a hummocky ridge of hill in northeast Italy, where the plains of the Venetian hinterland meet the Alpine foothills. The Montello was a lonely little place, all vineyards, small farms and little woods, with the small town of Montebelluna - known for its shoe-making, the home of iconic ski boot marque Nordica – at one end, and an irrigation canal with a service path that conveniently ran along the same contour most of the way around the base of the hill. It was lovely bike riding terrain. One of the roads that led up from the canal onto the top of the Montello had a black and white…

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WHY I LOVE… PARIS-TOURS 13 October | France | 1.HC The end of the year is a time for reflection. The cooling weather, falling leaves and transformation of the countryside from the green of spring, though the yellow of summer to the dead brown of autumn and winter reminds us of the passing of time and the transience of life. It’s in this slightly melancholic atmosphere that Paris-Tours takes place. A race of history, texture and depth, the true ‘sprinters’ classic’ traverses the great plains of northwestern France before a dramatic and unpredictable series of climbs and the photogenic finale on the Avenue de Grammont. Organisers ASO made the zeitgeisty decision to put in some gravel sections for 2018, which changed the tactics, but not the end-of-year feeling. Paris-Tours is…