As a cycling destination, Flanders is most associated with the Spring Classics and everything that goes with them: rain, sometimes even snow, mud, cobbles and hardy riders. But Visit Flanders and Cycling in Flanders are keen for visitors to see the northern half of Belgium as a year-round destination.

With the 2019 Tour de France kicking off in Brussels on Saturday 6th July, anyone visiting the Grand Depart should also look to take a few days to explore the lanes, cobbles and bergs of the surrounding Flanders region.

Despite how much better races are to watch when the cobbles are wet and the riders get muddy, riding there in person will almost certainly be better when it's dry and sunny – as should be the case for much of this summer.

The Tour's beginning in Brussels – Belgium's capital that sits as a Francophone exclave in Flanders – means that this summer is the perfect chance to see the region under sunny skies (hopefully), riding the roads and watching the pros.

Even so, it was on Classics opening weekend under leaden skies and often in heavy rain that Cyclist made the first of two Classics era visits to get a feel for the place and see what all the fuss is about.

Rain and wind on Classics opening weekend

With all eyes on the Tour de France, Classics opening weekend seems like a very long time ago now. As we all know, the cycling season starts properly with the back-to-back running of Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne over one weekend around the start of March. The amateur sportives for the events run on the opposite days to their respective pro races.

On the first day of the opening race weekend, led by Dries from Cycling in Flanders, we rode a quick 40km loop that took in the Oude Kwaremont, skipped across the bottom of the Koppenberg (but avoided going up it) and visited D'Oude Hoeve.

D'Oude Hoeve is a fantastic little pub on Ronde van Vlaanderenstraat (Tour of Flanders street), right near the monument to Karel Van Wijnendaele, the race's founder, and part of the current route. The road also marks the sometimes fractious border between Flanders and Wallonia, with the race venturing into the latter region for a small part of its route.

In true Flandrian style, the pub was showing Omloop Het Nieuwsblad on several televisions in its small bar area. A bit like pubs showing football in the UK, but where everyone is interested and no one's getting unduly worked up.

Leaving the warmth of the little cycling pub was difficult, but back into the wind we completed our ride ready for the more gruelling following day to come.

Part sportive, part get-me-back-to-a-warm-shower

The weather was truly Flandrian as we set off on the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad sportive while the pros would have been looking out the window contemplating if they really needed to ride Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne.

Strong winds and heavy rain lashed the group of riders as we made our way along a canal-side cycling road, wide enough for groups to pass two abreast in opposing directions and completely inaccessible to motor vehicles.

Wet cobbles aren't as bad as you end up telling yourself they will be, but the added effort and concentration really take a toll on energy levels. Finding myself consistently hovering near the back of the group and struggling to stay warm, I opted to activiate my Wahoo cycling computer's 'take me to...' function and left the route for a fast solo 30km back to the hotel.

I was concerned about the reaction of the hotel staff as I traipsed into the reception area of the NH Gent Belfort, kit covered in mud and bike caked in dirt, but I needn't have worried: this is Flanders and they're used to this sort of thing.

The staff stored my bike in the luggage room while I tried my best not to leave dirty cleat prints on the carpet.

My DNF on the sportive, although unfortunately adding to a building reputation in the Cyclist office, had the happy side effect of meaning I was back in plenty of time to watch the second half of Kuurne. I grabbed a prime spot in Gent cycling cafe Pedaleur de Flandres and all the seats were soon taken, with plenty of people choosing to stand for the final couple of hours of coverage. Flanders lives and breathes cycling.

Oudenaarde, cycling city

The first outing of the trip over to ride with Visit Flanders started and ended at the Centrum Ronde van Vlaanderen in Oudenaarde. The Tour of Flanders Museum is a must-visit location for any cycling fan entering any part of Belgian territory.

The Centrum hosts a huge erray of memorabilia as well as a great little cafe, showers and lockers for riders, bike racks and staff more than happy to advise on routes in the local area.

Oudenaarde is the ideal choice for the location of the museum, firstly for the obvious reason that the town hosts the finish of the Tour of Flanders but also because of its proximity to so many of Flanders' amazing cycling routes. Within easy reach are all the famous cobbles and bergs – Koppenberg, Oude Kwaremont, Paterberg, Taaienberg, and plenty more besides– and the town can also be easily reached by train and car from Brussels.

This proximity (after all, Belgium's not a huge country) and its position en route back to the UK mean that anyone heading to the Grand Depart really should consider popping by for as little or as long as they can.

Back to België

Returning a few weeks later for another trip to Flanders, this time the weather was much better (apart from when it snowed for about 10 minutes just after the summit of the Koppenberg).

This trip was based in Bruges, the famous fairytale town not far from the Dutch border. The city's proximity to the Netherlands inspired a ride across the barely noticeable frontier into the picturesque town of Sluise for some frites and mayo, the whole way into a stiff headwind, before a loop back into Flanders.

The key part of this visit was the Tour of Flanders Fan Ride, which gives amateurs the exciting yet thoroughly intimidating experience of riding on the Tour of Flanders course on race day, close enough to the time the pros come through to ensure lively roadside crowds.

The Fan Ride was done as part of a group hosted by Velusso, the British cycling holidays and events company. The brand has recently opened the Velusso House of the Lion, a cycling cafe and shop in Bruges that has a rotating stock of memorabilia from the career of the Lion of Flanders, Johan Museeuw.

Bruges is away from the traditional area associated with road cycling in Flanders, despite hosting the start of the Tour of Flanders until recently, and is often overshadowed by other locations – such as Oudenaarde, as mentioned above.

However, in some ways it has more to offer: multi-day rides, sightseeing, beer tasting and chocolate eating are much more suited to Bruges and its surrounding area.

Forget the Alps, time to head to Flanders

Whatever time of the year, and with Belgium's hosting of the Tour de France Grand Depart imminent, cycling fans from the UK and Ireland should look a bit closer to home the next time they think about a trip to southern France or the mountains of Spain.

With loads to offer and a whole culture around everything cycling, Flanders is a location that riders won't regret visiting.

Links and more information

Visit Flanders: visitflanders.com 
Cycling in Flanders: cyclinginflanders.cc  
Centrum Ronde Van Vlaanderen: crvv.be  
Velusso: velusso.co.uk/velusso-cycling-cafe-lifestyle-store-bruges  
Flanders Fan Ride: cyclist.co.uk/tour-of-flanders-fan-ride

This is not a sponsored article, it's a guide for those thinking about a cycling trip to Flanders

The Tour de France is visiting Brussels this year with the Belgian capital laying the yellow carpet to welcome cycling's biggest race for a historical occasion. This year marks 100 years of the yellow jersey and also, more importantly for the small frit-loving nation, 50 years since the greatest, Eddy Merckx, took home his first Malliot Jaune, one of a record-equalling five throughout his career.

This year is not just a momentous occasion for the Belgians but also us Britons who will be celebrating an anniversary of our own.

It has been a quarter of a century since Sean Yates rode into yellow at the 1994 Tour de France, becoming the third Brit in history to wear cycling's most iconic jersey.

Cyclist recently caught up with Yates to chat about taking yellow, how he lost the jersey and where that jersey is now.

Cyclist: It’s the 100th anniversary of the yellow jersey and the 25th anniversary since you wore it, what do you remember from the day?

Sean Yates: That year was particularly special because the Tour came to the UK for a couple of stages. I was on a high after the UK trip back in France. It was the longest stage of the race and I felt good at the start of the race, in fact, I had felt good all year.

The day I took yellow was the longest stage of the 1994 race but pretty non-discript until 25km to go. It suddenly came alive and, being long, people were tired. I jumped across into a break with Frankie Andreu and we got a gap on the peloton.

We all started to ride straight away because the yellow jersey team missed out. There were plenty of big hitters in that group, Gianluca Bortolami, Djamolidine Abdoujaparov, all strong riders and all fully committed.

We were motoring along because we all had our own interests in that group and then Bortolami jumped alone.

We were not aware of how close Bortalami was to the yellow. I thought the main danger was the peloton and Johan Museeuw, who was in yellow, behind. In this day and age, the DS would be on the radio warning about Bortolami.

When he jumped away, everyone suddenly leant on me and Frankie because we had the numerical advantage.

We went hell for leather to keep the bunch away and in doing so, we brought Bortolami back a little, who probably had no idea how close to the jersey he was, and eventually I took the jersey by one second.

Although, it wasn’t till we got the evening results that we noticed I’d only taken the jersey by a single second.

Cyc: How did it feel to pull on that yellow jersey, arguably the biggest result of your career?

SY: The Tour is the one race everybody knows about it. If I tell people I led that race and wore yellow, then it's kind of like ‘he must be half decent, that’s not easy’.

I also got the yellow in my 13th year as a a pro so it was a fitting culmination to my career especially knowing I didn’t have much time left in me, and spending so much time as a domestique working for others, too.

Me taking the jersey also made the front page of a daily paper so it was pretty big news considering it wasn't a big sport here, like it is today. The public may not have necessarily watched the rest of the race but knew what I did.

Although I must say, it was not a race win so I didn’t get the elation of raising the arms in victory.

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CYC: There was also some controversy about how you lost the jersey the next day, too?

SY: I took the jersey from Museeuw by about 10 seconds. The next day there were intermediate sprints for time bonuses which he was obviously going to aim for.

Phil Andersen was trying to help me contest and apparently, there was a bit of argy-bargy trying to block Museeuw. Museeuw’s teammate Rolf Sorensen didn't like that so he pulled my jersey and slung me back which meant I couldn’t contest the sprint.

But from my point of view, it wasn’t that big a deal because Museeuw was a sprinter anyway so I was always pushing shit uphill to beat him.

CYC: 18 years later, you then led Bradley Wiggins to Britain’s first ever Tour de France win. How special did that feel?

SY: You couldn’t write a better script. I will always be the first Brit to manage the first Brit to win the Tour de France. That’s in the history books.

We raced every race together that year. It was proper game on and he was fully committed and I was on a mission to help him achieve that goal.

That whole year meshes into one, you couldn’t sit back and enjoy it but I had the passion to do that job. It was a culmination of my career as a DS, I was at my peak then.

CYC: You eventually sold your own jersey to Wiggins which then subsequently helped you later in life.

SY: As it transpired, I’d given Brad a few jerseys but then he wanted my yellow which I eventually sold him to him.

Six months later I had a bad accident. I went through the NHS for treatment, had some operations then I had a choice to wait two years to be fully sorted or go private.

It was affecting me so I used that money from the yellow jersey on it. You’re always reluctant to spend money but realistically, it was only money I got for selling a bit of cloth.

The 106th Tour de France starts this Saturday in Brussels, Belgium. It will be the 100th anniversary of the Maillot Jaune and the 50th anniversary of Eddy Merckx's maiden Tour title. A momentous occasion in the cycling's history, a sport often defined by the jersey on a rider's back.

Somebody who knows exactly how special the glistening yellow of the Tour can be is Sir Bradley Wiggins, the first Brit to ever win the race, way back in 2012. Cyclist visited his extensive collection of yellow jerseys last autumn as well as some other pretty cool stuff, too.

This article was originally published in Issue 81 of Cyclist Magazine

Words Joe Robinson Photography Mike Massaro

'The only other sportsperson I’m aware of who has a similar collection to me is Roger Federer with his tennis memorabilia, but there is no one else with something like this in cycling,’ says Bradley Wiggins as he neatly folds Fausto Coppi’s 1949 Tour de France yellow jersey back into a plastic container.

It sits next to Jacques Anquetil’s France Ford Hutchinson jersey from the 1966 Tour and Francesco Moser’s Supermercati Brianzoli skinsuit.

Considering the controversy that has surrounded him over the past 18 months, it would be easy to understand if Wiggins no longer wanted to talk about cycling, but his enthusiasm for the sport remains undiminished. At heart he’s still just a fan.

Wiggins has invited Cyclist for an exclusive look through his collection of famous jerseys and bikes that he keeps safely stored in a lock-up in Lancashire.

As he pulls out item after item, he relates the stories behind them and how he came to own them.

We have long over-shot our allotted time, but Wiggins is on a roll, enthusing about his collection, which he believes is the largest of its kind in the world.

‘I have a book coming out about it, called Icons. It’s there to pay homage really and thank these riders,’ he says.

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Image 3 of 27

Many of the jerseys that Wiggins reveals are yellow. This, he says, is not simply because he is himself a Tour de France champion, but because he has been entrusted with protecting the memories and heritage of the sport that made him famous.

‘I’m part of a special club,’ Wiggins says. ‘Only 68 riders have won the Tour, which isn’t that many when you think about it.

‘It allows me access to these things that I otherwise wouldn’t have. Like recently this lady got in touch with me.

‘It turns out Tom Simpson had been best man at her dad’s wedding and she had the bowler hat he wore on the day. She wanted to give it to me because she knew I’d look after it.’

Wiggins sees himself as a custodian of cycling’s past, and not just of legends such as Merckx, Coppi and Armstrong, but also of lesser-known names such as Phil Edwards, Jose Manuel Fuente and Hugo Koblet.

‘That’s Gastone Nencini’s yellow jersey from the 1960 Tour. Not many people would even know who he is. He’s famous for lighting a fag on the Champs-Élysées after winning that Tour.

‘His son found out that I was in possession of his father’s jersey and contacted me crying, relieved that it was in good hands,’ Wiggins says. ‘I feel like a guardian.’

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Image 5 of 27

Miguel Indurain's Tour de Romandie Pinarello time-trial bike

‘When I was between the ages of 11 and 15, Miguel Indurain won every Tour. Every summer, I watched him dominate the race,’ says Wiggins.

Some may find the metronomic style of ‘Big Mig’ less glamorous than that of riders more known for their flair and panache, but not Wiggins, who shares several similarities with the most dominant cyclist of the 1990s.

‘Like me, he won the Olympic gold in the time-trial and both of us have broken the Hour record. He even came to watch me at my Hour attempt, which was a special moment.

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Image 6 of 27

‘Mig keeps all of his own stuff. He still has all of his Tour and Giro bikes and his Hour record bike. Only one or two are in the hands of others. I had to buy this off a Spanish guy and it was tough to come by, but I’m so proud to own it.

‘It’s from his time-trial victory at the 1992 Tour de Romandie, which means a lot as it’s a race I also managed to win in my career.

‘This bike came just after the LeMond era introduced dedicated aero bars, and you’ll notice he rode 180mm cranks, which Campagnolo had to make especially for him. The bike was ahead of its time.’ 

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Image 7 of 27

Fausto Coppi's 1949 Tour de France yellow jersey

‘Elvis Presley was huge in the 1950s and Fausto Coppi was the same in the 40s. He rode in a time before live television and social media, but when he came to town everybody would go out to catch a glimpse of him in yellow or pink. Somehow, they knew Fausto was coming.’

Wiggins is pretty clear in his opinion of Coppi. For him, no rider was ever as stylish. For him, Coppi is the biggest name in the sport.

The legend is partly enhanced by the Italian’s tragic death at the age of just 40, leading Wiggins to liken him to Jimi Hendrix and James Dean, but also by the myth that surrounds the period in which he rode.

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Image 9 of 27

‘It’s difficult to comprehend how tough cycling was in his era,’ says Wiggins. ‘The penultimate stage of the 1949 Tour was a 150km individual time-trial on the Saturday.

‘Then, to finish the race, they had a 350km stage from Nancy to Paris.’

This was Coppi’s first Tour victory. He beat compatriot and rival Gino Bartali by more than 10 minutes, winning three stages en route. Having won the Giro d’Italia earlier that year, Coppi also became the first rider to ever manage the Giro/Tour double.

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Image 10 of 27

Sean Yates' 1994 Tour de France yellow jersey

‘If I was forced into giving up my collection, the Yates yellow jersey would be the one thing I’d keep,’ says Wiggins.

Stage 7 of the 1994 Tour de France was the only day in Sean Yates’ career that he got to wear cycling’s most famous jersey. He lost it again the next day to another of Wiggins’s heroes, Johan Museeuw. But that was enough for Wiggins to become star-struck.

‘I was 14 years old when Yates wore yellow. That same year the Tour headed through Yates’ hometown in the Ashdown Forest and they let him off the front so he could stop and hug his family.

‘I saw this Brit on telly with his hooped earring and he had this hard man reputation. I just loved him to bits.’

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Image 12 of 27

Wiggins even went to the extent of piercing his own ear that summer to emulate his idol. The love affair went one step further in 2012. When Wiggins made British history by winning the Tour, it was Yates who sat in the team car behind as Team Sky’s directeur sportif.

However, despite this close bond, adding his hero’s jersey to the collection was not as straightforward as you might expect:

‘I asked Sean if I could have his yellow jersey and he said no. Eventually I got it off of him, but only after paying for it.’ 

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Image 13 of 27

Bradley Wiggins' 2016 Six Days of Ghent Pinarello MAAT

Among piles and piles of jerseys belonging to other riders, and tucked behind a BMC Teammachine that guided Philippe Gilbert to one of his four Amstel Gold Classic titles, is one of the few items in the collection from Wiggins’ own career.

‘This is the bike from my last ever race. It was the Six Days of Ghent in 2016. I was born there and spent much of my childhood at that track watching my dad race so I knew this was where I wanted to end it,’ Wiggins remembers.

To Wiggins, the claustrophobic track of Ghent holds an atmosphere that very few venues in sport, let alone cycling, can contest with.

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Image 14 of 27

‘It’s like Anfield. It’s so small and hasn’t been changed much since it was first built. The track’s only 166m long, tiny compared to London or Manchester.

‘The venue has history woven into its fabric.’ The perfect place to call time on a career. ‘I got to race it with Mark [Cavendish], and we were World Champions at the time. We won and became the first combination of Tour yellow and green jersey winners since Merckx and [Patrick] Sercu to take Ghent.

‘Merckx’s last victory was also in the Six Days. To do that – yeah, it was special.’

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Image 16 of 27

Franco Ballerini's 1994 Colnago Titanio Bittan

'Colnago was the biggest bike manufacturer in the world in the 1990s,’ says Wiggins. ‘Today, everybody wants to own a Pinarello because of Sky, or a Specialized because of Peter Sagan, but 25 years ago everyone wanted to own a Colnago. They were the best bikes you could get.’

This particular bike was double Paris-Roubaix winner Franco Ballerini’s 1994 Colnago Titanio Bittan, named after its distinctive titanium frame with a split down tube.

It was a bike that also piloted Tony Rominger to a Vuelta a España title and Abraham Olano to the 1995 World Championships road race crown.

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Image 17 of 27

This was all achieved by Mapei, a team that ruled the landscape of professional cycling in the 1990s. The squad was composed of talented Italians, Spaniards and Belgians and at one point almost counted one plucky young Brit among its roster of superstars.

‘You know, I could have raced for Mapei when I was 19. Their manager Marc Sargeant offered me a contract at the 1999 World Championships when I was racing as a junior.

‘They also signed Fabian Cancellara, Pippo Pozzatto and Bernie Eisel at that Worlds,’ recalls Wiggins.

‘I turned them down because they were not going to let me race at the Olympics, and said I had to focus fully on the road. Could have been a lot different if I’d signed.’ 

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Image 18 of 27

Tom Simpson's 1966 World Champion's jersey

‘Others may feel differently, but I personally feel as if I owe a lot to Tom Simpson. If it wasn’t for what he did, I wouldn’t have achieved what I have done.’

Simpson blazed a trail for British cycling back in the 1960s. He beat the Belgians in Belgium to claim Britain’s only success to date in the Tour of Flanders before taking on the Italians in Italy to win Milan-San Remo and Il Lombardia.

Then in 1965, he became Britain’s first-ever road race World Champion. Less than two years later he would die on the slopes of Mont Ventoux while racing the 1967 Tour de France.

Forty-two years on, in 2009, Wiggins found himself at the scene of this tragedy, fighting an almost identical cause.

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Image 19 of 27

‘It was the first time in my career I had ridden for the General Classification at the Tour. We were heading up Ventoux so I asked for a picture of him on my top tube.

That day, I was fighting for a similar position on GC as he had the day he died and I feel that he gave me what I needed to reach the summit.’

Three years later, Wiggins achieved something Simpson never did, becoming the first British rider to win the Tour.

Shortly after his victory, Simpson’s daughter contacted Wiggins to tell him that she had visited her father’s grave with a picture of Wiggins in yellow, in Paris, to show him someone had done what he had died trying to do.

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Image 21 of 27

Bradley Wiggins' 2014 Paris-Roubaix Pinarello Dogma K

With 6km remaining of the 2014 Paris-Roubaix, Dutchman Niki Terpstra attacked out of a group that included Fabian Cancellara, Peter Sagan, John Degenkolb, Tom Boonen, Geraint Thomas and Wiggins to win the race and take home the coveted cobble trophy.

Any of those riders were potentially strong enough to have closed him down, but none of them did. Even Wiggins isn’t sure why.

‘I know, it’s the one that got away. I was strong enough to go with him but I hesitated,’ he admits.

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Image 20 of 27

‘I had the legs, even after Geraint and I raced back across to that lead group with Tom [Boonen].’

That year in 2014 was the closest Wiggins ever came to winning Paris-Roubaix. The next year he would manage just 18th, and he plainly has a pang of regret that he left it so late in his career to target that race.

‘Still, it was quite some group to come into the velodrome with. Five of the top 10 that day have won Paris-Roubaix so it was quite some company to be in.’

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Image 22 of 27

Lance Armstrong's 1995 Tour de France Motorola jersey

‘About two years ago Lance Armstrong got in contact with me and asked if I wanted a load of his old jerseys,’ Wiggins says, pointing to a box filled to the brim with Lycra and polyester jerseys.

A quick glimpse shows a few Tour yellows, an American national champs strip and even a World Champs jersey. One of the jerseys is not folded in the box, however, but is instead framed.

‘In 1995, Fabio Casartelli died tragically at the Tour de France descending the Portet d’Aspet. Three days later, Armstrong, who was Casartelli’s teammate, and maybe even his roommate, won the stage into Limoges. This was the jersey he wore that day.’

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Image 23 of 27

Just above the rainbow bands, a small square of black cloth is attached to the left arm, commemorating the events of just 72 hours previous.

This jersey was also from a time in the Lance Armstrong timeline before US Postal, before cancer survival, before seven consecutive Tour victories and before the doping scandal. Although that’s of little concern to Wiggins.

‘Between 1993 and 2010, Armstrong won so much and I wasn’t sitting there as a teen thinking, “Is this guy cheating?”

‘I will never forget the guy who didn’t give a shit, jumping the likes of Indurain and Museeuw to the world title. These memories will not be taken away from me.’

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Image 25 of 27

Eddy Merckx's 1972 Tour de France yellow jersey

With so many fakes out there, how do you prove that your Merckx yellow jersey is genuine? The answer is to ask his wife.

‘Back then, they would hand-stitch the team logo onto the leader’s jersey. Eddy would have his wife, Claudine, do it for him and she had a particular way of stitching,’ Wiggins says. ‘She can tell if it was her work and she verified for me that it was. I even have a video as proof.’

In 1972 Merckx was at the peak of his powers, and it was arguably his greatest year. He took the Tour/Giro double as well as Milan-San Remo, Liège-Bastogne-Liège and Il Lombardia.

It was also the year in which he took the Hour record. So a yellow jersey from this year is a particular vintage.

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Image 27 of 27

Or as Wiggins puts it, ‘Owning a Merckx ’72 yellow is like owning a Pele shirt from the 1970 World Cup final.’ Victory in 1972 also helps play to a theory that Wiggins has been working on.

‘So I worked out that every 10 years somebody incredible wins the Tour, and it just so happens to be on years that end with a two.

‘So, 1952 was Coppi; ’62 was Anquetil; ’72 Merckx; ’82 Hinault; ’92 Indurain; and ’02 was Lance. And then in 2012, me.’

• Icons: My Inspiration. My Motivation. My Obsession by Bradley Wiggins is published by HarperCollins, priced £25 hardback and is available now from the Cyclist Shop

We join the Rwandan national team on home soil to experience racing based on guts, not marginal gains. This article was originally published in issue 85 of Cyclist magazine

Words Laura Potter Photography Juan Trujillo Andrades

At the Hilltop Hotel in Kigali, capital city of Rwanda, there’s one name on everyone’s lips: Didier Munyaneza. The 20-year-old is a rising star in a country where cycling is booming both as a participation and spectator sport.

‘Didier never looks as if he’s even struggling,’ enthuses Sean Belfast, Massachusetts-born head mechanic for the national squad, Team Rwanda. ‘He’s hands down the best athlete in Rwanda,’ agrees Sterling Magnell, the team’s California-born director.

‘He has no idea how good he is. He’s just having fun winning races. You would think all the success he’s having would go to his head, but not one iota. He’s stoked 24/7.’

Nation race

It’s 4th August 2018 and the air is thick with humidity and anticipation. It’s the day before the start of the Tour du Rwanda and Cyclist is here with staff and riders from the national team.

The car park is packed, but it’s not the same as at races on the European WorldTour circuit. Some of the team cars are as old as the riders themselves, with stickers slapped on the metalwork and two-bike racks strapped on the back.

The bikes being wheeled around range from Pinarello Dogma F8s to cheap models with nearly a decade of riding in them.

Many have mismatched components, with some sporting aluminum training wheels. Mechanics are cleaning road grit out of groupsets with knives. This is one tour that won’t be won by technology.

As races go it’s stripped back to the essentials and, according to Magnell, it will be won through strong riding and psychological warfare: ‘These teams are small armies.

‘They’re not in physical combat but it is violent and it engages a very primitive part of our brains.’

When ex-pro Magnell arrived in 2015 he had a tough time getting the best from his new squad. Back then, the Rwandan national team programme had as many as 20 full-time riders effectively on a salary. With no incentive to improve, some long-term team members didn’t even show up to training, yet still got paid.

‘There was a power struggle, so riders have had to go through a character rehabilitation,’ says Magnell. ‘There was a sense of entitlement among some, a lot of complaining, some bad attitudes, and a couple of times it threatened to tarnish our reputation [some riders went on strike], so I insisted on stamping that out.

‘Now nobody makes any money simply from being on the national team and no one is guaranteed a position on it.

‘It’s based on performance, merit, character and communication. Some individuals chose to make amends for their mistakes and to change. Others chose to call my bluff and they’re still outside because there’s no room on the team for selfish athletes.’

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Image 6 of 18

Young ones

All the riders on Team Rwanda are under 21. With only a few days to go to his 22nd birthday, Jean Damascene Ruberwa is a veteran, having ridden the Tour du Rwanda twice before.

‘I’m feeling good. I’ve been training hard,’ he says in the hotel car park after a gentle training ride. This will be my third time. The first time it was very hard – I was inexperienced – but the second time it was better.

‘This time I hope it will be better still. It’s very hilly, but we train in the hills so I’m ready. We wait for this race all year, and when it’s here it’s the best time in my life.’

His goals? ‘To win a stage, get a jersey and to help my teammates. ‘I want to be part of a breakaway and we’re really hoping for a place on the podium.’

The top of the podium has become a well-worn spot for Team Rwanda. Since Valens Ndayisenga won in 2014 no other nation has stolen the crown back, and everyone is hungry for more success.

‘Oh man, it’s going to be interesting,’ says Belfast. Magnell agrees: ‘The climbs are really going to test these riders. It’s a challenging course but it really favours our team. There are some new roads, but we got a chance to preview them in a race three weeks ago.’

One such hill is the now infamous ‘Wall of Kigali’, a 12% climb on cobbles that riders have to attack twice on the final stage.

‘It’s short and favours riders who have grit, a lot of power and bike-handling skills,’ says Magnell.

He has confidence in his team to win for the fifth year running, but admits it doesn’t get any easier.

‘It’s pure stress,’ he says. ‘I don’t bask in the joy of it – I’m always looking towards the next thing.’

And next, for today at least, is lunch. There are no team nutritionists to create individualised menus. Here, riders sit around circular tables in a huge dining room piling their plates high from metal vats at the self-serve buffet.

On the menu: fried rabbit, spiced chicken, goat stew, rice, yams and greens.

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Image 13 of 18

Rwanda’s great hope

Lunch consumed, Dider Munyaneza heads for a massage, giving us a chance to chat. The massage table is set up not in the privacy of a hotel room, but in a corridor. Not that it bothers Munyaneza. He’s everything you’d expect from the rider his coach describes as ‘stoked 24/7’.

A huge smile brightens his face as I greet him, and he reaches out his hand to shake (something germ-phobic WorldTour riders would never do).

‘I’m feeling good,’ he says. ‘I want to do something for my coach, for my team. I hope we win the Tour – that’s my goal.’

Munyaneza’s route into pro cycling has been a difficult one. The youngest in his family, he dropped out of school when his older brother died and became a bike taxi rider to earn money.

His neighbours, former national cycling team captain Janvier Hadi and former national champion Gasore Hategeka, saw his potential.

‘I watched Hategeka ride, so I wrote to him and he supported me,’ Munyaneza says.

He formally joined the sport in 2013, but a lack of money forced him to return to working as a bike taxi a year later. Hadi and Hategeka encouraged him back in 2015, helped by some local inspiration.

‘I went to watch the Tour du Rwanda and Jean Bosco Nsengimana, from my home town, won. I started training hard, then I went to the Africa Rising Centre to be tested and the coach was very happy. He gave me a bike.’

In 2016, Munyaneza finally sold his taxi bike to concentrate solely on pro cycling: ‘Last year I finished eighth in the Tour du Rwanda.

‘To be in the top 10 at my first attempt was very good. My goal is to race the Tour de France one day.’

Judging by his successes, including becoming the Rwandan national champion and qualifying for both the U23 World Championships and Tour de l’Avenir, it’s not an unrealistic goal.

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Image 12 of 18

Race time

The next day in Rwamagana, 45 minutes outside Kigali, the build-up to the opening stage is underway. The sun beats down on the ochre road, reggae blasts from huge speakers and crowds cram 30-deep at the roadside, atop buildings and nestled in tree branches.

One local fan tells me, ‘The Tour du Rwanda means everything. When it comes, everyone is happy, from the cyclists to small children watching.

‘We are in the middle of Africa, and the world is here. Bikes give you freedom, they help you clear your mind and they change people’s lives. Cycling for me is like breathing.’

With that, a lorry pulls up and the rear opens to reveal it is filled with bikes. Everyone lends a hand unloading them, including team directors, soigniers, mechanics and even race organisers.

Next, the buses arrive. They’re not like Team Ineos’s luxurious ‘Death Star’ bus – they’re more like yellow school buses, and it’s not one bus per team. Everyone piles in together.

The riders disembark, and there is not even a cordoned off area for them, so they get changed wherever they can in the street and head to the start line.

Munyaneza spots us and flashes his signature grin. If he’s nervous, he’s disguising it well. Magnell is philosophical, his sights set far beyond today’s 97.5km stage: ‘Four days after this we have the Tour de l’Avenir.

‘This is the first time an African team has been invited and if you finish on the podium you can get a WorldTour contract. Then we have the World Championships, where we’re ranked number one in the U23 category in Africa, so we can bring five athletes to Innsbruck, and it’s a course that suits us.

‘The goal is to win here, but judging by these riders’ progression, success on the world stage is not out of the question.’

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Image 17 of 18

Onwards and upwards

The opening stage, started by UCI president David Lappartient, is signed, sealed and delivered in two hours 12 minutes, won by Algerian veteran Azzedine Lagab.

Team Rwanda’s first rider across the line is Munyaneza. No one is quite sure where the buses are, so the riders stand on grass verges, stripping off sweaty kit among the fans and handing out their branded drinks bottles to small children.

Finally, word gets around that the buses are in the start area, and the race is whisked away to the next stage, leaving a town still resonating with the sheer thrill of it.

For the next few days, crowds will stretch the entire 948.6km course cheering, dancing and delighting in this travelling circus of bikes.

By the time it’s all over, Team Rwanda will have lived up to Magnell’s dreams, but not courtesy of Munyaneza, who will finish eighth. Instead, it’s teammate Samuel Mugisha who takes the title.

Munyaneza is still stoked, and goes on to finish 2018 as national champion, having been part of the Rwandan team that took silver at the men’s team time-trial at the inaugural Africa Cup, and having competed at the World Championships in the Under-23 Road Race (he didn’t finish).

Perhaps 2019 will be his year – the same year that the Tour du Rwanda is elevated to a UCI category 2.1 race. Then I can tell everyone that I once shook his hand while he lay in his smalls in a hotel corridor.

There is no hiding place in elite sport. From the outside we see professional athletes as almost superhuman – not just fit but incredibly strong, mentally and physically, and resilient. Battle-hardened, totally dedicated and focused only on success. And while anyone can ride a bike, our own limitations give us a deeper appreciation for those who can do it at a level beyond anything we can dream of.

Suffering is part of cycling, almost a badge of honour, so it comes as a shock when we learn that those superhuman athletes are actually human after all.

Athletes are under more pressure than ever. Sport is big business, and the rise of social media means those at the top of the game are a target when things don’t go right.

‘The money is huge, more people are competing and if you don’t stay at the top someone will take your place,’ says Andy Lane, professor of sports psychology at the University of Wolverhampton. ‘Science has helped people train in a more sophisticated way, and talent only gets you so far.

‘On top of that, social media is 24 hours per day and it requires you to be very good at managing your image,’ he adds. ‘Direct access to the athlete can bring intense emotions in the athlete – unpleasant feelings, like being in a crowd. But whereas competing in front of a crowd is seen as part of the competition, social media can create an ongoing pressure.’

‘Riders are under more pressure these days,’ says Jan-Niklas Droste, head of medical at WorldTour team Bora-Hansgrohe. ‘I think we can see what’s changed is that riding a bike is not the only part of the job any more. Professional sport is also entertainment and marketing. For the athletes the spotlight is now on them 24/7, in addition to an increased demand for perfectionism we’ve faced over the last two decades.

‘There’s also an accumulation of some risky personality characteristics such as high self-esteem – even if it’s a pretence – the way athletes manage conflict and how they deal with fear or pain. The result is that we have seen professional athletes facing new problems.’

Droste should know. It was one of Bora-Hansgrohe’s riders – Olympic Champion Peter Kennaugh – who stepped away from the sport earlier this year to focus on himself and his family, saying he needed to ‘rediscover happiness, motivation and enthusiasm’.

He’s not the only one. Fourteen-time Tour de France stage winner Marcel Kittel quit Katusha-Alpecin in May to take a break from a cycling, and Team Sunweb’s Nicolas Roche recently opened his heart to Cyclist about his own struggles, brought on by a divorce and his brother’s battle with cancer.

‘I’ve had problems in my life but thought as long as I’m on my bike, I can get over anything. I was wrong,’ he told us. ‘I struggled more than I thought I would. I also struggled with the fact that I knew I was struggling. I remember being dropped on a flat Giro stage [12, in 2018]. I thought, “Nico, this is not physical – your mind has gone.”’

Sometimes riders need help and understanding, and Bora-Hansgrohe prides itself on being one of the more progressive pro teams in this regard. ‘Mental health is one of four pillars we are working on beside traumatology, internal/infectious diseases and overuse,’ says Droste. ‘It’s not possible to look at those areas separately because they obviously affect each other.

‘Regarding mental health we have specialists as consultants, especially in the off-season. The goal is not to wait until a problem arises, not to “treat” the athletes – the goal is to stop the stigmatisation of mental health and open up a conversation about that topic.

‘We support all athletes to work with a psychologist at home on a regular basis,’ he adds. ‘We try to help them find someone they trust and who speaks their native language. We try to work athlete-centred and one of the most important aspects is the empathic human interactions based on a highly sensitive listening.

‘Most of the athletes are with the team for a long time as the atmosphere is like a family – this is something that is really important for us and is a protective factor in itself. It’s easier to realise stressors early and seek a way to deal with it together.

‘We are constantly working and improving on this topic and it is for sure just the starting point. We need to develop new strategies to face mental health as a major part of success in health management, performance and social interaction.’

Home help

British Cycling has also taken steps to address the issue by establishing a new mental health strategy to support rider welfare.

‘We revised our approach to athlete mental health and wellbeing based on the acknowledgement that, as an elite sports team, we operate in a high-challenge, high-support environment,’ says Dr Nigel Jones, head of medical services for the Great Britain Cycling Team.

‘The aim is to move away from the more traditional approach of reactively providing external support to those diagnosed with a mental health “disorder” and to instead shift the focus to working in a more proactive way,’ he adds.

British Cycling has co-opted two full-time sports psychologists from the English Institute of Sport, while for specific cases UK Sport offers monthly access to a clinical psychologist.

‘Another key area is educating the wider coaching and support team around the general principles of human development,’ says Jones. ‘New athletes joining the programme will undergo a mental health screening and athletes will be screened on a six-monthly basis, allowing us to identify athletes who are struggling mentally but may not recognise this themselves.

‘Finally, we will provide clearly signposted mental health pathways that enable the athlete to feel comfortable when seeking help and know the range of options available to them.’

Everybody hurts

We tend to put them on a pedestal, but elite athletes can be complicated characters. You don’t reach the top of your sport by being an ‘ordinary person’.

‘Sportspeople are highly motivated, strong and resilient – but some can also be obsessive and highly self-critical,’ says Lane. ‘A driven motivation to perform at your best requires you to monitor performance and change, via self-talk when your performance dips below the standard you require.

‘If performance dips, the athlete continues to be self-critical and performance doesn’t improve, it creates a negative environment. Feedback in sport is immediate and black and white – defeat and poor performance is clear and, while we might try to draw positivity from defeat, if the athlete loses the financial effects aren’t so easy to cope with.’

Perhaps Droste sums it up best: ‘If the life of athletes is visible from so many different angles that let the world participate in every aspect of their private life through social media, we should also allow space for fear and negative emotions.

‘Athletes are role models for people around the world and being honest is a huge release for them and all the people stressed by the Instagram-filtered illusion of a perfect, sunny and happy life.’

This is an important point and one that cycling isn’t alone in realising. In football, England international Danny Rose opened up about his battle with depression, while England Women star Fran Kirby actually quit the game for a spell as she battled depression and anxiety after losing her mother.

Other sportspeople, including England’s Rugby World Cup winner Jonny Wilkinson and 1996 Formula 1 World Champion Damon Hill, have revealed their own struggles after retiring. It takes bravery to speak out, especially for those who are still performing at the highest level, but opening up can help them – and help others to identify their own problems.

‘We look up to our heroes but to realise they are human and fighting the same demons might help us all to accept there are more valuable aspects of life beyond what we see on Instagram,’ Droste adds. ‘It’s quite OK to be perfectly imperfect. Society might not be ready for it, but the process has started.’

La Via Roma in Cuneo, a city in northwestern Italy has, for 32 years, played host to one of the most impassioned tributes to cycling in Europe. Each year the Piazza Galimberti - a massive square connecting the historic and more modern city centre - is feted by industry and route organisers. There is a fervent mythologising of il Campionissimo that’s unmissable.

This year’s running was particularly eventful as it marked the 100th anniversary of Fausto Coppi’s birth. To celebrate, the Museo Civico - a converted, frescoed church turned gallery - is exhibiting video, jerseys, bikes and memorabilia from his life - a stunning tribute to one of the area’s favourite sons. Riders in this year’s race sported blue and white jerseys, akin to the Bianchi kit Coppi made famous, only with less wool.

In so many ways, Piedmont parallels the Italy celebrated in cycling folklore. The roads are predominantly narrow and steep; save for the fact they are 'paved,' they appear unchanged since Coppi himself raced on them. Land surrounding the city is farmed, roots from which Coppi emerged and turned pro by the time he was 20.

Like so many Italian gran fondos, this one’s raced, not ridden. There are no hotels or ski resorts on the climbs, nor are there restaurants to grab coffee.

Several roads are cracked and in bad condition. The gradients are punishing and relentless and the descents - if unfamiliar with them - challenging. In every town on the route, people shout forza, offer water, a wheel or anything else. There are so many parallels between rider and region, it’s obvious why organisers call it one of the last true events of its kind anywhere.

'This is one of the toughest races in Europe,' says Davide Lauro, race organiser for La Fausto Coppi. 'The route features incomparable, unknown roads. It’s one of the last true fondos because of the spirit here - true cycling - something many similar races in Italy have lost.'

Officine Mattio owner and CEO Giovanni Monge Roffarello characterises it similarly, calling La Fausto the biggest event in la provincia granda.

'Colle Fauniera is undoubtedly one of the hardest climbs in the world, and it’s good to see people from 37 countries and five continents come and experience the local roads.'

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Image 6 of 13

The route

The route starts and finishes in Cuneo and goes for about 40km before climbing to Valmala (1380m) - a winding 900m ascent offering several spectacular views before a long descent and easy roller over Colletta Rossana and to the start of Piatta Soprana - a short and punchy climb up to 1136m.

It then descends to Pradleves and the start of the 22km climb to Colle Fauniera (2484m), the penultimate climb of La Fausto Coppi.

This is an ascent like few others in Europe that was first featured in the Giro d'Italia in 1999. It is relentless, brutally steep and sustained at an average of 7.5 percent, with many long leg-draining sections well above double digits.

Transitioning from lower canyon and rock walls on either ride of the road to an arid alpine landscape as you near the finish, it could be the best climb in Italy you’ve never heard of, sharing little in common with the classics in the high Alps or Dolomites.

A statue of Marco Pantani waits at the top, a tribute to another of Italy’s great champions and a symbol of the importance cycling has played in Piedmont.

Like you need it, the route finishes with an almost 30 kilometre descent before the final ascent up Madonna del Colletto (1304m) and final kilometers into Cuneo. Compared to the climbs that came before it, at 8.2 percent average, it goes quick.

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Image 8 of 13

What to expect

The roads on the La Fausto Coppi are mostly closed and all of them quiet. Barely a car in sight. There are plenty of spigots on the side the road for water on Colle Fauniera (sometimes called the Colle dei Morti, or the 'pass of the dead' - which better describes the feeling ascending it), La Piatta Soprana (1136m) and Valmala (1380m).

Bring your climbing legs for all of them. This is a tribute to true suffering.

Three kilometers from the start, there’s a turn for the medio (111km, 2510m) and gran (177km, 4125m) fondo routes. Unfortunate that it comes so early as it doesn’t provide much time to try the legs before deciding which way to turn, but there it is.

Despite being billed as a fondo, La Fausto is better described as an amateur road race. It’s full-gas from the start; several professional riders participated in this year’s edition. If riding hard till the finish, consider paying the charity donation of about £100 to get a spot in the front. You’ll be better positioned in the roll out.

There are food stations at the top of each climb with all the nutella, toast and hazelnut biscuits you can stomach. Plenty of sports drinks and water, too. Bring your own gels, though. Enervit Sport, the food sponsor, doesn’t offer much by way of nutrition on the roadside.

Riders handle their own mechanicals, another nod to a time when professional races went hard, were hard and were often dominated by a powerful Italian from Castellania.

For travel, Genoa and Turin are probably the closest international airports. As far as completing La Fausto Coppi goes, it is undoubtedly an experience like few other one-day cycling events.

This feature was originally published in Issue 88 of Cyclist magazine

Words James Witts Photography Sean Hardy

‘He’s the guiding spirit of the greatest team in his sport. Perhaps, pound for pound, the greatest team in any sport today.’ So said The Guardian’s Richard Williams in March 2019, but who was he talking about? Manchester City’s Pep Guardiola perhaps? Or the All Blacks’ Steve Hansen?

‘He exists in the modern world less as a reminder of a cherished past than as master of the present,’ Williams adds. The ‘master’ in question is Patrick Lefevere, manager of Belgian WorldTour team Deceuninck-QuickStep.

He’s a man whose racing and managerial palmarès stretches back four decades; a man who has cultivated the most successful team of modern times; but also a man who some feel is ill-informed and outdated.

In January, Lefevere was criticised for suggesting a woman was only after money after one of his riders, Ilio Keisse, was kicked off the Vuelta a San Juan for miming a sex act while posing with the female fan.

‘I’m straight. Sometimes too straight,’ Lefevere tells Cyclist when we meet him at the Deceuninck-QuickStep service course in an industrial estate in Flanders. ‘But you will never catch me lying. If I can’t say anything, I shut up. But I prefer my style than someone who’s gentle but inside is not gentle. They never say anything.’

Driven by success

QuickStep in their various forms have topped the UCI winning rankings for the past six seasons. It would have been seven but they drew with Sky in 2012 – taking 51 victories each – and the British team edged it thanks to 144 podium places versus 115.

Not that Lefevere cares. With 403 wins between 2012 and 2018, podium spots are mere footnotes. Lefevere is driven by winning. Second and third are simply indications that more is required – from his team and from him. After an astonishing Spring Classics campaign this year, it’s clear those demands have been met.

Heading into the Tour de France, Lefevere’s Deceuninck-QuickStep outfit has 39 victories in 2019, more than any other team.

But it’s the quality rather than the quantity of wins that has had many lauding the Belgian, who can boast two Monument wins – through Julian Alaphilippe at Milan-San Remo and Philippe Gilbert at Paris-Roubaix– among his team’s successes in 2019. That’s on top of further Classics wins at La Flèche Wallonne, Scheldeprijs, Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne, Strade Bianche…

These victories come despite QuickStep having lost Fernando Gaviria, who had taken 31 wins in three seasons, to UAE Team Emirates this year to ease the wage bill. He also lost former Roubaix and Flanders winner Niki Terpstra, yet one of Lefevere’s greatest strengths is his knack for catalysing collective willpower to eclipse any shortage in firepower.

‘It comes down to me being a bookkeeper,’ Lefevere says. ‘I have to raise money while many of my competitors are supported by their governments: Lotto-Soudal, Astana, FDJ… 

‘If there’s a hole in our finances, I pay. And I’m not used to putting private money into my team. I should take money out! But I am used to playing with numbers, and making good calculations.

‘The riders are a balance sheet,’ he adds. ‘You have a sheet of paper with a column down the middle – debit on one side, credit on the other. You need to manage their strengths and weaknesses to keep the team in credit. Of course, I’d prefer to keep hold of our stronger riders and, where possible, have done. Tom [Boonen] spent 15 years with me, Johan [Museeuw] 11, Terpstra eight.’

But, says Lefevere, riders are temporary. Cycling’s notoriously fragile business model, hamstrung by a persistent lack of TV revenue, ticketing income and transfer funds, means contracts are usually for not longer than three years, and often are just for one. This is why, he adds, the permanent edifices of any team – the directeurs sportif, soigneurs, marketing team – are so invaluable.

‘The people around you are the structure of your house. If you build on sand, you collapse. If you have a good foundation, you’ll stay powerful. Wilfried [Peeters, former racer, now directeur sportif] has been with me for 25 years; Yvan [Vanmol, doctor] 26 years; Alessandro [Tagner, communication manager] 19 years.’

Stability in itself is no guarantee of success, of course. It needs to be aligned with tactical acumen, the support staff’s own racing experience and Lefevere’s instinct.

As an example, Lefevere reminisces about his time managing Domo-Farm Frites-Latexco. ‘It was December 2000 and the team was a mess. We had a World Champion, Romans Vainsteins, and he was 10kg overweight. Museeuw was recovering from a motorbike injury so was off form. Come Paris-Roubaix the following April we hadn’t registered one good result.

‘That day I was co-commentating for a Belgian television channel and we were located up the course. It was muddy on this stretch but at the start in Compiegne it was dry. We had a good number of riders in the front group of 20 or 25 and, with the rain, it was imperative to hit the wet cobbled section in front to avoid crashing.

‘So I called our DS and said, “Gas!” He said, “No, it’s too far out.” But I repeated it and said no one will come back, the race is done.’ The team obeyed orders. No one did come back, and Domo-Farm Frites-Latexco enjoyed a clean sweep of the podium, with Servais Knaven (who is now DS at Team Ineos) the winner.

Black sheep

There’s one thing about that story that doesn’t feel right. If Lefevere was the mastermind behind the team, why was he commentating at Roubaix for TV rather than directing from the team car?

‘I’d just had a pancreatic tumour removed,’ Lefevere replies. ‘It was diagnosed on the 21st September 2000 and I had the operation on the 7th November. Prior to the operation, Domo contacted me to become team manager and I said yes. The doctor said to me I should convalesce at home for six months.

‘Instead, I spent a month recovering at Leuven University Clinic and then headed to the team’s training camp. I wasn’t supposed to travel but my friend had a private plane and I flew from Wevelgem to Mallorca.

‘I remember being in the hospital, looking under the sheets, seeing all these pipes, but you can’t see your “little brother”,’ he laughs, nervously. ‘But it doesn’t help staying at home and complaining. I only went to Mallorca for two days but I reckon it helped my recovery 20 per cent. You have to work again because this is your life, this is your passion.’

Lefevere points to his head, indicating that he wrestles with the cancer to this day. ‘But I’ve always been brave,’ he says. That braveness expressed itself early on, with Lefevere forging a cycling career despite coming from a family involved in the car business. The black sheep, he says.

He turned professional at 21, won Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne and a stage of the Vuelta a España, and then, inexplicably, in 1980 at just 25, he retired. No injury, no health breakdown, Lefevere simply stopped.

‘I had the brains to win, which has helped me as a manager, but I didn’t have the legs to win the big races. I’d read about Eddy Merckx and his nice villa and I wanted that. But I could see that every year as a professional, my villa would shrink! I chose to become a professional, but I also chose to stop when I wanted to.’

Lefevere immediately morphed into directeur sportif at the team he’d just raced for, Marc VRD. Playing conductor to the cycling choristers beneath him, many of whom were older than him (including Bradley Wiggins’ father Gary), moulded Lefevere’s bloody-mindedness and strength of character.

When the team folded, Lefevere moved to Capri-Sonne in 1981. ‘But then they stopped so I became a full-time bookkeeper. I returned as DS for Lotto between 1985 and 1987, before moving to TVM in 1988. They proposed a three-year contract but I didn’t like the style of the house, so I left.’

Lefevere moved to Domex-Weinmann. ‘But it was tough. We were struggling to find money. Nothing changes,’ he says with a laugh.

It was his time at GB-MG from 1991 to 1994 that Lefevere says proved a pivotal period in his career. ‘I’d got Wilfried Peeters and Johan Museeuw to join the team. These were successful riders but we needed them to help Mario Cipollini in the lead out. ‘The collective mindset worked because we won a lot, not only Classics but stage races. We also finished third in the Tour.’

In 1995, Lefevere moved to Mapei, the Italian team that had become one of the strongest in the history of cycling. The year before, Swiss rider Tony Rominger won the Vuelta a España, but it would be the one-day arena where they would carve their reputation, racking up Classic after Classic, including Paris-Roubaix five times.

In 1998, Lefevere replaced Giuseppe Saronni as team manager. ‘That’s when I brought QuickStep in. I told them we’re the biggest team in cycling – join us.’

Further success followed, but then Mapei announced in 2002 that they were pulling out of cycling. Lefevere (who at the time was with Domo-Farm Frites-Latexco) says, ‘I remember the boss of QuickStep, Frans De Cock, asked what he should do. I said lots of people will call you [in search of sponsorship money], but I said we should forge our own team.’

Raising wolves

QuickStep has remained the team’s primary sponsor since then. But despite the many millions that the flooring company has poured into the team, it still hovers around a middling WorldTour budget.

That means maximising youth, rather than buying the finished article, which is why Lefevere has become so adept at spotting pearls amongst an ocean of oysters. Take Julian Alaphilippe, whose golden spring brought success at Milan-San Remo, Strade Bianche and La Flèche Wallonne. 

‘One day, one of my soigneurs said there’s this young guy who finished second in the World Junior Cyclocross Championships [2010]. He was 17, a huge talent. We kept an eye on him for a season and then signed him when he was racing for the Armée de Terre [a French ProContinental team sponsored by the French army that disbanded in 2017].’

Alaphilippe was nurtured in QuickStep’s development team, disbanded in 2016 after Lefevere became disillusioned with transforming juniors into professionals only to see teams with bigger budgets poach them for no financial recompense.

Then there’s Remco Evenepoel. The 19-year-old Belgian skipped the under-23 category to join QuickStep straight from dominating the junior ranks, winning 23 of the 35 races he entered in 2018 including double gold at the Europeans and the Worlds. He’s been dubbed by some as the new Eddy Merckx.

‘I’ve never seen anyone that good at his age,’ says Lefevere. ‘He won the Europeans by nearly 10 minutes, then at the Worlds he crashed, lost two minutes but continued to attack. He had this huge German [Marius Mayrhofer] on his wheel but – bam, bam, bam– he won by a minute!’

Lefevere explains how it became a bunfight to sign the young Belgian, including interest from Team Sky. But the man who knows everyone knew Remco’s father, Patrick. ‘He said Remco has one dream,’ Lefevere relays almost whimsically, ‘and that is to race for your team. We have a reputation. We signed him.’

That reputation is built on Lefevere’s ability to inspire loyalty for the team over the self. It’s the reason why the squad developed the nickname ‘Wolfpack’. ‘The name started as a joke but it has grown and grown,’ says Lefevere. ‘But the collective mentality has always been there. Man for man we might not beat Peter Sagan, but together we can.’

So how does Lefevere find and nurture the talent that makes up his winning team? ‘Every rider is different,’ he says. ‘We have physical tests, yes, but then psychological tests. We have a very good system to understand a rider’s character.’

Lefevere doesn’t reveal what these tests are, but the results are complemented by observation. And if the results aren’t positive, there’s only one outcome.

‘I never waste time on losers. If they have a loser’s personality, they’ll remain like that forever and are with me only for a short time. They cannot afford to be jealous. They also have to pass the UCI tests, the biological passport…’

Doping. It’s an unavoidable subject when you’ve been in the sport as long as Lefevere has. As a rider, Lefevere admitted to taking amphetamines. As manager, there have also been ‘incidents’. The team suspended Tom Boonen twice for testing positive for cocaine, while former rider Patrik Sinkewitz accused the team of systematic doping when he rode for them between 2003 and 2005.

No punishment was meted out to the team and Sinkewitz’s accusations were never proved. Nor was the high-profile case of 2007 where Belgian daily Het Laatse Nieuws published a report by three journalists entitled ‘Patrick Lefevere, 30 years of dope’. Lefevere denied its contents, it went to court and he was awarded €500,000.

‘But I lost €34 million,’ Lefevere says. ‘I had a pre-contract with Swiss coffee machine manufacturers Franke but that disappeared with these insults. I said to the journalists, “I’ll give you €50,000 if you can prove live on TV that I visited the clinic you claim I did.” But they didn’t. They started sweating.’

The newspaper’s parent company issued a retraction of the original story two weeks after it was published, leaving the two authors and editor responsible for damages. ‘They say, “We have children and we’ll lose our homes.” I said I have 55 people who have homes and kids and we’ve lost a contract. I want the money. Sell your houses – I don’t care.

‘In the end, the newspaper paid and saved their arses. I’m a good crisis manager as well as team manager.’ 

Life on the road

The highs and lows of Patrick Lefevere’s 43-year career

1955: Born on 6th January in Moorslede, Flanders.

1976: Wins a stage at the Vuelta a la Communidad after turning pro the previous year.

1978: Lefevere takes victory at Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne, then wins a stage at the Vuelta a España a month later.

1980: Makes the surprise decision to retire from riding aged just 25, but remains with the Marc VRD team as DS.

1985: Joins the newly formed Lotto team as DS, then switches to TVM in 1988 for one unhappy year.

1991: After three years struggling with Domex-Weinmann, moves to GB-MG, where a young Mario Cipollini takes four stage wins at the Vuelta.

1995: Switches to Mapei. Continues his run of success with 51 wins over the year, the highlight being Tony Rominger’s victory at the Giro d’Italia.

2002: When Mapei disbands, convinces sponsor QuickStep to start a new team from the ground up, with many former Mapei riders joining him.

2007: Linked to doping by a Belgian daily newspaper, but the case is dismissed in court and Lefevere is awarded €500,000.

2018: Despite QuickStep racking up 73 wins across the season, struggles to secure the team’s future until Deceuninck steps in as sponsor in October

Lefevere on…

… Mathieu van der Poel’s dad, Adri

‘We have good history. As well as racing for my team, I helped him get a driving job at Rabobank. He married Raymond Poulidor’s daughter and they had two children, David and Mathieu. When Mathieu was 10, Adri told me he could do everything. Every father is proud of his son, but he was right.’

… What makes a good manager

‘Great riders might not make good bosses. They don’t know how a “normal” rider feels. How can you explain to someone how they need to grow if you’ve never felt this pain? Yes, they’re suffering, but it’s different. Winning is easy. You have to fail before you can teach someone to win.’

… The greatest riders he’s worked with

‘Johan Museeuw was special and Tony Rominger worked like a machine – so strong. And Cipo [Mario Cipollini], well, everyone was afraid of him. He had that explosive character like Mark Cavendish did at the beginning.

‘But he only truly exploded when someone made a mistake and I only saw that twice. Veins were popping out his neck, both times at the Tour de France. But he was right both times. I don’t have a problem with strong characters.’

This year’s Tour de France marks 100 years of the yellow jersey. Here’s how it became a sporting icon.
This article was originally published in issue 88 of Cyclist magazine

Words Giles Belbin

The yellow jersey is just an item of clothing. It was introduced to help spectators identify the leader of a race, but over the course of 100 years its significance has transcended its purpose to the point where it is often referenced in semi-religious tones.

A good place to start when trying to understand the symbolic importance of the yellow jersey to the Tour de France is the story of a man who has never even worn it: Belgium’s André Poppe.

In 1968 Poppe was a third-year professional on the Dr Mann team. That year the Tour was organised in national teams and, like other strong cycling nations, Belgium had opted to send more than one outfit to France. Poppe, who had performed admirably at the Tour of Switzerland, climbing with some of the finest riders at the race, got the nod for the ‘A’ team, where he was to ride in support of Herman Vanspringel.

It would prove to be a dull race comprising three weeks of monotone stages that were so dreary the journalists covering the race complained and went on strike.

Nevertheless Poppe and his team did their job and on the penultimate day, with Paris almost in view, Vanspringel was wearing yellow, if only by 12 seconds. Poppe was 15 minutes or so back on the general classification.

Stage 21 was 242km from Besançon to Auxerre. The team’s instructions were simple – have a presence in any breaks in order to protect Vanspringel’s lead. That was how Poppe found himself in a six-man break that steadily began to take more and more time out of the peloton.

Poppe happened to be the best placed rider on GC in the break and as their lead ballooned he suddenly became the maillot jaune virtuel, the yellow jersey on the road.

Jan Janssen, Tour de France winner 1968 

The race organisers were worried. This had been a difficult enough Tour already, so no way could a barely-known Belgian support rider be permitted to don their valuable yellow jersey, the very emblem of the great cycling champions, synonymous with excellence and achievement, cycling’s greatest prize. It was unimaginable.

And so the Tour’s organisers, Jacques Goddet and Felix Lévitan, reportedly offered incentives to the riders in the break to slow down, and those in the peloton to speed up, driving up and down the race and promising lucrative post-Tour criterium contracts over their loudspeakers. All this to deny Poppe the yellow jersey.

‘Even my team members were fighting to ride after me,’ Poppe said when reflecting on the events last year, 50 years on. ‘All the arrangements were made between everyone behind my back.’

Goddet and Lévitan’s promises worked and the gap came down, which meant Vanspringel remained in yellow at the end of the day (although he would ultimately lose it to Jan Janssen on the final day’s time-trial in a precursor of the famous 1989 final-stage battle between Greg LeMond and Laurent Fignon).

One might imagine Poppe to be furious about having the chance to claim cycling’s most sought-after jersey taken from him in such a fashion, but when discussing it in later life he proved to be sanguine about the whole affair. The story became famous in Belgium and he benefitted financially at post-Tour criterium races.

Firmin Lambot, Tour de France winner 1919, 1922

‘Even with that bad fortune I was happy because I was a name,’ he said. ‘I was famous in Belgium because of what happened. I was newly married and my son had just been born. I saw him for the first time after the Tour. I needed the money.’

Poppe knew that the jersey was so important, so symbolic, that it was impossible in his era for him to wear it.

A pre or post-war innovation?

‘It came straight out of the trenches, born from the rubble of a wounded France.’ So said race director Christian Prudhomme, referencing the centenary of the introduction of the yellow jersey as he unveiled this year’s Tour route. ‘A light was needed, a colour that can be seen better than any other, in the dust, in the night. A beacon was needed to guide France toward resurgence.’

Officially it is recognised that the jersey was first presented in 1919, given without much fanfare to Eugène Christophe in Grenoble before Stage 11 to Geneva.

There is a picture of Christophe taken outside race control at the Café de l’Ascenseur, tubulars wrapped around his shoulders, goggles perched on his forehead, hands on hips, looking not exactly overjoyed to be wearing his new jersey.

Philippe Thys, Tour de France winner 1913, 1914, 1920

‘I handed this morning to valiant Christophe a superb yellow jersey,’ reported L’Auto’s correspondent in a small paragraph on the second page of the 19th July 1919 edition, under the heading ‘The jersey of L’Auto to Christophe’.

‘You already know that our director has decided that the lead man of the overall classification would wear a jersey in the colours of L’Auto. The fight will be passionate for possession of the jersey!’

The creation of the yellow jersey in 1919 has been credited as the idea of Alphonse Baugé, a team director who suggested to Henri Desgrange that his race needed an easier way of identifying its leader. But was Christophe truly the first to wear it?

In his book La Fabuleuse Histoire du Tour de France, the late cycling historian Pierre Chany writes that three-time Tour winner Philippe Thys claimed he had worn a yellow jersey as leader of the Tour in 1913 while riding for Baugé’s Peugeot team. In a 1953 interview with the Belgian review Champions et Vedettes Thys said, ‘I was the leader of the general classification.

‘One night Desgrange dreamed of a golden-coloured jersey and proposed I wear it. I refused. I already felt the focal point of everything. He insisted yet I remained steadfast. But he was stubborn, more than me, and kept coming back.’

Gino Bartali, Tour de France winner 1938, 1948

Thys said that a few stages later ‘the unforgettable Baugé’ persuaded him that it would be good publicity for the Peugeot brand. So they bought a yellow top in the first shop they found that had one.

‘It was just about the right size,’ Thys said, but ‘it was necessary to cut a larger hole for my head, and that was how I rode several stages in a top with a low and revealing neckline. It did not stop me winning my first Tour.’

In the same interview Thys also alluded to the race leaders wearing a yellow jersey the following year, a race he also won. While the claims have never been fully corroborated (or disproven), Chany suggests that perhaps after experimenting sporadically with the idea for a couple of years Desgrange finally resolved to formalise it during the next race, which after an interlude during the First World War was in 1919.

‘It’s one possible explanation,’ he writes. ‘Not a certainty.’ What is certain is that Christophe wore the jersey in 1919 and that it did him few favours. Six days after he first pulled on yellow, with a lead of 28 minutes and just two days from Paris, Christophe’s forks collapsed on the cobblestones of northern France.

It took him more than an hour to repair his machine and as a result he lost the Tour. Christophe was proclaimed the moral winner but it was the Belgian rider Firmin Lambot who entered history as the first man to take yellow into Paris.

Ottavio Bottecchia, Tour de France winner 1924, 1925

Grand exploits

The legend of the yellow jersey formed because of the sensational stories that the Tour produces, the tremendous tales that are written, and embellished, as each race develops and riders push themselves to the limits of their powers to either retain or assume the race lead.

Riders such as Italy’s Gino Bartali, who over two astonishing days in the Alps in 1948 claimed the jersey after going head to head with Louison Bobet and turning a 21-minute deficit into an eight-minute lead; or France’s Thomas Voeckler, who went from a regular pro tackling his second Tour to national hero in 2004 when he turned himself inside out defending an unlikely yellow jersey for 10 days.

‘When I saw all the emotion and excitement that surrounds this jersey, I understood what it meant to people… and for me too,’ he reflected. Voeckler repeated the feat seven years later, again taking yellow early, again defending it for 10 days before finally surrendering his lead.

Ottavio Bottecchia was the first rider to wear yellow from start to finish, winning both the opening and closing stages in 1924 as he completely dominated events.

Nicolas Frantz, Tour de France winner 1927, 1928

Bottecchia was ‘head and shoulders above the rest of us’, according to Henri Pélissier, his teammate at Automoto and the pre-race favourite. The Italian was imperious in the Pyrenees, attacking on the Aubisque and not resting until he powered into Luchon four major climbs later, completing a stunning mountain raid. His margin in Paris was 35 minutes as he became the first Italian to win the race.

He reportedly wore his yellow jersey all the way back to Italy, so proud was he of his win. He won the race again the following year, spending another 13 days in the jersey, but by June 1927 Bottecchia was dead, the victim of a curious incident while out training that remains unexplained to this day.

Similar displays of yellow jersey domination to that of Bottecchia’s include Luxembourg’s Nicolas Frantz, who in 1928 wore yellow from start to finish in a race that saw teams start separately on flat stages.

Such was the strength of Frantz’s Alcyon team that no one else got a look in as they secured all three spots on the podium.

‘Nicolas Frantz seized the glorious yellow jersey, object of all desires, from the first stage,’ reported Raymond Huttier in Le Miroir des Sports, ‘and I don’t think there was anyone who doubted he would never lose it.’

In 1961 Jacques Anquetil held the jersey from the end of the first day to the last (that year’s Tour started with two stages on the opening day. The first was won by Andre Darrigade, who therefore briefly wore the jersey until Anquetil claimed it in the afternoon).

Jacques Anquetil, Tour de France winner 1957, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1964

Such was Anquetil’s complete control of the race that Jacques Goddet penned a scathing article, accusing other riders of being ‘fearful dwarfs… submissive and impotent… satisfied in their mediocrity’.

The following year Tom Simpson became the first British rider to don the jersey – cue photos of him in yellow and a bowler hat, sipping tea and carrying an umbrella, the archetypal Englishman abroad.

There have been occasions when multiple riders have worn yellow simultaneously. In 1929 time-keepers were unable to separate the three riders in the lead in Bordeaux: ‘Frantz, Leducq and Fontan together at the top of the general classification, all three will wear the yellow jersey today,’ ran the headline in L’Auto.

The situation reoccurred two years later when Charles Pélissier and Raffaele di Paco were tied both on time and on points accumulated, so were both awarded the yellow jersey.

There have also been times when no rider has worn it. This is usually out of respect after the previous incumbent has crashed out of the race. This is a jersey that has to be earned, not gifted through the ill-fortune of others.

One such time came in 1971 when Eddy Merckx was engaged in a titanic battle with Luis Ocaña. Merckx holds the record for most days spent in yellow – 96 (111 if you include half stages) – but on this day it was the Spaniard who wore the jersey.

Eddy Merckx, Tour de France winner 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1974

A storm broke out in the Pyrenees as the two duelled and when Merckx skidded round a corner the following Ocaña couldn’t stop himself from careering off the road.

‘Ocaña was screaming in pain as he lay there amid the stones and mud like Christ taken down from the cross,’ L’Equipe reported. ‘One hand clutching his chest and his yellow jersey torn and spattered with a mixture of blood and earth.’

Ocaña abandoned and Merckx reclaimed the race lead but refused to wear the jersey the next day. ‘Whatever happens I have lost the Tour,’ he said. ‘The doubt will always remain.’

The jersey Ocaña wore that day, ripped apart from neck to waist, is included in an exhibition currently on show in Nice that commemorates 100 years of the yellow jersey. Displayed in a glass cabinet it is the perfect illustration of what this single piece of clothing has come to represent.

It is the symbol of professional cycling, an emblem of effort and endeavour, a totem of tragedy and toil, of blood, tears and, ultimately of triumph. As Eddy Merckx once said, ‘It’s the most important jersey you can wear.’

Words: Joe Robinson

When Julian Alaphilippe rode away from the rest of the Tour de France on the steep Champagne hills just outside Epernay yesterday, he didn’t mean to ride himself into yellow.

After the race, the Frenchman told the press that he had simply raced the Cote de Mutigny ‘full gas’ in an attempt to put his rivals in the red zone, making the expected reduced sprint for the stage against the likes of Peter Sagan a little more even.

What transpired was the Deceuninck-Quickstep rider getting a gap, descending like a demon, holding off the chasing peloton and taking not only the stage win but also the first yellow jersey of his career.

As the 27-year-old sat down to give his post-stage thoughts, the realisation of what had happened began to sink in. Unable to express his emotions in words, he shed a tear. Fast forward to the podium, and again the bottom lip looked to be wobbling.

Alaphilippe taking the yellow jersey was a goal for him and his team, but not this way. They planned to go closer in the team time trial on Sunday but were outdone and so it was Alaphilippe who took the race by the scruff of the neck to put those plans into action.

He did it in a manner that caught the imagination of his home that he is currently racing around. L’Equipe led with Alaphilppe as today’s cover story with the simple headline ‘Champagne’.

Many are calling him the darling of French cycling, its new chosen son - if his results earlier this year had not already done so. The thing is, this Tour could now really be the making of Julian Alaphilippe.

It’s hard to say a man with Milan-San Remo, Strade Bianche and Fleche Wallonne already on his palmares for this year alone is not made, but the Tour is the Tour. It’s character-defining, especially if you’re French.

There’s a real chance that this swashbuckling, face-pulling pocket-rocket who was taught drums by his dad as a kid and won junior cyclocross races on a bike too big for him could wear the glistening gold of Tour yellow on his shoulders far deeper into this race than his bigger and badder rivals may want.

Realistically, Thursday will be the first testing ground. A summit finish on La Planche des Belle Filles, a punishing 7km at 9.7% with its 24% gradients in the closing stages.

But Alaphilippe can climb, especially on the steep stuff, and with a loyal team, it’s hard to see him losing 20 seconds on its slopes, especially if those around him are too fearful to go on the offensive.

Then after La Planche des Belle Filles, there’s not another true test for the best part of a week, not that would trouble someone of Alaphilippe’s calibre anyway.

Stage 12 may unseat him, with the ascents of Col de Peyresourde and Horquette d’Ancizan, but don’t be surprised if he survives that and then goes on to surprise us some more in the 27km time trial the day after.

The Tourmalet and the punishing third week in the Alps, which has been labelled the hardest ever, should be enough to bury Alaphilippe but you never know as stranger things have happened.

I mean, just remember this time eight years ago, as the 2011 Tour played out. Remember another French rider capturing yellow and refusing to let it go.

Battling up giant mountains like the Galibier, beating off the advances of Andy Schleck, Cadel Evans, Alberto Contador, all Tour winners, to defend yellow for France far longer than he should have.

Thomas Voeckler went deeper into the 2011 Tour defending that race lead than he ever should have but with yellow on his back, he rode beyond his limits day after day until finally conceding on Stage 19, eventually finishing fourth overall.

The will of a nation, the power of yellow, fate and plenty of hard work helped Voeckler produce heroics back then.

Voeckler was a good rider, but Alaphilippe is better. If he can galvanise that home support, muster the strength of yellow and have fate on his side, then there’s no doubt we could see a repeat of those historic scenes from almost a decade ago.

This article is taken from issue 90 August 2019 of Cyclist which is on sale next Wednesday, 17th July 2019. To get every issue sooner, subscribe here: cyclistmag.co.uk

It was the year of the first flight by a Jumbo Jet and a test flight for another new plane called Concorde. The Beatles gave their last public performance and Led Zeppelin released their first album.

It was also the year that Robin Knox-Johnston became the first person to sail solo and non-stop around the world. Charles de Gaulle stepped down as president of France. Scooby-Doo appeared on television for the first time, as did Sesame Street and Monty Python’s Flying Circus.

And a man walked on the Moon. On 16th July Apollo 11 lifted off and four days later landed, with Neil Armstrong emerging from the spacecraft to take one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.

As far as the sport of cycling is concerned, that year – 1969 – means only one thing: Eddy Merckx. It is why this year’s Tour de France started in Brussels and spent two days there, and why Merckx, a couple of weeks after his 74th birthday, was guest of honour. He remains cycling’s equivalent of The Beatles – beyond most reasonable debate, the greatest of all time.

On the same day as Armstrong’s Moon walk, Merckx sealed his first Tour win by claiming his sixth stage, the final one of the race, a time-trial into Paris. The rider in second place, Roger Pingeon, ended up 17 minutes and 54 seconds behind the great Belgian.

Merckx also won the points, King of the Mountains, combined and combativity classifications – a collection of jerseys no one has matched in the Tour’s long history.

He gave new meaning to the word domination and earned a nickname that would stick: The Cannibal. For the record, the nickname actually came a few days later, and from an unlikely source. On the day of the final time-trial, a former teammate, Christian Raymond, was visited by his young daughter, Brigitte.

‘My daughter asked me why Merckx always had to win, and I tried to explain that it was normal, because he was the best rider,’ says Raymond. ‘She went quiet for a minute, then looked at me quizzically and said, “Well, then, he’s a real cannibal.”

‘I liked that name “The Cannibal” straight away, and later that day I mentioned it to a couple of journalists. They evidently liked it too.’

Peak performance

Merckx’s giant leap had come in the Pyrenees five days before Armstrong’s small step on the surface of the Moon. The 24-year-old was riding his first Tour in controversial circumstances after being thrown off the Giro d’Italia for a positive drugs test. He was already in the yellow jersey when, on Stage 17 in the Pyrenees, he produced arguably his greatest-ever performance.

It was a twist on the classic Pyrenean stage: Peyresourde, Aspin, Tourmalet, Soulor and Aubisque, over 214km. Merckx’s loyal teammate Martin Van Den Bossche led on the upper slopes of the Tourmalet when Merkcx exploded out of the chasing group. He passed Van Den Bossche with barely a backward glance, crossed the summit first and then plummeted down the descent.

What was he playing at? In the valley after the descent his Faema team car pulled alongside and asked exactly that. There was, after all, 130km still to ride. He should wait. He had nothing to gain – he already led the Tour by eight minutes – and everything to lose. Merckx nodded in agreement when he was advised by his directeur sportif, Lomme Driessens, to ease off.

Then Driessens’ car broke down, leaving Merckx alone with his thoughts.

‘At that point,’ Merckx said later, ‘for the first time I thought it might be worth attempting an exploit in the context of such a beautiful mountain stage. I pressed on and dug deeper than ever before.’

Jacques Goddet, who was the Tour director at the time, had another theory: ‘He felt how ridiculous waiting would be, what a loss of dignity. He began riding hard so that at the very least there would be no stain on this Tour de France. The others would surely catch him but at least it would feel like a race.’

By the Aubisque, Merckx’s lead was more than five minutes. He increased his advantage to the line, arriving in Mourenx seven minutes and 56 seconds in front of his pursuers. For this astonishing exploit over 145km and four hours, Goddet invented a new word in his column in L’Equipe the next day: ‘Merckxissimo’.

It was ‘a gratuitous act’, wrote Goddet, although of course it was more than that, since it ‘reduced all around him to rubble, including the minds of the opposition and the very concept of competition’.

In Mourenx, after the stage, Van Den Bossche, the teammate left behind on the Tourmalet, was annoyed and perplexed.

‘Today a small rider expected a big gesture from you,’ said Van Den Bossche, to which Merckx said nothing. ‘We never spoke about such things,’ Van Den Bossche said later. ‘Eddy himself didn’t talk much.’

Driven by fear

Merckx was full of contradictions. He was a big, powerful rider who famously gobbled up wins. He looked robust, the very opposite of fragile, yet beneath the skin his confidence was surprisingly brittle.

He wasn’t like Jacques Anquetil, Bernard Hinault or Lance Armstrong, the multiple Tour winners whose successes seemed to stem from supreme self-confidence or arrogance. Merckx was always battling himself, his neuroses and insecurities. He didn’t need victories to feed his ego but rather to quell his doubts and insecurities. And only until the next race.

When I interviewed Merckx a few years ago I asked him to select the greatest performance from his 525 professional wins. Luchon to Mourenx – Stage 17 of the 1969 Tour – was the one he picked first. ‘I think also 1968 to Tre Cime di Lavaredo [Stage 12 of the Giro]. And Paris-Roubaix in 1970.

‘There are a lot,’ he conceded, with just the smallest hint of a smirk.

It’s telling, though, that two of these wins came before his crash at the velodrome in Blois later in 1969, in which his motorcycle pacer died. So bad were Merckx’s injuries there that he remains convinced he never fully recovered.

‘Absolutely. Absolutely. After 1969 I was no longer the same, for sure.’ It didn’t stop him winning four more Tours, four more Giros, one Vuelta a España, four Milan-San Remos, two Paris-Roubaixs, four Liège-Bastogne-Lièges, one Tour of Flanders, two Tour of Lombardys. And lots more.

Nevertheless, Merckx’s conviction that he was never the same after 1969 means that his performance in that year’s Tour is all the more worth dwelling on.

Consider the time gaps. The 10th placed rider was Jan Janssen, not just any rider but the previous year’s winner. He was 52 minutes and 56 seconds down on Merckx. By way of comparison, Nairo Quintana was 10th last year, 14 minutes, 18 seconds down on Geraint Thomas.

But there were other possible reasons for Merckx’s incredible form at the 1969 Tour. The context is what happened at the Giro, which he had won in 1968. Twelve months later he was well placed to win again.

In the first two weeks he won four stages and led Felice Gimondi by one minute 41 seconds. But in Savona on the morning of the 16th stage the Giro director, Vincenzo Torriani, accompanied by a TV crew and two journalists, knocked on Merckx’s door and informed him he had tested positive for a stimulant, fecamfamine.

The news hit Merckx like a sledgehammer and there remains, to this day, much intrigue and many a conspiracy theory about exactly what happened. Merckx was convinced he was set up. The test had been conducted by a new mobile lab, introduced to avoid a repeat of the previous year, when the news of 10 riders (including Gimondi) testing positive wasn’t known until after the race.

Under the rules at the time, Merckx should have been suspended for a month, which would have seen him miss the Tour. But at an extraordinary meeting of the governing body, the FICP, he was cleared on the dubious basis of ‘benefit of the doubt’.

Return from exile

Merckx didn’t take any of this well, from his expulsion from the Giro to the ambiguous language used by the FICP in their verdict. Despite being clear again to race, he didn’t know if he wanted to, and threatened to walk away from the sport altogether.

For a fortnight he hardly left home. Then he threw himself back into training, doing double sessions and 200km behind a motorbike. After a 16-day break he returned to racing at a criterium in Caen.

Yet the explanation for his extraordinary form in July lies in this break after the Giro, argues one of his biographers, William Fotheringham: ‘He raced only five times in the 26 days before the Tour started.’

This made his build up very similar to that of a modern rider tapering before a big race. ‘For once in his career, Merckx was actually rested at the start of a major Tour,’ says Fotheringham. ‘The result was to be a display of pure strength, in a register that cycling had never seen before and has not seen since.’

Merckx’s anxieties and insecurities only deepened following his experience at the Giro. At the 1969 Tour his hotel room was out of bounds. Only one rider was designated to get him bottles from the team car. He would only drink from bottles with his initials engraved on them.

It is hard to reconcile the nervous, worried Merckx with the rider who, according to Gimondi, ‘never rode on tactics – it was all power and instinct’. It can be equally hard to reconcile both versions of Merckx the bike rider – whether crippled by anxiety or crushing opponents – with the relaxed, sometimes rotund figure who appears these days at races. There are still contradictions. He has the air of royalty while also appearing relaxed and approachable.

‘When he arrives at a race it becomes quiet,’ says Philippe Maertens, who worked for Belgian TV for many years. ‘He fills the room. Everybody watches him. But on the other hand he will talk to anybody, and his main weakness is that he can never say no to anybody.

‘He was a big worrier as a rider and he was meticulous with his equipment and everything. He was crazy. It wasn’t a question of a millimetre but a tenth of a millimetre. I think that’s part of the job. The champions of 2019 have the same mentality. You have to be like that.’

Maertens says Merckx lost that hang-up when he retired. Like a snake shedding its skin, he simply discarded the aspect of his personality that had been such an essential part of his success:  ‘Since he stopped he has liked to enjoy life. Everything just seems not so important any more.’

Renaat Schotte, a TV reporter with Sporza, says that in Belgium Merckx is not just a sports personality but a major cultural figure. Schotte has always been struck by the contradictions.

‘He’s a friendly giant, reserved and very cautious but also open,’ he says. ‘There was a very big difference between Eddy the champion and Eddy the human being. On the bike he was a gentle person transformed into a ruthless champion. I can’t explain it, and I don’t think he can.’

Modern Merckx

Merckx has spent more than 50 years having to try to explain it. If he sometimes looks bored when he’s asked to reminisce, it’s maybe because he is (although one journalist got a smile out of him a couple of years ago when he asked a question Merckx had never previously been asked: ‘Who is the second-greatest cyclist of all time?’).

‘He likes to talk about other things,’ says Schotte. ‘You couldn’t do him a bigger favour than to talk about his son [Axel] when he was racing in the 1990s. It is the same now with his granddaughter, Axana, who is a champion swimmer. That’s when you see the twinkle in his eye, the sheer pride he feels. He doesn’t show that when he’s asked about his own career.’

‘I rode with him quite a lot about 10 years ago,’ says Maertens. ‘And the funny thing was, he still rode with his former teammates – and they were still helping him. It was so interesting to see. They were still the domestiques of Eddy – slaves, really. Getting him bottles, keeping him sheltered, leading him out in sprints. And Eddy accepted it.’

The Tour pays homage

This year’s Tour de France kicked off in the home of its greatest protagonist on the anniversary of his finest victory

The Brussels Grand Départ of the 2019 Tour de France was effectively a two-day tribute to Eddy Merckx, 50 years after his first, and arguably best, victory.

The Stage 2 team time-trial took the riders through his old backyard: the neighbourhood of Woluwe, where he was brought up, where he attended school and where he played in the local parks.

Renaat Schotte, a TV reporter with Belgian channel Sporza, says that in the lead-up to the Tour, interest has been growing, with yet more Merckx books, television programmes and ‘lots of activities to celebrate someone who is God, basically’, and around whom there is a mini industry.

‘They named the square in Woluwe, where the Merckx family home was, after Eddy,’ says Schotte. ‘But there was a problem: you can’t name a place in Belgium after a person unless that person is dead or a member of the royal family.

‘So their solution was to rename just part of the square after Eddy – the bit in the centre. He does have a title from the King – he’s a baron – but that’s where they made a mistake. They should have just made him a member of the royal family.’

This article is taken from issue 90 August 2019 of Cyclist which is on sale next Wednesday, 17th July 2019. To get every issue sooner, subscribe here: cyclistmag.co.uk

The Vosges mountains may lack the majesty of the Alps, but still provide a severe test

Words Joseph Delves | Photography Michael Mills

The Alps and Pyrenees tear their way out of the landscape, tortured into existence by the collision of African and Eurasian tectonic plates 25 million years ago. They surge upwards, increasing in steepness as they break above the treeline in a jumble of pointed rock.

By comparison, the Vosges aren’t even real mountains. Created by a downward slip between parallel fault lines, their landscape of valleys and escarpments has been softened and their rough edges smoothed by millennia of glacial erosion.

As a result, despite rising to a height of 1,424m, the ballons of the Vosges swell softly from the land in a decidedly unmountainlike way.

Consequently, the roads that cross them tend to taper upwards gradually before reaching a crux that’s seldom too challenging.

Image 2 of 14

Image 2 of 14

Rarely higher than the treeline they tend to be verdant and winding, rather than rugged and twisting. With so much drama on offer to the south, the Vosges were overlooked by the Tour de France for most of the 20th century, and only gained prominence with the inclusion of La Planche des Belles Filles in the 2012 Tour.

They featured again in 2017, but not before Cyclist had a chance to tackle them at the Ridley Les Trois Ballons Granfondo.

Big day

While the Vosges might lack the absolute height of other ranges, Cycling Classics France, which organises the event as part of its Grand Trophée series, makes up for this by cramming six significant climbs into the 211km route, providing over 4,400m of vertical ascent. 

Mindful of the challenges to come, I force myself to start conservatively as we depart the town of Luxeuil-les-Bains.

Other than a bit of pushing and shoving, the 4,000 cyclists released from their pens manage the first few kilometres without incident, our collective enthusiasm flattening the slight uphill gradient.

Once out of town we cross a river into Belonchamp, where the villagers have hung out flags. I see a rider in Française des Jeux kit sneaking off down a side road – it’s probably local lad Thibaut Pinot, who lives in the adjacent village of Mélisey.

Image 3 of 14

Image 3 of 14

The first short climbs are steady but not overly challenging – a miniaturised preview of what’s to come. Having gained a little altitude we reach Plancher-les-Mines, a small town on the edge of the mountains that we’ll pass through again once we’ve completed 165km.

Lining the road are plywood cutouts of former and current Grand Tour riders. Created for the Tour but brought out in our honour, whoever painted them paid special attention to the teeth, lending them a slightly ridiculous demeanour.

First is toothy Contador, then toothy Ullrich, Moreau, Chavanel, Mayo, Armstrong, Nibali and finally a toothy Froome.

Having left the town and its grinning plywood pros behind, we pass a sawmill and a sign marking the way to the start of La Planche des Belles Filles. We’ll be heading that way, but only later on our second pass through the area.

For now we stay low, heading into a forest and on to the adjacent climb of the Ballon de Servance. At 7km long, with a consistent gradient averaging 5.9%, it’s a case of picking a gear and winding steadily upwards.

This first exertion settles everyone down. I notice flies hovering around the riders, whose progress is too slow to shake them. Sometimes other cyclists come into view above or below, but for the most part everything is hidden by the trees.

Time and altitude tick gradually by. Around each corner the avenue of crowded trees repeats itself, until eventually up the road is a square of sunlight.

We pass out of the forest at the top of the climb and straight onto a steep, open descent. One climb done.

Although the sun has burned away the cloud it’s not yet properly warm. Clammy from the climb I regret not putting on my gilet, as there’s no chance to fiddle about with clothing before the plunge downwards.

Living in the south of England, I find the next 10km both fun and slightly terrifying as I struggle to remember how to find the right balance between speed and self preservation.

Just as I start getting the hang of it we’re back at the valley floor. Almost immediately we pass through the village of Le Thillot, where there’s a fair bit of traffic on the road. Weaving through it I hear someone yelling ahead and spy a gendarme wielding a baton.

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Image 5 of 14

Luckily he’s not using it to cosh unruly cyclists around the head, but is instead directing them down the main street. Out of town we ride down wide and easy roads to the town of Le Ménil then Travexin at 75km, where I stop for the first time.

Stocked up on snacks I grind my way slowly up the following 10km climb of the Col d’Oderen. We’re on the easier western ascent, whose slopes never exceed 6%, so it’s shallow enough for the road to be almost straight.

On the far side we descend via a series of steeper switchbacks, which require concentration in picking the right line. With 100km done and two climbs completed, I have to say my legs are feeling uncharacteristically happy, and I’m starting to feel slightly smug.

The hump

If you’re an experienced traveller you will at some point have come across a ‘mystery hill’. These are strange places where water appears to flow uphill, or where a car left out of gear will seemingly roll against the gradient.

But rather than being the result of supernatural forces they’re in reality optical illusions created when the horizon is obstructed, leaving you without a reliable reference point to accurately judge a slope.

I’ve decided the Grand Ballon is just such a mystery hill. First off, despite rising almost a full kilometre vertically, it’s easy to miss on a map since, unlike the switchbacks that zigzag up most high mountain climbs, the road draped over the Grand Ballon is pretty direct.

On top of that, with trees obscuring the view on both sides, the road ahead provides the only horizon line so it’s impossible to gauge how high you’ve climbed or see how much more might be ahead. Coming on slowly, with an absolutely consistent 6% gradient, for the first half of its 20km I’d swear blind I’m riding downhill rather than up.

The effect is truly weird. It’s only the occasional cyclist freewheeling in the opposite direction that gives the game away.

Image 6 of 14

Image 6 of 14

That and the fact that ceasing to pedal brings me quickly to a halt. The cumulative effect after several kilometres is like being trapped in a dream where you’re trying to run, but find your legs inexplicably weak.

I try riding out of the saddle. I try an easy gear and spinning. I try a big gear and grinding. Nothing helps, my speed steadily drops and all the while the road gives no visual cues as to why I should be suffering this much.

I reach the summit after more than an hour of climbing, and I’m not sure I’ll ever forgive the Grand Ballon. The altitude at least means the trees start to thin out, revealing for the first time how high the road has climbed above the surrounding landscape.

I’m now close to the highest point in the Vosges. The view from the top is spectacular, and the feed station well placed. Stocked up on cheese and salami baguettes I carry on. The road descends a little before an abrupt climb takes us briefly back up again and over the far side of the mountaintop.

Image 7 of 14

Image 7 of 14

Looking east across the Rhine Valley you can see as far as Germany’s Black Forest. I’ve been riding for upwards of five hours now, and I’m feeling a lot less smug. At least the gradient is with me, so I hunker down and descend as fast as I dare.

I tick off another 15km without effort, which cheers me up considerably, and resolve to stamp up the next climb in a bid to claw back some lost time.

History time

Green and pleasant at first glance, Alsace has historically been Europe’s industrial heart. Strip away the greenery and underneath are huge deposits of iron ore and coal.

This mineral wealth has been a mixed blessing for the region, though, and it has switched ownership between empires and countries multiple times over its troubled history.

Sitting on the border between Germany and France, the Vosges was the only area of the Western Front to see mountain fighting during the First World War.

Image 8 of 14

Image 8 of 14

In fact the road that climbs the distinctly German-sounding Col du Hundsruck was constructed during the War as a supply route before the Treaty of Versailles passed the entire region, including the Hundsruck, to the French. It’s a lot more peaceful these days, and there’s little traffic about to see me heaving myself up its 9km length. 

With two more climbs and two more feed stops marked on the route map, I decide to make the village of Sewen at the foot of the Ballon d’Alsace my last stop.

The unique landscape of the Vosges is sometimes referred to as ‘The Land of the 1,000 Lakes’, although the Lac de Sewen, which sits beside the rest stop, is now the only remaining natural glacial lake in the region.

I fill my bottles and stick my head into a cattle trough to cool down before heading onto the penultimate climb. A few kilometres along the route is another lake, this time artificially enlarged by the addition of a dam.

Climbing steeply, I’m sorely tempted to jump in once I reach the top. It’s now the hottest part of the day and there are people diving from the rocks and splashing into the water.

The climb meanders for a few kilometres before snaking upwards via a series of wide hairpins. Although the gradient never exceeds 7%, with almost 170km behind me it feels steeper.

The landscape is green, tree-lined and pretty, but so were the other climbs and, truth be told, by this point they’re all starting to blur together.

Eventually it’s over and, aware that this is the point of the ride where I normally make some sort of unforced and painful trajectory error, I crawl cautiously down the day’s last descent.

With five of the six climbs done I know I’m going to make it home, but I also know there’s a pig of an ascent still to come.

Grand Tour pretensions

Despite being a recent addition to the Tour, La Planche des Belles Filles has had an impact out of proportion to its moderate 503m of vertical gain.

Brought in for 2012, its first running saw Chris Froome nursing his team leader Bradley Wiggins to the line. Froome took the stage, but Wiggins went on to win the race overall in what was a fractious but wildly successful Tour for Team Sky.

Two years later it returned as the conclusion to Stage 10.

This time the spoils went to Vincenzo Nibali, who won on his way to his own moment on the top step of the podium in Paris. This summer La Planche des Belles Filles makes its third appearance on the Tour menu.

I don’t know it yet, but the stage will be won by Nibali’s former Astana teammate Fabio Aru, with Froome riding back into the yellow jersey, which he’ll hold onto all the way to Paris. It takes me more than twice as long to climb La Planche des Belles Filles as it does the pros.

The road is littered with hunched casualties pushing their bikes, and I decide my only chance of making it to the top is to go as slowly as possible without actually falling over. Enacting my plan I find someone who looks to be suffering even more than me and stick to their wheel.

Image 11 of 14

Image 11 of 14

When they give up I bridge across to the next rider. This works for a while, but as the gradient swings above 10% the person I’ve chosen starts weaving erratically. Swerving to a stop he climbs off in the middle of the road, swearing. 

Maybe he knows what’s to come. I certainly do. As the road eases off for a few kilometres I try to regroup for the grand finale.

Yesterday I was at the top, watching the organisers erect the finishing arch, so I know the final 200m ramp is at almost 20%. The pros surge through it, but for me it looks likely to be more a public walk of shame.

Swinging around the final bend the road rears up and I try to keep the pedals turning. My calves feel like someone’s pumped them full of cement.

Ahead, someone wobbles to a halt, only for a spectator to shove them bodily on their way. Pointing straight up, there’s only a window of sky above the finish line, but I can barely lift my head.

A few more painful turns and I’m through – the hardest few metres of a 211km course saved right until the end.

I’m truly beat, as are the riders lying all around the finishing area. I know that when I return home, few people will recognise the names of the climbs I’ve just dragged myself over. Yet while none of them would be overly taxing on their own, the cumulative effect has shattered me.

The Vosges might not be a region associated with climbing by bike, but by packing in similar elevation to most big mountain stages at the Tour, the Ridley Trois Ballons is a challenge to be underestimated at your own peril.

I cling to this thought as I stumble off my bike, very much ready for the rest day.

Image 13 of 14

Image 13 of 14

The details 

What Ridley Les Trois Ballons Granfondo
Where Luxeuil les Bains, France
How far 211km (full route) or 125km (Medio Fondo option)
Next one 9th June 2018
Price€65 (£59)
More informationgrandtrophee.fr

The rider’s ride

Image 14 of 14

Image 14 of 14

Ridley Fenix SLX | €3,399 (approx £3,000) | ridley-bikes.com

As a proportion of budget relative to income, Ridley supports more teams than any other bike maker. Despite being touted as an endurance platform, given its manufacturer’s racing pedigree it’s unsurprising that the longstanding Fenix is no slouchy comfort bike.

In truth its low and tight geometry would look aggressive stacked up against most brands’ conventional race bikes. The recent addition of disc brakes has done nothing to dampen this race-focused attitude.

Part of Campagnolo’s new Potenza groupset, the discs provide fantastic stopping and superb modulation. Given the amount of descending involved they got me out of trouble on multiple occasions.

A world away from the cushioned ride of some endurance bikes, the Fenix just softens the road’s rougher edges, while still leaving plenty of feel.

Its low and stretched position may have been a little aggressive for the 211km Les Trois Ballons, but if you’ve got the prerequisite flexibility, the Fenix is an unrelenting and engaging choice.

See related 

Cap de Formentor: Mallorca's finest road

How to ride the hills of the Yorkshire Moors

The Tour de France 21st Stage: we'll always have Paris

Tour de France 2019: Route maps, riders, live TV guide and all you need to know

How we got there 

Travel

Basel in Switzerland is the handiest airport for reaching the Vosges but, with it being located on the French-Swiss border, just make sure you take the correct exit or you’ll end up in the wrong country.

Ryanair and Easyjet fly from London to Basel and offer some ridiculously cheap fares, but if you’re taking a bike a better bet is British Airways, which flies from Heathrow from around £65 each way (including bike).

With 55km between the event’s start and finish, transfers between the two locations are available for riders and their bikes at a cost of €20.

Accommodation 

Cyclist stayed in nearby Belfort, but a more sensible option would be to book somewhere in Luxeuil-les-Bains, where the ride begins.

However if you have a car, finding somewhere in one of the smaller villages dotted throughout the Parc naturel régional des Ballons des Vosges would make for a more picturesque alternative. 

Thanks

Many thanks go to Ridley for hosting the event and providing Cyclist with a first ride of the Fenix SLX. Gratitude is also due to grandtrophee.fr for the invite to ride the event.

ridley-bikes.com

The route of the 2019 Tour of Britain has been confirmed and details of the eight stages have been released by the race organiser. Running from Saturday 7th to Saturday 14th September 2019, the Tour of Britain will return to Manchester for the first time in 15 years as London misses out on a stage for the second time in three years.

Race organiser Sweetspot confirmed that the city centre of Manchester will host the final stage of this year's race with Burton Dassett Country Park, Kendal and Newcastle-upon-Tyne all hosting tough uphill stage finishes.

The eight-stage race will start on Saturday 7th September in the Scottish city of Glasgow before concluding eight stages later on Saturday 14th September, with the final stage from Altrincham to Manchester city centre.

The 1,250km route will focus largely on the north of England and Scotland with the most southernly stage being the individual time trial on Stage 6 in Worcestershire.

Talking about the route, race director Mick Bennett hopes that the mixture of UK cities and tough countryside will repeat the high level of racing the Tour of Britain 

'This year’s race is a quintessentially British affair, combining the short and sharp climbs we’re famed for with finishes for the world’s best sprinters and hopefully a few surprises along the way,' Bennett.

'But more than ever this year’s OVO Energy Tour of Britain route has been designed with spectators in mind. From visiting three iconic cities and including uphill finishes that are guaranteed to create drama to using finishing circuits, this year’s race will play a big role in helping Britain become a great cycling nation.'

In terms of the racing, it will be the usual mix of short, sharp climbs and tough, attritional roads.

Stage 4 from Gateshead to Kendal sees the peloton climb 3,000m of vertical elevation before finishing the stage on the 500m, 11% climb of Beast Banks. Stage 7 will centre around Burton Dassett country park and feature an uphill finish with the race finishing with the 1.5km, 4.9% climb of Burton Dassett.

Last year's race was won by Deceuninck-QuickStep puncheur Julian Alaphilippe who beat Wout Poels (Team Ineos) and Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) to the crown.

Tour of Britain 2019: Key information

Dates: Saturday 7th September to Saturday 14th September
Grand Départ: Glasgow, Scotland  
Finale: Manchester  
Countries visited: Scotland, England
UK television coverage: ITV 

Stage 1, Saturday 7 September: Glasgow to Kirkcudbright, 201.5km

Stage 2, Sunday 8 September: The Scottish Borders Stage, 166.4km

Stage 3, Monday 9 September: Berwick-upon-Tweed to Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 182.2km

Stage 4, Tuesday 10 September: Gateshead to Kendal, 171.5km

Stage 5, Wednesday 11 September: The Wirral Stage, 174km

Stage 6, Thursday 12 September: Pershore to Pershore, 14.5km (ITT)

Route map to be revealed in due course

Stage 7, Friday 13 September: Warwick to Burton Dassett Country Park, 186.5km

Stage 8, Saturday 14 September: Altrincham to Manchester, 165km

Tour of Britain 2018

Page 1: Tour of Britain 2018 - Route and key information  
Page 2: Tour of Britain 2018 - Live TV guide  
Page 3: Tour of Britain 2018 - Start list  
Page 4: A look back at the Tours of 2017 and 2016  

The 2018 Tour of Britain gets going this weekend, starting in Pembrey Country Park, Wales before finishing a week later in London.

The highlight of this year's course will be the uphill team time trial on Stage 5, taking riders to the summit of Whinlatter Pass.

Stage 6 could then also prove decisive with the race finishing atop the Whinlatter Pass for a second consecutive stage, this time at the end of a 169km stage.

Visiting only England and Wales this year, the wealth of terrain offered by Scotland has been overlooked.

The 2017 race was decided on an explosive 10-mile time trial on the Essex coast which was won by Lars Boom (Lotto-NL Jumbo) who eventually took the entire race from Edvald Boasson Hagen (Dimension Data) and Stefan Kung (BMC Racing).

Home fans will be happy to see that recent Tour de France champion Geraint Thomas and Giro d'Italia winner Chris Froome are confirmed to the Tour of Britain ride together for the first time since 2009, when they were both at Barloworld.

Riders confirmed early for the race were Katusha-Alpecin pair Marcel Kittel and Alex Dowsett. Kittel is a stage winner at the Tour of Britain while Dowsett wore the leader's jersey in 2014.

However, Kittel has since withdrawn from the race due to illness. Also unable to take the start line will be Mark Cavendish (Dimension Data) who is suffering from the Epstein-Barr virus and will be off the bike completely until he's given medical clearance to start training again.

Check below for details of the route, start list and live TV coverage.

Tour of Britain 2018 route

Tour of Britain 2018 route: Stage-by-stage

Stage 1, Sunday 2nd September: Pembrey Country Park to Newport, 175km

Stage 1 of the 2018 Tour of Britain a lumpy affair of 175km from Pembrey Country Park to Newport in South Wales.

With climbs throughout the day, but the hardest coming in the middle of the stage, this opening stage could see time splits that have an impact throughout the week of racing.

Expect a reduced bunch sprint to determine the first leader's jersey of the race.

Stage 1 report: Greipel proves fastest despite attacks from Jungels and Thomas

Stage 2, Monday 3rd September: Cranbrook to Barnstaple, 174km

After an up and down first stage, the second packs in more climbing and descending.

Stage 2 covers 174km from Cranbrook to Barnstaple in the South West. The flatter end to the stage could see things come back together for a kick to the line but a strong break could go late and stay away.

Stage 2 report: Meyer takes the stage, Tonelli takes lead, GC riders take charge

Stage 3, Tuesday 4th September: Bristol to Bristol, 125km

Stage 3 starts and finishes in Bristol, looping south and back over 125km including an ascent of Cheddar Gorge.

Late ascents might by now have any sprinters wondering why they turned up, but punchier riders will be in their element.

Stage 3 report: Alaphilippe sprints to victory as the race lead changes hands again

Stage 4, Wednesday 5th September: Nuneaton to Royal Leamington Spa, 183km

Stage 4 is the second longest of the race at 183km. Nuneaton hosts the start while the finish line is located in Leamington Spa.

By this point in the race who can say what will be happening, but if the General Classification riders are happy to make each other this could be a breakaway win.

Stage report: Greipel proves stronger than the rest

Stage 5, Thursday 6th September: Cockermouth to Whinlatter Pass, Team Time Trial, 14km

Stage 5 is just 14km long, but it's uphill and an individual time trial. Starting in Cockermouth the parcours runs up Whinlatter Pass for a summit finish.

Look at this stage for a shake-up in the GC.

Stage report: LottoNL-Jumbo prove untouchable uphill

Stage 6, Friday 7th September: Barrow-in-Furness to Whinlatter Pass, 169km

Any rider who had a bad day on Whinlatter Pass during the previous day's time trial won't care much for Stage 6. Setting off from Barrow-in-Furness, the day takes in 169km before finishing at the summit of the pass, and that's after an earlier ascent too.

Stage 7, Saturday 8th September: West Bridgford to Mansfield, 223km

Stage 7 of the 2018 Tour of Britain might be what passes for a sprint stage as riders stay at lower levels and negotiate only smaller climbs and rises.

The race's longest stage of 223km takes riders from West Bridgford to Mansfield.

Stage 8, Sunday 9th September: The London Stage, 77km

Stage 8, the Tour of Britain's last for this year, is 14 laps of a Central London circtuit totalling 77km. A crit race version of the Tour de France's processional Paris ride, the race's winner is likely to have already been decided.

2017 Tour of Britain final General Classification top 10

1. Lars Boom (NED) LottoNL-Jumbo, 30:56:24
2. Edvald Boasson Hagen (NOR) Dimension Data, at 0:08
3. Stefan Kung (SUI) BMC Racing, at 0:10
4. Victor Campenaerts (BEL) LottoNL-Jumbo, at 0:13
5. Michal Kwiatkowski (POL) Team Sky, at 0:18
6. Jos Van Emden (NED) Lotto-NL Jumbo, at same time
7. Geraint Thomas (GBR) Team Sky, at 0:24
8. Tony Martin (GER) Katusha-Alpecin, at 0:25
9. Owain Doull (GBR) Team Sky, at 0:33
10. Ryan Mullen (IRL) Cannondale-Drapac, at 0:38

Page 1: Tour of Britain 2018 - Route and key information  
Page 2: Tour of Britain 2018 - Live TV guide  
Page 3: Tour of Britain 2018 - Start list  
Page 4: A look back at the Tours of 2017 and 2016  

Page 1: Tour of Britain 2018 - Route and key information  
Page 2: Tour of Britain 2018 - Live TV guide  
Page 3: Tour of Britain 2018 - Start list  
Page 4: A look back at the Tours of 2017 and 2016  

Tour of Britain 2018: Live TV guide

The entire 2018 Tour of Britain will be shown live on ITV4. The timings are as below and are subject to change

Stage 1: Sunday 2nd September

1045-1600 Stage 1 live coverage ITV4
2000-2100 Stage 1 highlights ITV4

Stage 2: Monday 3rd September

1045-1600 Stage 2 live coverage ITV4
2000-2100 Stage highlights ITV4

Stage 3: Tuesday 4th September 

1115-1530 Stage 3 live coverage ITV4
2000-2100 Stage 3 highlights ITV4

Stage 4: Wednesday 5th September 

1045-1630 Stage 4 live coverage ITV4
2000-2100 Stage 4 highlights ITV4

Stage 5: Thursday 6th September 

1245-1445 Stage 5 live coverage ITV4
2000-2100 Stage 5 highlights ITV4

Stage 6: Friday 7th September 

1045-1600 Stage 6 live coverage ITV4
2000-2100 Stage 6 highlights ITV4

Stage 7: Saturday 8th September 

1045-1715 Stage 7 live coverage ITV4
2000-2100 Stage 7 highlights ITV4

Stage 8: Sunday 9th September

1515-1730 Stage 8 live coverage ITV4
2000-2100 Stage 8 highlights ITV4

ITV4 is available on Freeview - channel 24, Freesat - channel 117, Sky - channel 120 and Virgin Media - channel 118.

For those living outside of the UK, the 2018 Tour of Britain will be shown in the following locations: Eurosport – Pan-Europe, L’Equipe – France, OSN – Middle East and North Africa, KWESE – Africa, Supersport – Sub-Saharan Africa, FUBO – North America, TDN – Mexico, ESPN – South America, ESPN – Brazil, Sky – New Zealand, DAZN – Japan

All broadcast times are provisional and are subject to change

Page 1: Tour of Britain 2018 - Route and key information  
Page 2: Tour of Britain 2018 - Live TV guide  
Page 3: Tour of Britain 2018 - Start list  
Page 4: A look back at the Tours of 2017 and 2016  

Page 1: Tour of Britain 2018 - Route and key information  
Page 2: Tour of Britain 2018 - Live TV guide  
Page 3: Tour of Britain 2018 - Start list  
Page 4: A look back at the Tours of 2017 and 2016  

Tour of Britain 2018: Start list

The teams for the 2018 Tour of Britain have been confirmed with 11 WorldTour teams descending onto the streets of Great Britain this September. Among the highlight teams in attendance will be home team Team Sky and Quick-Step Floors, the most successful team of 2018 so far.

As usual, the race contains its sprinkling of local Continental teams with JLT-Condor, Madison-Genesis, One Pro Cycling and Canyon-Eisberg all invited. This did see the surprising omission of Team Wiggins however, who will now miss out on the Tour of Britain as well as the Tour de Yorkshire.

This start list will be updated as riders are confirmed

Read more: Team Wiggins replace Aqua Blue Sport at Tour of Britain  

Aqua Blue Sport (IRL) - withdrawn, will not start

Adam Blythe (GBR)
Conor Dunne (IRL)
Larry Warbasse (USA)
Mark Christian (GBR)
Eddie Dunbar (IRL)
Casper Pedersen (DEN)

Read more: Team Wiggins replace Aqua Blue Sport at Tour of Britain  

BMC Racing (USA)

Stefan Kung (SUI)
Patrick Bevin (NZL)
Jean-Pierre Drucker (LUX)
Jurgen Roelandts (BEL)
Miles Scotson (AUS)
Nathan Van Hoydonck (BEL)

Direct Energie (FRA)

Sylvain Chavanel (FRA)
Romain Cardis (FRA)
Jonathan Hivert (FRA)
Paul Ourselin (FRA)
Adrien Petit (FRA)
Angelo Tulik (FRA)

Great Britain (GBR)

Ben Swift (GBR)
Ethan Hayter (GBR)
Joe Nally (GBR)
Matt Bostock (GBR)
Steve Williams (GBR)
Fred Wright (GBR)

Lotto-Soudal (BEL)

Andre Greipel (GER)
Jasper De Buyst (BEL)
Moreno Hofland (NED)
James Shaw (GBR)
Jens Keukeleire (BEL)
Jelle Vanendert (BEL)

Movistar (ESP)

Jose Joaquin Rojas (ESP)
Jorge Arcas (ESP)
Nuno Bico (POR)
Hector Carretero (ESP)
Ruben Fernandez (ESP)
Rafael Valls (ESP)

Mitchelton-Scott (AUS)

Caleb Ewan (AUS)
Lucas Hamilton (AUS)
Roger Kluge (GER)
Cameron Meyer (AUS)
Robert Power (AUS)
Svein Tuft (CAN)

Quick-Step Floors (BEL)

Iljo Keisse (BEL)
Bob Jungels (LUX)
Fernando Gaviria (COL)
Max Richeze (ARG)
Julian Alaphilippe (FRA)
Max Schachmann (GER)

Dimension Data (RSA)

Katusha-Alpecin (SUI)

Alex Dowsett (GBR)
Marcel Kittel (GBR)

EF-Drapac (USA)

Dan McLay (GBR)
Matti Breschel (DEN)
Hugh Carthy (GBR)
Jose Neves (POR)
Taylor Phinney (USA)
Julius Van Der Berg (NED)

LottoNL-Jumbo (NED)

Primoz Roglic (SLO)
Jos van Emden (NED)
Maarten Wynants (BEL)
Gijls Van Hoecke (BEL)
Koen Bouwman (NED)
Pascal Eenkhoorn (NED)

Team Sky (GBR)

Geraint Thomas (GBR)
Chris Froome (GBR)
Wout Poels (NED)
Ian Stannard (GBR)
Vasil Kiryenka (BLR)
Lukasz Wisniowski (POL)

Team Sunweb (NED)

Edward Theuns (BEL)
Nils Eekhoff (NED)
Chris Hamilton (AUS)
Lennard Hofstede (NED)
Louis Vervaeke (BEL)
Phil Bauhaus (GER)

Team Wiggins (GBR)

Gabriel Cullaigh
Mark Downey
James Fouché
Tom Pidcock   
Matthew Teggart
Joey Walker

Read more: Team Wiggins replace Aqua Blue Sport at Tour of Britain  

Wanty-Groupe Gobert (BEL)

Xandro Meurisse (BEL)
Simone Antonini (ITA)
Odd Christian Eiking (NOR)
Mark McNally (GBR)
Andrea Pasqualon (ITA)
Dion Smith (NZL)

Bardiani-CSF (ITA)

Enrico Barbin (ITA)
Vincenzo Albansese (ITA)
Giovanni Carboni (ITA)
Marco Maronese (ITA)
Paolo Simion (ITA)
Alessandro Tonelli (ITA)

JLT-Condor (GBR)

Tom Stewart (GBR)
Graham Briggs (GBR)
Jon Mould (GBR)
Edmund Bradbury (GBR)
Tom Moses (GBR)
Ali Slater (GBR)

One Pro Cycling (GBR)

Madison Genesis (GBR)

Rich Handley (GBR)
Matt Holmes (GBR)
Jonny McEvoy (GBR)
George Pym (GBR)
Erick Rowsell (GBR)
Connor Swift (GBR)

Canyon-Eisberg (GBR)

Alex Paton (GBR)
Ryan Christensen (NZL)
Dexter Gardias (GBR)
Max Stedman (GBR)
Andy Tennant (GBR)
Rory Townsend (GBR)

Page 1: Tour of Britain 2018 - Route and key information  
Page 2: Tour of Britain 2018 - Live TV guide  
Page 3: Tour of Britain 2018 - Start list  
Page 4: A look back at the Tours of 2017 and 2016  

Page 1: Tour of Britain 2018 - Route and key information  
Page 2: Tour of Britain 2018 - Live TV guide  
Page 3: Tour of Britain 2018 - Start list  
Page 4: A look back at the Tours of 2017 and 2016  

Tour of Britain 2017

The route for the 2017 Tour of Britain is bookended by the capitals of Scotland and Wales, while also visiting parts of the UK that the race has never been to before. However, it eschews the recent tradition of a final stage visit to London for the first time since 2012, and avoids the capital entirely.

A total of nine new venues will host the race in 2017, which has brought on OVO Energy as a headline sponsor, on a route that totals 1,310km.

Stage 1 saw riders cover 188km from Edinburgh to Kelso and the opening win was taken from a reduced bunch sprint by Caleb Ewan (Orica-Scott).

Mark Cavendish (Dimension Data) did not feature in the sprint but his teammate Edvald Boasson Hagen lunged for the line to take second.

The cobbled finishing funnel almost wreaked havoc with riders' wheels skidding about as they sped for the line.

Stage 2 took riders from Kielder Water & Forest Park to Blyth over 211km, but it wasn't until about the last 200 metres that anything of interest really happened.

Boasson Hagen crossed the line first but was later deemed to have impeded Elia Viviani, and the stage win was given to the Team Sky sprinter.

The associated time bonus also moved Vivani into the overall lead of the race.

The following day, on Stage 3, the overall lead changed hands again when the leader's jersey was returned to Ewan who won the sprint and took the time bonus.

Boasson Hagen came in second, not quite making up for the previous day's relegation, and Viviani was off the pace in eighth.

Stage 4 went to Fernando Gaviria (Quick-Step Floors) who will be one to watch at the upcoming World Championships. Viviani crossed the line second to regain the overall lead.

The day after, Stage 5 saw the overall lead change once again when Lars Boom (LottoNL-Jumbo) stormed to the win in the individual time trial and gained enough time to pull on the leader's jersey.

Ewan took his hat-trick by crossing the line first on Stage 6, when he started his sprint early and no one could get back on terms. Boom retained the overall lead after finishing with the main bunch.

The penultimate stage gave a win to Dylan Groenewegen (LottoNL-Jumbo), which denied Ewan a fourth stage victory after he finished second.

On the final day, Boom only had to cross the line safely in the same time as his rivals after an expected sprint finish to round-off the overall win.

Boasson Hagen tried to spoil the party by going solo and although he held on for the stage win his time advantage wasn't enough to wrest the jersey from Boom, but he did jump from eighth to second overall.

Tour of Britain General Classification

1. Lars Boom (NED) LottoNL-Jumbo, 30:56:24
2. Edvald Boasson Hagen (NOR) Dimension Data, at 0:08
3. Stefan Kung (SUI) BMC Racing, at 0:10
4. Victor Campenaerts (BEL) LottoNL-Jumbo, at 0:13
5. Michal Kwiatkowski (POL) Team Sky, at 0:18
6. Jos Van Emden (NED) Lotto-NL Jumbo, at same time
7. Geraint Thomas (GBR) Team Sky, at 0:24
8. Tony Martin (GER) Katusha-Alpecin, at 0:25
9. Owain Doull (GBR) Team Sky, at 0:33
10. Ryan Mullen (IRL) Cannondale-Drapac, at 0:38 

Tour of Britain 2017: Key information

Dates: Sunday 3rd September to Sunday 10th September
Grand Départ: Edinburgh, Scotland 
Finale: Cardiff, Wales 
Countries visited: Scotland, England, Wales
UK television coverage: ITV 

Tour of Britain 2017 route 

Tour of Britain 2017 route: Stage-by-stage overview

Stage 1, Sunday 3rd September 2017: Edinburgh to Kelso, 188km

The Royal Mile in Edinburgh will host the start of the race on Sunday 3rd September, with a 188km road stage to Kelso, where a finishing circuit will welcome the peloton on the Scottish borders.

Stage 2, Monday 4th September: Kielder Water & Forest Park to Blyth, 211km

Stage 2 heads from Kielder Water to Blyth in Northumberland, and again features a spectator-friendly finishing circuit around the town of Blyth, which last hosted the race two years ago and witnessed Quickstep Floors' Fernando Gaviria take victory. 

Stage 3, Tuesday 5th September: Normanby Hall Country Park to Scunthorpe, 172km

Stage 3, held in North Lincolnshire, will be the county's first chance to hold an entire stage within its borders, and will take the race on a 172km stage from Normanby Hall to Scunthorpe. 

Stage 4, Wednesday 6th September: Mansfield to Newark-on-Trent, 175km

Similarly to North Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire will host a whole stage for the first time a day later on Stage 4, with a stage from Mansfield to Newark-on-Trent on Wednesday 6th September. 

Stage 5, Thursday 7th September: Tendring Individual TT, 16km

Stage 5 is a 16km individual time trial, due to be held in Clacton-on-Sea in Essex, while stage six is a 183km road stage from Newmarket to the coastal town of Aldeburgh in Suffolk.

Stage 6, Friday 8th September: Newmarket to Aldeburgh, 183km

Stage 6 takes the race across Suffolk for 183km for a finish on the coast of Aldeburgh.

Stage 7, Saturday 9th September: Hemel Hempstead to Cheltenham, 186km

The Cotswolds will welcome the race to its hilly roads on the penultimate Stage 7, starting in Hemel Hempstead and finishing in Cheltenham. 

Stage 8, Sunday 10th September: Worcester to Cardiff, 180km

The final stage, Stage 8, starts in Worcester on Sunday 10th September, and for the first time in the race's history, will finish in the Welsh capital of Cardiff.

Tour of Britain 2017: Live TV guide

The entire 2017 Tour of Britain will be shown live on ITV4. 

Tour of Britain 2017: Startlist

Teams

An Post Chain Reaction (IRL)

Mattew Teggart (IRL)
Sean McKenna (IRL)
Regan Gough (AUS)
Jacob Scott (GBR)
Damien Shaw (IRL)
Mark Stewart (GBR)

Bardiani CSF (ITA)

Vincenzo Albanese (ITA)
Simone Andreetta (ITA)
Enrico Barbin (ITA)
Giulio Ciccone (ITA)
Paolo Simion (ITA)
Alessandro Tonelli (ITA)

Bike Channel Canyon (GBR)

Chris Opie (GBR)
Dexter Gardias (GBR)
James Lowsley-Williams (GBR)
Rob Partridge (GBR)
Harry Tanfield (GBR)
Rory Townsend (GBR)

BMC Racing (USA)

Brent Bookwalter (USA)
Silvan Dillier (SUI)
Floris Gerts (NED)
Ben Hermans (BEL)
Stefan Kung (SUI)
Joey Rosskopf (USA)

Cannondale-Drapac (USA)

Dylan Van Baarle (NED)
Taylor Phinney (USA)
Pierre Rolland (FRA)
Ryan Mullen (IRL)
Hugh Carthy (GBR)

CCC Sprandi Polkowice (POL)

Marcin Bialoblocki (POL)
Alan Banaszek (POL)
Joans Koch (GER)
Lukasz Owsian (POL)
Maciej Paterski (POL)
Jan Tratnik (SOL)

Cylance Pro Cycling (USA)

Eric Marcotte (USA)
Miguel Andres Diaz (COL)
Orlando Garibay (MEX)
Hunter Snipe Grove (USA)
Bryan Lewis (USA)
Kyle Murphy (USA) 

Great Britain national team (GBR)

Chris Lawless (GBR) 
Adam Hartley (GBR)
Ethan Hayter (GBR)
Jacob Hennessy (GBR)
James Knox (GBR)
Oliver Wood (GBR)

JLT-Condor (GBR)

Brenton Jones (AUS)
Ian Bibby (GBR)
Graham Briggs (GBR)
Russell Downing (GBR)
James Gullen (GBR)
Alistair Slater (GBR)

Lotto Soudal (BEL)

Enzo Wouters (BEL)
Kris Broeckmans (BEL)
Senne Leysen (BEL)
Nikolas Mas (GBR)
James Shaw (GBR)
Marcel Sieberg (GER)

Madison Genesis (GBR)

Alexandre Blain (FRA)
Taylor Gunman (NZL)
Richard Handley (GBR)
Matthew Holmes (GBR)
Jonathan McEvoy (GBR)
Connor Swift (GBR)

Movistar Team (ESP)

Alex Dowsett (GBR)
Daniele Bennati (ITA)
Jonathan Castroviejo (ESP)
Imanol Erviti (ESP)
Gorka Izagirre (ESP)
Rory Sutherland (AUS)

One Pro Cycling (GBR)

James Oram (AUS)
Karol Domagalski (POL)
Kamil Gradek (POL)
Hayden McCormick (AUS)
Steele Van Hoff (AUS)
Peter Williams (GBR)

Orica-Scott (AUS)

Caleb Ewan (AUS)
Mitchell Docker (AUS)
Luke Durbridge (AUS)
Roger Kluge (GER)
Luka Mezgec (SLO)
Robert Power (AUS)

Quick-Step Floors (BEL)

Fernando Gaviria (COL)
Laurens De Plus (BEL)
Philippe Gilbert (BEL)
Daniel Martin (IRL)
Maximiliam Richeze (ARG)
Zdenek Styber (CZR)

Dimension Data (RSA)

Mark Cavendish (GBR)
Edvald Boasson Hagen (NOR)
Bernhard Eisel (AUT)
Mark Renshae (AUS)
Scott Thwaites (GBR)
Jay Thomson (RSA)

Katusha-Alpecin (GER)

Tony Martin (GER)
Alexander Kristoff (NOR)
Tiago Machado (POR)
Reto Hollenstein (SUI)
Nils Politt (GER)
Mads Wurtz Schmidt (DEN)

LottoNL-Jumbo (NED)

Dylan Groenewegen (NED)
Lars Boom (NED)
Victor Campenaerts (BEL)
Primoz Roglic (SLO)
Jos van Emden (NED)
Gijs Van Hoecke (BEL)

Team Sky (GBR)

Geraint Thomas (GBR)
Owain Doull (GBR)
Vasil Kiryienka (BLR)
Michal Kwiatkowski (POL)
Elia Viviani (ITA)
Tao Geoghegan Hart (GBR)

Wanty Groupe Gobert (BEL)

Xandro Meurisse (BEL) 
Wesley Kreder (NED)
Mark McNally (GBR)
Andrea Pasqualon (ITA)
Dion Smith (NZL)
Thomas Gibbons (USA)

The 2016 Tour of Britain

The route for 13th edition of the modern day Tour of Britain was released today, with a route that touches on both familiar territory and new grounds. A split stage in Bristol, with a time trial followed by a circuit race, a summit finish on Dartmoor's Haytor, and London's traditional closing circuit race on the 11th September are the obvious standout inclusions. But with stages running through Galloway, the Lake District and Peak District as well as Wales, there are any number of potentially decisive stages. 

"We are confident that this year's route for the Tour of Britain will provide the opportunity for eight exciting days of racing and a multitude of opportunities for riders and teams to be aggressive and make the race,' says race directior Mick Bennett. 'We believe that with the combination of longer stages of over 200 kilometres, the tough circuit and time trial in Bristol and the summit finish at Haytor we have not just a great preparation for the World Championships but also a fantastic race that will showcase the British countryside.' 

Indeed, the Tour of Britain's position on the calendar has made it somewhat of a prepatory event for riders targeting the World Championships in early October. But regardless of this fact, Bennett insists that the race also 'stands alone on its own right as a race riders will want to win.” 

The first stage of eight will begin in Glasgow on the 4th September, hoping to benefit from the legacies of both the Commonwealth Games and National Championships which have been held in the city in recent years. A route through the hills of Galloway will follow before the finish in Castle Douglas. 

Stage two from Carlisle to Kendal will include the climbs of Whinlatter Pass and The Struggle before an uphill finish on Beast Banks. Stage three sees the race tackle the 10 kilometre Cat and Fiddle climb in the Peak District; stage four a long slog through mid Wales from Denbigh to the Royal Welsh Showground at Builth Wells. 

Stage five also starts in Wales in Aberdare before heading across the border through the Forest of Dean and on to the first Bath stage finish. The summit finish at Haytor, where Simon Yates sprung on to the scene with victory back in 2013, returns to the race as the climactic finish of stage 6, before a split stage in Bristol. A 15km individual time trial around the city precedes a five-lap circuit race on the same course, with both routes including the 9% climb of Bridge Valley Road that should ensure that the standings remain open until these final stages.

The quite spectacular arena of central London will again provide the curtains on the 11th of September, with a circuit that will take in Regent Street, Piccadilly, the Strand, Whitehall and Westminster. 

Stage One Sunday 4 September Glasgow to Castle Douglas 168km 

Stage Two Monday 5 September Carlisle to  Kendal 195km 

Stage Three Tuesday 6 September Congleton to Tatton Park, Knutsford 182km 

Stage Four Wednesday 7 September Denbigh to Builth Wells 217km 

Stage Five Thursday 8 September Aberdare to Bath 205km 

Stage Six Friday 9 September Sidmouth to Haytor, Dartmoor 150km 

Stage Sevena Saturday 10 September Bristol Stage Individual Time Trial 15km 

Stage Seven b Saturday 10 September Bristol Stage Circuit Race 76.5km 

Stage Eight Sunday 11 September London Stage presented by TfL 100km

All images and maps are courtesy of Sweetspot. 

This article was originally published in Issue 78 of Cyclist Magazine

Words Peter Stuart PhotographyChris Blott

Some bikes are objects of beauty, some are unique concepts and others are prized antiques. The Lotus bike is all of these – its sleek, curved silhouette is a reminder of a time in cycling when science, automotive engineering and the pinnacle of the sport collided.

For enthusiasts, though, the Lotus 110 is about more than looks – it also has a complex history and is probably loved and loathed in equal measure by those involved in its creation, development and eventual demise.

Cyclist has travelled to a country house in Dorking to meet four owners of the Lotus 110 frame. They are all members of the Lotus 110 Club, which was formed to connect some of the owners of the 250 or so bikes that are still in existence.

The number 110 may seem immaterial, but in fact holds a great deal of importance. The story behind it, however, begins with a very different bike, the brainchild of infamous and enigmatic British engineer Mike Burrows – the Lotus 108.

Flowering of the Lotus

Coming from the world of recumbent bike racing, where he developed numerous high-speed prototypes, Burrows was looking for a project in conventional cycling.

His brand, WindCheetah, turned some heads with a highly aerodynamic monocoque frame, the WindCheetah Monocoque Mk 1, in the mid-1980s. It was a revolutionary design, but at the point of development no one was interested.

‘I took it to all the bike shows and said, “Isn’t this wonderful?” and I just got blank looks,’ Burrows recalls when Cyclist catches up with him.

‘They said to me, “Why have you covered the tubes over?” and I said, “I haven’t covered the tubes – this is a tube in the shape of a bicycle.”

‘Nobody could understand it. And so I just thought, “F**k it, I’ll go back to racing recumbents.”’

Image 10 of 10

Image 10 of 10

Burrows shelved his frame. The cycling industry didn’t seem prepared for such a bold leap forward in technology, but his bike would soon come to the attention of a different racing industry.

‘Rudy Thomann, a young French racing driver, was working with Lotus on the development side, and he also rode in the same club in Norfolk as me,’ says Burrows.

At the time, Lotus was in considerable financial trouble and was close to being sold by parent company General Motors, so it was in need of a positive PR story.

‘Rudy came by my workshop and saw the monocoque bike hanging on the wall. He took it to Lotus and suggested that they consider making a bike. Lotus said yes, and we got off to a great start. Sadly it all went sour at the end…’ Burrows trails off.

The product of that first relationship was the Lotus 108, a one-sided monocoque marvel.

Through a partnership with the British Cycling Federation, Lotus developed the bike for Chris Boardman, and he took a gold medal at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics aboard it, creating a piece of cycling history in the process.

Boardman, however, wasn’t entirely enamoured with the amount of attention being focussed on the bike by the press and public. 

‘Chris put in all the effort at the Olympics and in the end everyone was talking about the bike and not him,’ says Paul Greasley, historian for the Lotus 110 Club.

Lotus, on the other hand, was thrilled with the success but wanted the spotlight to remain on its engineering ability, and not the eccentric genius of Mike Burrows. So began the great rift in the Lotus-Burrows venture.

Image 3 of 10

Image 3 of 10

Breaking the mould

‘Burrows probably saw the bike as his pension,’ says Greasley. Lotus, however, had other ideas.

Burrows continues, ‘They made a second mould, and that’s when things started going a little sour between us. They appointed their own engineer and aerodynamicist; they obviously wanted to make the Lotus bike and not the Mike Burrows bike. I didn’t spot this coming.’

Lotus moved away from Burrows’s single-sided design, and modified the frame to accept any groupset, where it was previously track-specific. Needless to say, Burrows was far from impressed.

‘They started making changes aerodynamically that really didn’t add anything to it,’ Burrows argues.

‘For instance, they changed the curve of the down tube for some reason, which with hindsight was a load of bollocks. They just wanted it to look different.’

As for Burrows’s 108 frame, rumour has it seven of those used for Boardman’s Olympic bids and Hour record attempts were sold to collectors, for £25,000 each.

Despite Burrows’s cynicism, the Lotus 110 still managed to help Boardman to a Tour de France prologue victory in 1994, with an average speed of 55.2kmh.

That remained the fastest stage of the Tour ever ridden until Rohan Dennis went even faster in the summer of 2015.

Despite the continued sponsorship by Lotus, Boardman seemed to develop a pretty dim view of the 110’s fame. Speaking in 1994, he told reporters, ‘The team got some frames and we’ve used them. That’s as far as it goes.’

From there, the Lotus 110 took another odd turn, as production left the UK altogether. Tony Wybrott, a member of the Lotus 110 Club, was involved in the production of the original batch of Lotus 110 frames. He worked at Bristol-based motorsports composite company DPS.

Image 4 of 10

Image 4 of 10

‘We made six development frames that then went to Lotus to be tested, and then we made a batch of 50, which I think went to the Gan and Once teams,’ Wybrott recalls. ‘It’s hard to know where those DPS ones went – we’ve traced 10 of the remainder so far.’

The majority of Lotus 110 bikes that exist today are in fact of South African descent. To save money, Lotus changed production companies in 1994, switching from DPS to Cape Town-based Aerodyne.

Aerodyne made around 200 frames before the axe fell. ‘In 1996 Lotus had a change of management and also a change of ownership, and the focus was moved back onto cars,’ Greasley says.

The final nail in the coffin came with the UCI’s Lugano Charter in 1996, which banned the use of monocoque non-tubed bikes in competition. However, that didn’t spell the end of the story for the Lotus bike, which may be about to see an unlikely resurgence.

As a consequence of its age, the Lotus has recently come out of copyright and so is on the cusp of being copied legally.

‘A company out in South Africa is now doing a replica,’ Wybrott tells us. Perhaps the 110 could still have a chance to reform the world of cycling?

It’s a silver lining that even Burrows can appreciate. ‘Looking at it now, the bike made history,’ he says. ‘Chris got his gold medal and won, and I ended up working for Giant and developing the compact frame,’ he says cheerfully. ‘At the end of the day, the good guys won.’

Image 5 of 10

Image 5 of 10

Tony Wybrott's Lotus 110

Produced by DPS, this Lotus is a souvenir of Wybrott's time making the bike 

‘I worked at composites company DPS in Bristol,’ Wybrott says. ‘Lotus had manufactured the 108 themselves but they didn’t want to do the 110, so they came to us and we made the moulds, and went on to make the bikes for them. We made a batch of 50, which I think went to the Gan and Once pro teams.’

When the frames came back after use Lotus was happy to destroy them, but Wybrott suggested auctioning them off for £100 – and he was at the front of the queue.

Image 2 of 10

Image 2 of 10

‘The weave is easy to see on mine because it’s not painted,’ he says. ‘You can also see the segments. You have a piece for the right-hand side, a piece for the left-hand side, and then inside is a separate piece, which comes on the inside of the chainstay and gives you that detail for the rear wheel cut-out. It’s three pieces in effect.’

South African company Aerodyne later took over production, and Wybrott says the only difference is that Aerodyne’s 110 has ‘that little detail right behind the chainring – a hole for the front mech.

‘The UK-produced ones don’t have that. Also the South Africans did three sizes: small, medium and large. We only did one size: Boardman’s size.’

Image 6 of 10

Image 6 of 10

Dan Sadler's Lotus 110

Produced by Aerodyne, this custom-painted Lotus is a TT project in progress 

As a youth, Sadler had a fixation with the Lotus 110, and the 108 before it. ‘I was young and impressionable,’ he says. ‘I was 15 in 1992 when Boardman won gold in Barcelona, and I’ve just been fascinated by the bike since.

‘Everyone wants a Lotus, really – it’s the go-to bike. And now I’ve got one I’d never let it go.

‘I paid £700 for the frame on eBay 12 years ago,’ he adds. ‘These days, for something in that condition, you’d have to pay between £6,000 and £8,000.’

Sadler had his bike painted. ‘It was plain carbon when I bought it,’ he recalls. ‘I had it done just because I like those colours. Black on white is always a good look.

‘I’m not racing on it right now, but the only reason is that I can’t adopt the position I currently ride on this bike – I can’t get the front end low enough. I’m trying to get a custom stem that drops the whole thing down. It will get raced again at some point.’

Would he ride the 110 for pleasure? ‘No. It’s too expensive!’ Sadler laughs.'

Image 7 of 10

Image 7 of 10

Tom Edwards' Lotus 110

Produced by DPS, this is a pure collectable reconstruced to Boardman's spec

‘This is an exact copy of the one that Boardman rode in the World Time-Trial Championships in 1994,’ says Edwards.

‘All the components are Mavic originals from the 1990s. The most difficult thing to track down was actually the Mavic handlebar. There are lots of old tatty ones but finding a clean set was really hard.’

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Image 8 of 10

Despite being 25 years old, much of the componentry looks surprisingly modern. ‘The really innovative stuff back then is the mainstream now. For instance, the concealed cabling was pretty new at the time.

‘The previous owner modified the seatpost to put a normal round seatpost in it,’ Edwards adds with a wince. ‘So I had a carbon specialist remake it, as it was an integrated seatpost before.

‘We made a stub out of it and then the seatpost is actually just a standard Cervélo seatpost that slots over the top. Like a tooth crown.’

Unlike his fellow 110 owners, Edwards doesn’t use the bike for racing. ‘I just have it for pleasure,’ he says.

Image 9 of 10

Image 9 of 10

Michael Porter's Lotus 110

Produced by Aerodyne, Porter's bike is a practical racer

‘I can’t remember how much it cost,’ Porter says with a laugh. ‘I bought it a long time ago off a guy who used to race cars with my dad.’

Porter races his bike regularly, but it was something of a journey to get to the point where it was competition-worthy.

‘It had quite a few cracks. Mercedes repaired it. It cracked here,’ he says pointing to the top tube. ‘It cracked there,’ he says, pointing to the head tube.

‘Mike Burrows repaired the front fork but made the gap above the fork crown a little big. It kept coming loose so we’ve riveted it now,’ he adds.

‘Fibrelite made the chainring and they also did the logo for it. They asked Lotus for permission to reproduce the logo. It’s nine-speed but I always have it set up for friction shifts.

‘My favourite time-trial distances are 10 and 25 miles. My personal best time on it is 50 minutes and 20 seconds for 25 miles. I’ve also done a 20 minutes and 14 seconds for 10 miles – both just below 30mph.’

It’s plain that Porter can make his 110 move quickly, but does he ever ride it purely for pleasure? ‘No, not much. I worry I look like a bit of a knob when I do!’

Cyclist meets Factor’s Rob Gitelis in Taiwan to find out what makes his bikes tick
This article was originally published in Issue 85 of Cyclist Magazine

Words James Spender Photography Mike Massaro

Twenty-five thousand pounds… you could buy a nice car for that. Or 2.2% of a really nice and really expensive car, such as the £1.15m Aston Martin One-77. Or for £25,000 you could have bought that car’s companion piece, the Factor Aston Martin One-77 road bike.

Made by British motorsport specialists bf1systems, when the Factor One-77 appeared in 2012 it was easily the most expensive, most advanced production road bike of its day.

It had hydraulic lines ‘baked’ into the twin-down tube monocoque frame, and a computer moulded into the one-piece bar-stem that measured everything from humidity to lean angle.

At 9.1kg the One-77 was also rather heavy, the front rotor was on the wrong side and it had all the handling characteristics and comfort of a barn door.

‘We’re car guys,’ its makers told Cyclist when we featured it in the magazine. Yet we couldn’t help but be impressed. It was an engineering marvel. In time, Factor presented a slightly more ‘realistic’ proposition, the £10,000 Vis Vires.

It bore many hallmarks of the One-77, including the split down tube, but by now it was no longer in the hands of a motorsports firm, but was created by a man with significant bike building experience already, honed in the bike producing hub of China.

That man is Rob Gitelis, and we’ve travelled to Taichung City, Taiwan, to take a peek behind the carbon curtain.

Boy from the black stuff

‘I’ve worked in the carbon fibre bike industry for a long time,’ says Gitelis, whose voice carries a twang of film-noir detective that hints he’s not from around here. ‘Four years ago I found myself involved with Factor, one thing led to another and I purchased the brand.’

Brands changing hands isn’t new, but usually they sell to an investment group or bike-related conglomerate and relinquish some control to a higher power. When Gitelis took on Factor, however, the inverse was true.

‘My factory was the manufacturer for the Vis Vires, which is how I got to know bf1,’ Gitelis adds. ‘I set up my first factory in 2002 with a partner, and have owned several out here over the years, big factories making for lots of different brands.

‘I worked with Cervélo, Enve, Zipp, Canyon, Argon 18, Scott… many big brands. But eventually I decided to move away from that contract work and focus on Factor.

‘Rather than having 1,000 employees we now have 100, and we’ve built a small and very specific factory just for Factor Bikes.’

That might not sound unusual, but in the modern mass-production of bicycles, brands making their own products are actually few and far between.

‘So many companies started as manufacturers but have lost touch with manufacturing,’ he says. ‘Trek was a manufacturer, and I think does still make some top-end frames in the US, but it now has a relationship with Giant, just like Specialized does with Merida.

‘There are very few still in control of their own destiny like we are.’

Gitelis believes this is what makes Factor stand out in a crowded market. Although heavy hitters such as Giant and Merida own their own factories, they make for others too, turning out millions of frames per year. Factor, by contrast, seeks to operate in the thousands and control every aspect of manufacture.

Striking changes

Factor’s set-up is indeed small and specific, yet this is not its sole premises. While we are looking around Factor’s HQ in the Taichung Industrial Park, a few hundred kilometres away lies another arm of the business.

‘Our frames are made in our factory in Xiamen, China, 259km from here. In Taiwan we do the research and design, testing, sanding, paint and assembly, but Xiamen is where our factory makes our raw product.’

To that end, the Taiwan HQ comprises everything but the production line. The design and sales offices are here, the showroom, the warehouse full of sparkling new framesets and components all lined up to be inspected, boxed for shipping or assembled into full bikes.

It looks not unlike a pro team’s service course, which is apposite given that at the time of our visit Factor is still sponsoring AG2R La Mondiale.

One room is filled with Meccano-esque machines connected to computers. Next to them sit piles of pristine white bicycle frames alongside boxes of smashed and cracked parts. This is the test lab.

‘With AG2R we were seeing a number of failures in our seatstays – not the frame breaking on its own but as the result of a pile-up crash. So here we quantified how strong our current frame was with our own pendulum drop test – a weight swung from 90° onto the side of the seatstay.

‘Our original frame cracked after one strike, so we re-engineered the stays to be able to sustain eight strikes before a crack occurs, but we did so without adding extra weight or changing the ride characteristics of the bike.’

Smoke and mirrors

If you own your own business you can do what you want, and it’s this philosophy that Gitelis says differentiates Factor from his previous work as a factory for hire, and from the majority of his current competition.

‘A lot more work goes into our products than into products I have made for brands in the past. Back then, many times I wanted to do something better for my customers, but better always comes with a cost, and they wouldn’t accept that.

‘I would want to charge $50 more [to make improvements to a frame], but for them that means they have to add $500 at the retail level. To my mind that doesn’t need to be the case – just add $50 into your cost calculation and it all moves through. But they couldn’t imagine it that way.’

To illustrate this, Gitelis returns to the example of the seatstays. Where other brands may have simply used more of the same material, Factor changed the carbon fibre for a more expensive type pre-impregnated with tougher resin.

‘It’s not just about the carbon fibres, because about 30% of a carbon fibre frame is the resin. Carbon fibres are just very fine filaments, stiff per weight but very easy to snap individually.

‘The resin allows the carbon fibres to become usefully stiff by binding the fibres together, and adds toughness itself.’

Materials are crucial to a bike’s properties, yet Gitelis believes that within the industry there’s a lot of bluff and misdirection when it comes to the black stuff. 

‘You hear so much about high-modulus carbon fibre,’ he says. ‘That doesn’t necessarily make a good bike. Or ultra-high modulus, which in engineering terms doesn’t even exist!

‘Then you have “aerospace”. That just means your carbon fibre comes with a certificate saying it has been approved for aerospace use, but you can buy exactly the same carbon fibre without the certificate for 25% less.

‘There’s so much marketing speak that isn’t rooted in reality. On top of that, you have companies buying three different materials with three different resin systems and mixing them in one frame.

‘I question that, because those resin systems may not bind together well. You can have the best fibres in the world but if they don’t have the right resin system you’ve wasted your money.’

Therefore, instead of buying off-the-shelf material to make its bikes, Factor gets its carbon fibre yarn from Japan from companies such as Toray and Mitsubishi, and has it sent to Korea to have a specific resin system applied.

But if that’s a better model, why aren’t other companies copying?

‘A company like Toray has a salesman who says to the factories, “This is our new fibre and we’re supplying so and so,” and the factories say, “OK, we want the same.” So everyone ends up with the same material and no one necessarily questions what has gone into it.

‘You hear all this T700, T1000 talk, but really those are very standardised materials. High-modulus material is so stiff it will break if you try and lay it into acute angles in a mould, so it’s not good for every part of a frame. It’s also so brittle a worker can break it as they’re placing it into a mould, without even realising.

‘Then you hear talk of other materials like Kevlar,’ he adds. ‘Now, Kevlar is useful for impact strength, but it has been around for a long time and it doesn’t fuse well with carbon fibre.

‘Or nanotechnology. When I worked making for Zipp we developed a handlebar with nano, but to use it in a way that made a noticeable difference added $200 to the cost of a handlebar.

‘So it’s like graphene now – there is potential but it hasn’t been commercially realised yet. But that doesn’t stop brands from sprinkling it in and saying it’s there.’

Primarily, though, it all comes back to money. Better materials cost more and require a skilled workforce working at a time-consuming pace. Then on top of that there is some considerable waste that also needs to be accounted for.

‘We use more complex shapes for the individual plies in our layups to create lighter, stronger, stiffer frames. I hate to say it, but around 25% of the material we buy in ends up in the garbage as scrap.

‘Other companies can’t fathom that idea, so they use much simpler shapes for their plies to keep waste at around 5%. But their frames won’t be as optimised as ours.’

Gitelis rues this aspect of carbon fibre manufacture, but he does point out that Factor’s waste is taken away by a company that grinds it up and adds it to concrete as reinforcement.

It’s still not ideal, ‘but unfortunately you can’t recycle carbon fibre, so at least this way it’s not simply going to landfill’.

The long game

Over the course of our tour it becomes evident that Gitelis has a wealth of experience in carbon fabrication, which begs the question: why swap a lucrative trade as a contract manufacturer for the more risky business of owning your own brand?

‘The industry I started in was exciting, working directly with people like Phil White and Gerard Vroomen [Cervélo founders], Andy Ording [Zipp] and Jason Shiers [Enve], but it all changed when companies were sold and the bottom line was price. It became sterile.

‘I look at Factor as a chance to prove a point about what bikes should and can be. For example, our O2 bike went through more than 60 iterations of different rideable layup designs.

‘There’s no way I could have done that for another brand – they would never have been able to account for that level of research and development in their margins.

‘It would take a contract vendor two weeks to get an iteration out to a brand for them to test, because they are working for lots of brands all at once. Focussing on just Factor, we can make an iteration in a single day.

‘Manufacturing our own brand means we can combine the manufacturing and margin with the retail price, so it still works out financially but we can offer a better product than our competitors at the same price.

‘The scary thing of course is it’s all your own money invested. But it’s not a gamble, it’s a calculated risk. I’ve got 23 years of experience in this industry. I live here. I know it.’

What’s in a factory?

Not all carbon fibre bikes are created equal

Most names on the down tube haven’t actually made that bike. Rather, that bike was designed by the brand name then executed by a contract factory, most likely in China. It’s a good enough model, but there are pitfalls, says Gitelis.

‘You have about five really big players [factories] in carbon fibre, then about 50 smaller players. To be part of the big five you have to be a Trek, Specialized, Scott, Cervélo… You need to be doing significant volume.

‘If you’re a smaller brand you’re with the 50, and there’s a significant gap between the big factories and small ones. If you’re in the 50, you really need to keep an eye on what’s going on in terms of quality control and expediency.

‘Then there are open moulds [where anyone can order a batch of blank frames from a stock catalogue]. Those are one step away from the copies, the fake Pinarellos.

‘If you read anything like, “This comes from the same factory as Cervélo,” that simply isn’t true. No premier factory makes open moulds – it would put off their premium customers.

‘I know it seems odd that a big manufacturer like Giant makes bikes for its own competitors, but it’s in everybody’s interests. It’s economy of scale. The Giant brand plus the Trek brand enables everybody’s costs to go down.’

This feature was originally published in Issue 87 of Cyclist magazine

Words Joseph Robinson Photography Patrik Lundin

Catch the 7.30am Northern Line Tube from Clapham Common to Bank station, Monday to Friday, and among the army of commuters travelling into the City of London, cycling fans will see a familiar face.

In a well-tailored suit provided by old friend Jeff Banks, and still looking trim and tanned, Australia’s greatest-ever one-day rider and double Monument winner is on his way to his new job.

‘I’m officially on the Sports Internship programme at Goldman Sachs,’ says Simon Gerrans when we meet on a weekend near his London home.

‘My old agent, Andrew McQuaid, told me about this scheme that came off the back of London 2012, but it kind of fizzled out. I contacted them about sparking it back up and they said, “Yeah, why not?”’

Gerrans has been slotted into Goldman Sachs’s securities division, which, according to the company website, helps ‘buy and sell financial products on exchanges around the world, raise funding, and manage risk’ for its multinational clients.

The internship is a scheme whereby former professional sportsmen and women are taken on to learn the financial ropes, regardless of previous experience – or lack of.

While Gerrans is tight-lipped about his exact day-to-day duties, we can assume he isn’t making coffee and running errands, and any job at one of the world’s biggest investment banks is likely to keep him well stocked with Vegemite.

The Australian has been a Londoner since last summer, when he moved from Andorra to Clapham in preparation for his career change.

As he sips at his coffee in the Italian cafe where we meet, it becomes obvious that the British way of life has rubbed off on him as he seems uncharacteristically reserved about telling the curious cafe owner why he is being photographed.

He tells me how his two young children are being taught in English for the first time, having been taught in French while living in Monaco and then Andorra, and how the excitement of visiting the Natural History Museum has yet to wear thin.

‘When I first moved here I was still training in team kit. I’d head out to Surrey or Kent and get a few funny looks from people thinking I was a pretender in all of the gear,’ he says.

‘Riding here is quite different to Andorra,’ Gerrans laughs. ‘I don’t mind Richmond Park, though. It’s just 15 minutes away so I can go out, get a few laps in and then get home quick.’

Planning for the future

Sportsmen and women often find it hard to let go in retirement. After spending your entire life devoted to a sport, it can be tough to accept that you are suddenly no longer good enough to keep going.

It’s why so many take jobs in cycling after they retire. Sport directors, race organisers and co-commentators tend to come from the professional peloton.

Gerrans is no different. The reason we are meeting so early is because he has to be at Eurosport in the afternoon to make his commentary debut. He is also an investor in start-up helmet company Hexr.

The sport does its best to look after its own once they can no longer compete at the top level, but there aren’t enough jobs for everyone and many struggle in those first years away from the sport.

It would be easy to blame the teams for not preparing their athletes for life after racing, but Gerrans sees it differently.

‘I feel like many riders could shoulder the burden a heck of a lot more to prepare themselves for a career beyond cycling,’ he says. ‘Teams could do more but they are already so stretched with budgets and resources and considering the here and now.

‘I just think that a big difference could be made if riders considered looking beyond their riding career and using their downtime to build a network beyond racing.’

It seems logical, but then again Gerrans is speaking from a privileged position. Unlike so many, he made the decision of when to walk away from the sport, instead of the sport making it for him.

He had offers to continue into this year but knowing his legs and head were no longer there, he had already made the mental switch to leave cycling behind in search of a new challenge.

‘I was really fortunate in being able to step away from cycling on my own terms. My results were way beyond my wildest dreams but I knew I was beyond my best level. Mentally I was ready for a new challenge,’ he says.

‘As my career evolved I was meeting people at corporate cycling events who were involved in financial services, which is how I stumbled upon Goldmans. I’ve gone from the world-class environment of the professional peloton to Goldman Sachs, which is also world-class at what it does.

‘I’m surrounded by the best in the business, who are super-competitive and motivated.’

Against all odds

Growing up on a farm in the small village of Mansfield in Victoria, Australia – territory best known for being the playground of 19th-century bandit Ned Kelly – cycling was not on the agenda for Gerrans until relatively late.

‘I was big into my motocross as a youngster. I grew up in Victoria, where everything was about Aussie Rules footie. I didn’t have an interest in cycling really,’ he says.

‘I only took up cycling as rehab. I had two knee reconstructions as a teenager and the doctor basically told me that I needed to take up a new sport that wouldn’t impact my knees anymore.’

Luckily for Gerrans, in the nearby village of Jamieson lived family friend and recently retired professional Phil Anderson, the first non-European ever to wear the yellow jersey at the Tour de France.

‘I always had a good work ethic, which Phil spotted in me early on. It’s probably why he encouraged me so much into cycling. He wrote all of my training programmes when I started and he coached me,’ says Gerrans.

‘I did one year as a junior and one at under-23 level in Australia, and then I was already packing my bags to move to Italy.’

Short stints at the Norweigian-based Team Ringerike SK and a last-minute selection for Carvalhelhos-Boavista at the 2003 Tour de l’Avenir put him in the shop window, with AG2R-Prevoyance signing him in 2005.

It didn’t take Gerrans long to start making an impact. In 2008 he took a first Tour de France stage win riding for Crédit Agricole and by September 2009, by which point he was riding for the Cervélo TestTeam, he’d already won stages at all three Grand Tours.

In between the first and last of those stage wins he also scored top 10 finishes in the three major Ardennes Classics – Amstel Gold, Flèche Wallonne and Liège-Bastogne-Liège – and took victory at the GP Plouay.

Gerrans then moved to newly formed Team Sky in 2010 with the expectation of leading the team to early success. He spent two frustrating seasons with the British squad before joining another new project in 2012, the Australian team Orica-GreenEdge.

As a racer, Gerrans was hard to categorise. Early in his career he picked up victories here and there, earning a reputation for being a fast finisher from small groups whose successes were often down to his racing nous, which is something he feels would be unlikely to work in today’s peloton.

‘I would strategically target races at times when I knew the level of racing wasn’t so high, such as early in the season,’ says Gerrans.‘Back then, guys would turn up with barely a few thousand kilometres in their legs.

‘Now, if you’re not turning up to the Tour Down Under with 6,000km banked and some intervals in the legs, you’re not finishing the race.’

Gerrans also points out that his wits and cunning helped him transition into one of the best one-day riders in the world, one who has wins at both Liège-Bastogne-Liège and Milan-San Remo on his palmarès.

‘Look at both of my Monument wins. I’d say I was the biggest underachiever on both of those podiums yet it was me who managed to win,’ he laughs.

‘I’m proud of those victories not just because of their calibre but because I wasn’t necessarily the strongest guy in the final reckoning but I still outmanoeuvred or outsmarted my opponents.’

The best example of this was his 2012 Milan-San Remo win. Attacking towards the summit of the Poggio, Gerrans escaped the peloton along with Vincenzo Nibali and Fabian Cancellara.

Gerrans openly admits that Cancellara was the strongest sprinter in that trio, but he knew Cancellara’s weakness, and that knowledge was all he needed to outfox the Swiss rider and take victory on the Via Roma.

‘Cancellara was so certain that he was going to win that sprint and I let him think that,’ Gerrans recalls.

‘I let him sit on the front and try to ride me from his wheel like he’d done so many times before. That was all I needed to be able to out-sprint him that day. I made him too confident that he was going to win.’

Highest highs, lowest lows

Both of those victories came during Gerrans’ time at Orica-GreenEdge (the team now known as Mitchelton-Scott). He smiles as the conversation turns to his time at the team from his home country.

‘It was a special time,’ he says. ‘Being part of a team with such an Aussie core was incredible. Most of the riders and staff were from Australia and everything was built around producing homegrown talent.’

The unique culture of the team, in which riders were more friends than colleagues, helped propel them to success, not only with Gerrans but also Mat Hayman and Michael Matthews among others.

It helped Orica-GreenEdge become one of the sport’s dominant forces in a relatively short period of time, but the focus on promoting Australian riders didn’t last.

After a while, the team transitioned away from this approach as they hunted success away from stage wins and one-day Classics. Instead, they recruited worldwide to build a team ready to challenge for Grand Tour victories.

‘It was when the team began to bring in its future stars, who maybe didn’t buy into the team culture as much, that you saw the direction of the team begin to change,’ Gerrans says.

These days, the team rides for a pair of English twins in the form of Simon and Adam Yates, and a Colombian, Esteban Chaves.

It’s working, with the trio counting wins at a Grand Tour and a Monument between them, but it’s far from what the team was originally created to do.

‘The emphasis of that team is no longer to develop Australian riders but to win Grand Tours and develop the likes of the Yates twins and Chaves,’ Gerrans says.

‘I fully understand and respect that decision but, from an Australian perspective, it’s a little disappointing that it’s no longer really an Australian team.’

Gerrans remembers his time at Orica fondly – the broad smile gives that away – but he cuts a more subdued figure when discussing riding for the Australian national team.

‘I had one shot at winning the World Championships and that was Ponferrada in 2014. I look back and know I could have won that day,’ he says.

‘I made a tactical decision not to follow Michal Kwiatkowski. I was strong enough but I didn’t move and he became champion.’

A year later, another Australian was leaving the World Championships bitterly disappointed with second place. This time it was Matthews, and at the time it was reported he blamed Gerrans for his failure to win, claiming that they ended up ‘sprinting against each other’.

Gerrans’ version of events is different.

‘Richmond 2015 was poorly managed on behalf of the Australian team. Me and Michael were both promised leadership in that race from a long way out and they didn’t manage our expectations well,’ he says.

‘We both turned up on the day expecting our own opportunities, so they split the team in terms of support. They shouldn’t have promised things they couldn’t deliver.

‘I saw it a lot during my career: two guys on one team being promised dual leadership. It never ends well.’

Working out the 98%

The serious tone continues as we approach our final topic of discussion: the 2011 Critérium du Dauphiné, which Gerrans rode for Team Sky.

It was the year that produced the Jiffy Bag scandal and spawned the subsequent investigation into Dr Richard Freeman and revealed the alleged delivery of a batch of testosterone to the Manchester velodrome.

‘In my time at Team Sky, I didn’t see anything remotely suspect,’ Gerrans says. ‘Honestly, the investigation and the enquiries completely shocked me.’

Gerrans was questioned during the UK anti-doping investigation in 2016. He told investigators that he saw nothing wrong with the team’s practices and reminded them that they were ‘referring to something that happened during a bike race five years ago’.

He was very clear that he remembered nothing different from any other bike race.

Suspicion has followed Team Sky ever since, but Gerrans believes the reason for the team’s rapid rise from newcomers to Tour de France supremacy is down to a realisation early on.

‘Look, I was part of Team Sky from almost the beginning. When I joined in 2010, all they spoke about was “marginal gains” – that top 2%,’ he says. ‘

They hadn’t worked out the stuff below that yet, the other 98%, which is just as important if you want to win. But they did that quite quickly and that combined with the marginal gains is why they are where they are today.’

From a land Down Under

The life and rides of Simon Gerrans

1980: Born in Melbourne, Australia.

2004: Signs as a stagiaire for AG2R Prevoyance before turning professional the following year.

2006: Takes first of four overall victories at the Tour Down  Under.

2008: Joins Crédit Agricole and wins Stage 15 of Tour de France.

2009: Signs for Cervélo TestTeam. Wins GP Plouay and finishes in top 10 of Amstel Gold, Flèche Wallonne and Liège-Bastogne-Liège.

2010: Signs for Team Sky.

2012: Joins Orica-GreenEdge. Wins first Monument, Milan-San Remo, and first senior Australian road race title.

2013: Wins Stage 3 and 4 (TTT) of Tour de France. Wears yellow jersey for two stages.

2014: Takes victory at Liège-Bastogne-Liège and second national road title. Finishes second at Road Race World Championships in Ponferrada.

2015: Wears the pink jersey at Giro d’Italia after winning opening team time-trial.

2018: Joins BMC Racing and takes final victory of career, Stage 3 (TTT) of the Tour de France. Retires at end of the season.

Gerrans on…

… Lance Armstrong

‘Controversial as it is, I’d consider Lance one of my main heroes. When I first got into the sport, he had this fantastic story of cancer survivor to Tour winner that was really inspiring. Plus, you still have to admire how he changed the sport in terms of attention to detail.’

… His favourite race

‘I loved Amstel Gold. It was the start of the Ardennes Classics and I’d just get so excited. There was always a fantastic crowd and a really punchy course that suited my style of racing. It was a shame I never got to win.’

… The Yates twins

‘Simon and Adam are very different people. Both are talented guys but have completely different approaches. Simon is willing to learn and take on advice, whereas Adam is a little more set in his ways. We spent the whole first week of the 2016 Tour de France trying to convince Adam not to ride at the back of the peloton in case of splits or crashes, but he was stubborn and never budged.’

Simon Gerrans is an ambassador for Hexr, the world's first custom-made helmet. For more visit its website here.

This article was originally published in issue 1 of Cyclist Off-Road magazine

Words Max Leonard Photography Antton Miettinen

Stop for a moment and think about those perfect, sinuous curves of tarmac that adorn your favourite mountain vista. How did that smooth strip of road get there? What was there before?

And what made all that effort getting from one side of the mountain to the other worthwhile in the first place? Anyone else ever reflect on these things when panting and sweating slowly uphill? Just me? Oh…

This is the kind of ride that brings such questions into sharp focus. It has all the ingredients of a classic Alpine road ride, only everything is a bit more rustic. The roads are mainly unmade tracks, rather than tarmac. There’s a fair bit more dust but a lot less traffic.

We’re still on carbon bikes and wearing Lycra, but we’ve got fat tyres and bags strapped to our handlebars. Gels and energy drinks have been replaced with saucisson and strange homemade liqueurs.

And there’s definitely more swimming and more sleeping than you’d enjoy on your average road outing. This is road riding’s hairier, scruffier brother. This is gravel riding.

White gold

Image 1 of 24

Image 1 of 24

Our plan is to explore the Via del Sale, a track along the high border ridges between France and Italy. The name is Italian for ‘salt road’, which relates to the centuries-old route used by traders to carry salt to Turin.

Why Turin? It was the seat of the ancient House of Savoy, which for the best part of 600 years ruled the Alps – a region of which still bears their name – as well many other parts of Europe.

Why salt? Salt, if not quite more expensive than gold, is certainly more useful. It is an essential ingredient in the diet of both people and livestock, and before refrigeration was one of the primary ways of preserving food.

It has been used as a currency (the word salary is derived from the Latin for salt), has made people rich and has been fought over in wars.

The Savoy needed salt from the Mediterranean, but the coastline and hinterlands east of the Alps belonged to the powerful city-state of Genoa, which meant the Savoy salt had to be landed in Nice port and then hauled over the mountains.

In its heyday, up to 55,000 mules were employed carrying salt from Nice up and over the 1,871m Col de Tende, bringing wheat, animal skins and wool back south in return.

It was an age when salt roads criss-crossed the world. Even just from the coast inland to Turin there were multiple routes, falling in and back out of favour as political conditions and the salt taxes demanded by local towns fluctuated over the centuries.

As we take the train out of Nice towards the small town of Breil-sur-Roya, where we will start our ride, we pass restaurants and cafes named after the ‘Route du Sel’. Almost 200 years after the demise of the salt trade, its traces still remain.

But first, coffee

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Image 10 of 24

The early-morning air is still fresh when we arrive at Breil. We’re raring to go, but we are lacking caffeine, the essential precursor to any mountain adventure – especially one that will take us a long way from civilisation.

We roll into town for coffee, and visit the market in the town square. On a ride such as this, when you have the capacity to carry things and are never sure when the next opportunity might come, it makes sense to stockpile nice stuff when you see it. So, a few peaches, cooked meats and speciality pastries heavier, we head up the hill.

The first 15km of our route takes us up the valley of the Roya river, a tumbling, gushing torrent in a deep V-shaped gorge dotted with tiny Baroque chapels and ruined bridges, reminders of the long history of trade on this route. But then we turn left, towards the village of Castérino, and the climbing really begins.

In a region blessed by some of cycling’s best-known cols – the Madone, Turini, Bonette and even the Poggio and Cipressa are pretty close – the 14km dead end road to Castérino is a dark horse.

Steep and full of switchbacks, it snakes through pink granite rocks and acid green larches, against a backdrop of dark and forbidding forests on the opposite side of the valley.

There’s barely any traffic, since Castérino is mainly a winter sports resort and because of that aforementioned dead end. But it’s a dead end only if you need tarmac.

Behind the cluster of chalets rises a tiny track surrounded by laburnums and wild flowers, which soon becomes potholed, then more potholed than paved, and then gravel, rock and dirt. It will take us to over 2,000m above sea level.

We’re forced off the track by cows being driven down the hill. After that we’re on our own, our efforts seen only by an Italian World War Two-era bunker, staring down empty-eyed from the ridge. It’s a reminder of how close the border is – until 1947 this was Italian territory.

We skirt beneath it to pass our first col, the 2,028m Baisse de Peyrefique, and continue on a wide dirt track through the meadows on the ridge.

Our only companions up here are some Czech bikers on big overland motorbikes, who are currently eating a picnic and washing the dust off in a stream, and a 4x4 pick-up with a sheepdog and bales of hay in the back.

Image 6 of 24

Image 6 of 24

Oh, and lots of big stone forts – again built by the Italians to defend the border.

Thousands of men once lived up here, keeping watch on the foe down the hill, and it feels strange to ride through a deserted space that was once so strategically important. 

We round a corner and the famous gravel switchbacks of the Col de Tende come into sight. Far below, cars queue for the tunnel into Italy, but up here there is nobody around.

It’s the same story with many Alpine roads: formerly mule tracks or paths used to lead livestock to pasture, they were then improved by the military and finally tarmacked – or, circumvented and obsolete, left to decay into dust.

We’ve already been off tarmac for more than 20km, but this is where the Via del Sale proper starts.

Where we’re going, we don’t need roads

From Tende the track rises past a ski lift to another col, and although the track ducks and dives through numerous cols, from here to the rifugio where we’ll spend the night we won’t dip below 2,000m.

As we climb the surface deteriorates. It’s also very, very steep, with gradients persisting at around 15% for much longer than you’d expect on a paved climb in the Alps. Soon the salt from my sweat is stinging my eyes. 

Even on lightly loaded bikes, riding gravel in the Alps is difficult and intense. You work harder on the ups and have to concentrate harder on the downs – there’s no meditative cruising like you get on a road bike – but you also get to feel more, experience the different surfaces and geologies, get closer to the earth.

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Image 15 of 24

And perhaps because you’re in less of a ‘flow’, it seems easier to stop and take everything in.

Meander up a path you weren’t planning to take, just to see what’s around the corner. Sit on a rock and cut yourself some salami (always take a knife for impromptu cheese or salami-chopping interludes).

Eat a peach. Take in the view.

The skies have lowered as we climbed and suddenly we find ourselves in the clouds. It’s easy to see how smugglers used to frequent this route and brigands hid in the mist, waiting to rob travellers of their precious cargo.

There’s a volley of raindrops and we pedal faster, following the beautifully engineered track as it cuts across the ridge.

A precipitous drop is marked by carefully cut stones, and although the surface is rough there are points where the original cobbles survive – all the work of the army, again, to ensure it could supply the forts that lined the border ridge.

The border these days, however, is invisible, and we will cross it five times today without even noticing.

The summer storm continues to threaten, so we try to keep the speed up, but on this terrain a road rider used to spinning along easily at 30kmh will struggle to keep an average of half that. The landscape changes again, now all jagged limestone and green meadows, but with no cattle.

Despite it being July, the Via del Sale has only officially been open for two days after the winter snows. We swoop over a final lump, making our way towards a cluster of 4x4s parked by a building nestled in a valley.

It’s the refuge. We’ve only ridden 65km, but it has included some 2,600m of climbing, so we’re glad to lean our dusty bikes against an outbuilding and swap our cycling shoes for a pair of Crocs from the pile inside.

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Image 12 of 24

A quick cold shower later and we’re sitting outside, watching the sunset at 2,100m and debriefing over whisky sipped from a hip flask.

After a sumptuous three-course Italian meal and a shot or two of homemade herbal liqueur, we’re ready for bed. As we lie in the dormitory, silvery midsummer twilight filters through the window.

There’s no phone reception or Wi-Fi here, so we’re unaware that at this moment, thousands of miles away and thousands of metres below us, Eric Dier has just scored a penalty and put England into the World Cup quarter-finals.

The only way is down

The next morning we collect our sandwiches from the refuge and leave for a short uphill slog, but it’s rather breathless work when the climbing starts at 2,100m.

The reward is a long downhill on beautiful tracks through pine forests where we can shift into our biggest gears and power over the bumps like racers at Paris-Roubaix.

We consult the map quickly – we have the route in our bike computers, but it’s best to also carry paper maps – before one final gravel climb that takes us up the switchbacks to the Pas du Tanarel (France again).

The descent is the rockiest yet, and takes us through a scarily dark tunnel, until we hit a beautiful smooth road into Triora (Italy again). Down in the valleys the heat is suffocating, so we stop to cool off in a river before taking on our final col.

The 9km climb to the 1,130m Colle Langan averages 7% and feels easy now we’re on the road. It’s also shady, which is a relief in some ways even if it isn’t helping my bibshorts dry out.

These Ligurian Alps descend in immense green folds towards the sea, hiding beautiful perched villages. Like many roads in these forgotten corners of Italy, the surface is pretty bad, so I’m happy to be on a big-tyred bike.

On our way south to the sea, we briefly touch the start of the Alta Via MTB di Liguria, a new bike-friendly route along the crests of the hills, but that’s an adventure for another day.

Image 5 of 24

Image 5 of 24

The summer afternoon storms have descended again, and the peaks are shrouded in black cloud. Instead, we roll towards Ventimiglia, where we’re suddenly surrounded by immaculately dressed Italian roadies.

Dirty, smelly and dusty, we feel out of place. But it’s only a quick spin along the coast road back to Menton in France, where we finally unclip for good.

In two days we’ve covered everything from perfect tarmac to dirt, from fine gravel to gnarly (borrowing a word from our baggy-shorted cousins) drop-offs.

Are these bikes perfect for this terrain? In truth, for the really rocky bits the answer is no, and on long off-road descents you’d really prefer to have suspension.

But, looking at the ride as a whole, there’s nothing I would rather tackle an off-road riding adventure on than a gravel bike.

A trail of two countries

Follow Cyclist Off-Road’s two-day route

To download this route go to cyclist.co.uk/or1/france. You’ll need a good bike computer that can handle off-road trails, preferably backed up with a paper map (or, even better, hire a guide).

From Breil-sur-Roya follow the D6204 north for 17km to St-Dalmas-de-Tende. Turn left onto the D91, signposted for Castérino. Follow this road on deteriorating surfaces until it becomes a gravel trail.

Head northeast and along the Via del Sale, tracing the border between France and Italy, until you arrive at the Rifugio Don Barbera, which is home for the night. The route then heads south along the border on gravel paths before diving into Italy to rejoin paved roads at Triora.

From there it’s around 60km to Ventimiglia on the coast, and another 12km along the coast to Menton in France. 

The rider’s ride

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Image 24 of 24

Open UP, £2,230 frame and fork, veloatelier.co.uk

We hired an Open UP from Basecamp (base-camp.bike), which also offers the Open Upper and 3T Exploro gravel bikes for hire. What these bikes have in common is that they were all designed by Gerard Vroomen, the man who co-founded Cervélo in 1995.

Ross Muir of Basecamp says, ‘Vroomen once explained to me the difference between them. ‘The Open is an off-road bike that you can ride on the road and the Exploro is a road bike you can take off-road.’

That may make it sound like the Open UP is essentially a mountain bike with drop handlebars, but it’s an altogether more refined machine than that. At around 8kg it’s as light as many road bikes, and the geometry is more akin to a road bike than a pure off-roader.

To achieve that racy geometry Vroomen had to ensure that the chainstays remained reasonably short (420mm), which meant he had to design a special ‘dropped’ chainstay for the drive side to allow enough space between the chainring and the fat tyres.

The result is that the UP feels at home both grinding up gravel-strewn climbs and swooping down smooth tarmac descents. We rode it on 700c wheels with 40mm tyres, which suited the terrain and distance, but a swap to 650b wheels with even fatter tyres would turn this into a real off-road beast.

Short of the gnarliest mountain bike trails, there’s little the Open UP couldn’t handle.

How we did it

Travel and accommodation

Flights to Nice on the southern coast of France are available from all major UK airports. From Nice we took the train to Breil-sur-Roya (one hour), where we started the ride.

That evening, we stayed on the Via del Sale at the Rifugio Don Barbera (rifugiodonbarbera.eu), which has prices from €20 (£18) for just a bed, to €50 for half board plus a packed lunch for the following day. The next day we descended to Menton on the French coast before taking the train back to Nice (40 minutes).

Bike hire

Bikes came courtesy of Basecamp (base-camp.bike). Located in the Haute Savoie region of France, it rents out road and gravel bikes from around €80 (£70) a day, including Open’s UP and Upper bikes and the 3T Exploro.

The company also offers gravel-based guided tours in the Alps and other areas around Europe. One of its tours will take in many of the same roads as this Via del Sale ride, with overnight stays in mountain refuges.

Kit

As well as our usual cycling kit, lights and bike tools, some additional items we carried included: lightweight down jacket, T-shirt and casual shorts, spare socks, paper maps, USB power pack, toothbrush/toothpaste, lightweight towel, silk sleeping bag liner, pocket knife, lightweight shoes and, of course, a hip flask.

This article was originally published in issue 89 of Cyclist magazine

Words Henry Catchpole Photography Alex Duffill

‘Crossed Tourmalet. Very good road. Perfectly feasible.’ Rather than write an extra 993 words, it’s tempting to leave my summation of this Classic Climb at that. For that’s reportedly how Alphonse Steinès communicated his passage over the famous climb after doing a recce for organiser Henri Desgrange ahead of its initial inclusion in the 1910 Tour de France. 

Steinès, I think it’s fair to say, was the sort of person who liked to look on the bright side of life. He and the Black Knight from Monty Python would have got on famously.

‘Only a flesh wound!’

‘Merely a hillock!’

Steinès, you see, had indeed crossed the Tourmalet, but only just. Having abandoned the car and driver he had set out with, he then bribed (with gold coins) a shepherd boy to guide him to the top. Despite the promise of more money if he reached the summit, conditions were so bad that the boy turned back.

Exhausted, stumbling, practically hypothermic having slipped into a stream and with warnings about bears ringing in his ears, Steinès was eventually found by a search party just before three o’clock in the morning. After no more than a restorative bath in Barèges, Steinès fired off the cheerful telegram to Desgrange.

The extent of his overly optimistic description duly became clear when Octave Lapize called the organisers ‘murderers’ during the first Tour stage to feature the Tourmalet (the monstrous 326km stage also featured the Aubisque, Peyresourde and Aspin).

Given that Lapize won the stage and the Tour in 1910, who knows what the rest of the riders must have thought…

Back by popular demand

Not that any of this discouraged the organisers of the Tour. In the subsequent 109 years since that initial crossing, the Tourmalet has become the most-used climb in the race. Stage 14 of the 2019 Tour will mark the race’s 87th visit to the col, although it will be just the third time it has featured as a summit finish.

Cyclist tackled the climb from Luz-Saint-Sauveur in the west, travelling in the same direction as the peloton will. Unusually for a col, both sides are almost equally difficult.

Climb this side and you travel 19km at an average gradient of 7.4%, while from Saint-Marie-De-Campan to the east (the direction Steinès and Lapize tackled it from) you have 17.2km of climbing also at an average of 7.4%.

It’s a climb of two halves, with the first part being duller but also more deceptive. It would actually be easy enough to skip straight to the more aesthetically pleasing second half as there is an obvious and tempting starting point at a vast ski station car park.

However, you need to have your legs softened up by the more mundane first half to understand the true difficulty of the Tourmalet.

As you climb from Luz-Saint-Sauveur the road is meandering, with the rocky River Bastan sticking tight to the left of the tarmac.

The odd hairpin lulls you into thinking things are spicing up, but then the D918 settles back to its straight course up the valley, and this continues through Baregès and on to the car park over 10km into the climb.

What’s deceptive about this first 10km is the gradient. The road isn’t remarkably wide but with a white line down the middle and plenty of room for two-way traffic it disguises the steepness well. Your eyes would swear it was only about a 4% incline, but your legs and bike computer will tell you it’s about twice that.

Just before you reach the vast car park you may notice some small green and white signs with depictions of cyclists on them and arrows pointing right towards the Voie Laurent Fignon. This is the old road up the Tourmalet, which has been left in place for non-motorised traffic.

To be honest I think it’s a little cruel to give you the choice. Old or new? Which is better? Which is right? Which is more popular on Strava? Surely he could have gone eight seconds quicker?

All these questions and more pile up in your mind when you see the signs and the end result is that you’ll probably be so distracted that you just stay on the route that the Tour takes today. We did.

Tough at the top

If you do have a desire to head up the old road, watch out for stones. The lighter traffic means that it’s not quite as well swept as the new tarmac, and punctures could be a problem.

Back on the D918, the wide road continues to a big right-hand hairpin where the gradient disappears for a few blissful pedal strokes. Enjoy the brief break, because the incline is unrelenting from here to the summit 5km away. Almost immediately after this corner the white line down the middle vanishes and the road seems a little wilder as a result.

You’re now entering the craggy jaws of the mountain fortress that’s been looming ahead of you for the whole ride. No serried stacks of switchbacks here, just a punishing path wriggling its way up the slopes.

As the road gets narrower you can feel quite exposed, with seemingly little or no protection from the drops at the side. A wobble here and you feel you’d be tumbling for some time. That’s assuming you can see the side of the road.

The last time the Tourmalet held a summit finish was in 2010 when Andy Schleck and his yellow shadow, Alberto Contador, climbed through a thick, swirling mist that seemed to surround them almost as closely as the spectators.

The 1.8km from the penultimate hairpin averages 11%, and as you round the last switchback with only 400m to go you’re presented with a ramp that spikes up to over 14% in one final attempt to make you capitulate.

By being forced to tackle the hardest pitch last it really does feel like the mountain is wringing the remaining drops of strength from your muscles.

The reward for making it all the way up, however, is a beautiful finish line. The way the road crests between two walls, with vast valleys in front and behind, feels like a true summit.

And atop the left-hand wall, standing proud like a figurine on a wedding cake, is a silver-coloured sculpture of Octave Lapize straining with the sort of effort that does indeed look like it might kill him.

Since 2001 the first person over the top in the Tour has been awarded the Souvenir Jacques Goddet (not the Prix Jacques Goddet, which is a journalism prize) netting the rider a handsome €5,000 bonus.

You can pick up your own souvenir at the shop on the summit if you want, but just getting to the top feels like reward enough.

The French call the Col du Tourmalet l’Incontournable (the unavoidable) because it’s the only way across this part of the Pyrenees, which partially explains why the col has been used so many times in the Tour. But it really is only part of the reason, because it is also, as Steinès said, a very good road.

The rest day, like all other parts of the Tour de France, is a far simpler prospect for those watching the Tour than it is for those riding it.

For them, it’s about rest and recovery, trying to find a little peace in the madness of the three-week rolling circus that is the Grand Boucle.

For us, and particularly on the final rest day of a Tour that is very much still all to fight for, it’s about picking through the ashes, looking at the form, the look in the eyes and the slant of the shoulders as the contenders have crossed the line over the past few days.

It’s about looking at all the tiny details and considerations, tallying it all up and answering the question everyone is asking on the final rest day of this Tour: who is going to win the 2019 Tour de France?

And never has it given us greater pleasure to give the answer, ‘We haven’t a clue.’

It’s not through lack of trying, to be clear. But day after day, whenever an overlying narrative has looked like emerging to define how the 2019 Tour will be decided, something happens to shake things up and suggest an entirely new set of possible outcomes.

It’s like a complex and ever-changing kaleidescope of possibilities whose moving parts are rearranged daily as they make their way across the French countryside.

Best of all, almost all the key moments that have defined this year’s Tour to date have been generated by the race itself. Yes, some of the talk going into this Tour was of the non-possibility of Chris Froome winning it.

But good luck hearing literally a single mention of Froome’s name on the slopes of the Planche des Belles Filles (where he’s a previous stage winner), or the finish line after the Pau time-trial, or at the summit of the mighty Tourmalet after Saturday’s French one-two.

Weighed down

That’s exactly how it should be of course, but too often cycling’s biggest race has seemed too heavily weighed down by its own billing, too confined by the perceived need for exactly the kind of narrative this year’s race has so gloriously failed to conform to.

Back to those key moments, though, and it's also worth mentioning that this year's have come from a surprisingly wide array of sources too. It seems fitting to start with the yellow jersey himself Julian Alaphilippe. Few of us genuinely thought the French Deceuninck-QuickStep dynamo would still be in yellow at this point, never mind with a relatively decent margin. Literally none of us had him winning Friday’s time-trial, then finishing second on the Tourmalet the day after.

Thibaut Pinot won that stage of course, which was the Groupama-FdJ rider’s own Big Moment of the 2019 Tour so far. But arguably his second place yesterday behind Simon Yates could prove even more significant given the time he gained on the other GC contenders.

Then there’s Geraint Thomas, the defending champion from Team Ineos. For all the plaudits Alaphillipe gained on the Planche des Belles Files for his audacious and unexpected late attack from the peloton, who was the only rider who actually caught him and pulled ahead by the finish line? That’s right, it was Thomas.

Thomas: Dangerous and human

In his first attempt at it, this year’s defending champ has succeeded in something the team’s usual bearer of the number 1 at the Tour has never managed, and that is to look both dangerous and human.

You don’t quite know what he’s going to do next, and whatever it is might not work, but you want to watch him try either way. That not a slight on either Chris Froome or Team Ineos, it’s just an analysis of what has made this year’s Tour de France so refreshingly different to most recent editions of the race, which Froome (and the former Team Sky) have dominated.

With six stages of the Tour remaining – or four if you ignore the final day’s procession and tomorrow’s flat stage around Nimes – any of those three are credible winners. Alaphillipe will likely either hold on valiantly to win the Tour, or blow totally on one of the big mountain stages. Pinot has the high mountains to look forward to, and a stronger team behind him than his countryman. But it feels like Thomas hasn’t quite yet given his absolute maximum yet, and has a stronger team still than Pinot.

Which seems like the obvious point – okay, it's probably long overdue if we're honest – to mention Ineos's Egan Bernal, the young Colombian who is still fifth overall, just 122 seconds from the yellow jersey and very much still a potential winner. And while we’re at it, Bora-Hansgrohe’s Emanuel Buchmann is just 12 seconds further back in sixth.

And we haven’t even mentioned Jumbo-Visma’s Steven Kruijswijk, who’s actually above both of them and even Pinot in the overall classification, sitting tidily in third place overall, 1:47 down on Alaphilippe and just 12 seconds behind Thomas.

Did we mention that this Tour was impossible to call?

The ultimate destiny of this year’s yellow jersey will come down to three back-to-back stages in the Alps: Thursday’s 207km run to Valloire, involving the ascents of the Izoard and Galibier; Friday’s high-altitude ride to Tignes which crests the 2,770m Iseran; and Saturday’s 131km Stage 20, culminating in the brutal 33.5km ascent to the finish at Val Thorens.

The presence of Bernal in the top six could prove pivotal as it means Team Ineos are the only team with two GC options going into the race’s decisive phase. Even then, that doesn’t necessarily give them an advantage, as yesterday’s stage proved when Thomas held back on the final climb to avoid working against Bernal, who was ahead, and so lost time to Pinot.

Victory by stealth?

So far, Buchmann and Kruijswijk have done remarkably little by comparison to contribute to their high overall position. They’ve benefited from the support of strong teams, haven’t made any mistakes or lost any serious time where it mattered, and have consistently finished around the top GC riders day after day.

But they’ve also managed to feature in just about zero key moments in the race so far, and have inspired few if any headlines.

It feels odd in this most surprising and entertaining of Tours that not one but two riders could get themselves into such strong contention for victory basically through stealth alone.

But then, wouldn’t Kruijswijk or Buchmann emerging as the Tour winner be the ultimate in unexpected narratives? Quite possibly. But we wouldn't think about it too closely for now – who knows what surprises the 2019 Tour de France still has in store for us between now and Sunday?

Just before our group reached the Mur del Giat — a short incline of only 360 metres, but with gradients reaching a maximum of 19% — I started to hear the mechanical sound of gears switching from the smaller to the bigger cogs on rear cassettes. It was a preventive attempt to avoid the worst case scenario: walking up the hill and pushing the bike up the road.

I, on the other hand, couldn’t be bothered to change any gear at all. I kept stayed on the 53 chainring at the front, stomped more power on my pedals and spun away without any issues.

Nobody in my group could keep up with my acceleration; they all had to struggle with not only the gradient, but with the heat of a classic July day in the Italian Alps: blue sky, no clouds and high temperatures. Even with that sort of effort I didn’t break a sweat.

I wasn’t dreaming, although I frequently dream of winning bike races in such a powerful manner. Nor did I dope before the ride. I was simply cycling on a Pinarello Nytro — the first electric bike launched in 2017 by the high-end Italian bike manufacturer.

Today (6th July) also happens to be the be the eve of the 33th Maratona Dles Dolomites, the gran fondo that has become a must for cyclists all over the world.

A gentle spin down (and then back up) the Alta Badia valley from Corvara — a picturesque village nestled at 1,500 metres of altitude on the Italian Dolomites — is the perfect preparation for the titanic effort I have to endure the day after: 138 km and 4,000+ metres of vertical elevation. But a gentle spin with an e-bike is an even better idea to spin the legs without letting the fatigue settle in too soon ahead of the main event.

Image 2 of 21

Image 2 of 21

The ride

In the first kilometres of the ride, where the road was mostly downhill and the group I was riding with was quite speedy, the benefits of the Nytro were mostly down to its braking responsiveness (the bike comes with Sram hydraulic disc brakes) and its superb stability while cornering.

On the flip side, as per the EU and UK legislation, even the powerful Fazua drive unit of the Nytro (400 watts of max assistance) switches off at 25kmh (15mph). And that results in a pretty heavy bike to pedal around if you have some friends with strong legs to keep up with (with 14kg of total weight, the Nytro is not the lightest model out there).

But when the road goes up, well, then there is no more downside and the ride became a true testament of 'what it feels like to be really fit.'

Nonetheless, it took me a little while to get used to the system and how it works. The most powerful assistance of the Nytro comes into play above 4-5% gradient, when the pedal stroke gets heavier and you have to put a higher torque into the pedals to counterbalance the effect of the ascent.

I noticed that on top of the gradient, the other factor that made the biggest difference to the pedalling assistance was the cadence I was pedalling at. When I went below 60 revolutions per minute, the system chanted its best symphony.

It didn’t take much time for me to become quite needy and greedy. 'Oh, is that all the power you've got, Nytro? Can’t you give me some more?' and as soon as I got into that magic spot (60rpm and 5% gradient) I only had to put into the pedals 50 to 70 watts to spin up the climb at around 15 to 20kmh.

My friends were sweating, while I could have gone into the office without even taking a shower.

The Mur del Giat was the cherry on top, the place where the Nytro showed its best skills. Because I had to put a lot more force into the pedals, the system reacted by giving me its max power almost immediately.

The only thing you want to keep an eye on during these sort of rides (where you stay at full power the whole time) is the battery level, as after one and a half hours at full speed it was already half way down.

A recent update to the Nytro software and tech allows you to check the activity and the operation of the power unit directly on your smartphone.

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Image 14 of 21

The bike

The frame the Nytro has been inspired by is the non-electric version of the Italian fleet, the Dogma, a bicycle that has won six out of the last seven Tours de France with Bradley Wiggins, Chris Froome and Geraint Thomas. Furthermore, with its Toray carbon fibre (T700, the standard modulus) the Nytro has a light and racy spec.

Like most of the e-bikes now on the market, even the Nytro offers four different assistance modes: No support (I call it ‘good luck then’), Breeze (which assists you with to up to 125 watts), River (up to 250 watts) and Rocket — which goes up to 400 watts of assistance.

Fausto Pinarello, CEO of the still family-run Cicli Pinarello, says that the main goal with the Nytro was to 'make the experience of pedalling with the assistance of a power unit as close as possible to what we feel when we propel our bikes with our own muscles.'

Pinarello decided to develop an e-bike to allow everyone (cyclists and non-cyclists alike) to cycle on those roads and paths that would otherwise be out of reach.

'The development of an e-bike was also to help those with physical deficits and the mobility-impaired to reach goals that were unthinkable before,' says Pinarello — who cycled the Maratona Dles Dolimites in 2018 with an e-bike, only a few months after he had broken his leg.

If at first the keenest cyclists and historic Pinarello buyers were sceptical of the new system, Fausto says that now more and more people are curious about the Nytrro. 'Many of the current Nytro owners are former owners of classic bikes that for one reason or another they could no longer use,' he says.

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Image 16 of 21

The world's highest e-bike sharing scheme

In Alta Badia — the valley that gathers the villages of Corvara, Colfosco, La Villa, San Cassiano, Badia and La Val — you can find a proper e-bike scheme like that in any bike city around the world: one where you can pick up the bikes in one location and then drop them off somewhere else.

On top of the several sport shops that rent e-bikes in Corvara, there are also docking stations located above 2,000m above sea level in Col Alt (High Col), Piz La Ila and Piz Sorega — and that makes Alta Badia the world’s highest e-bike sharing scheme.

The bikes you find on the top of mountains have been conceived to allow cyclists to explore the highest points of the resort, those that in the winter time entertain avid skiers around the Sella massif. But if offroad isn’t your cup of tea, there is still plenty you can do below the tree line, although Pinarello has recently launched an e-gravel bike to its fleet that can serve you both off- and on-road.

Read more about Alta Badia's hire bike scheme: altabadia.org/it/vacanze-estate-dolomiti/bici/e-bike-in-alta-badia

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Image 17 of 21

More information

The e-bikes offered as part of the hire scheme are available to hire any day, with options including a two hour, half day or whole day hire, (€25 for two hours, €35 half day, €45 whole day). The tourist information offices provide road maps with recommended routes, or you can head out with the specialised Dolomite Biking School which arranges individual or group excursions daily.

This feature was originally published in Issue 64 of Cyclist magazine

Words Ellis Bacon Photography George Marshall

While race leader Jan Ullrich cracked in the cold, wet weather, Marco Pantani appeared galvanised. This was Stage 15 of the troubled 1998 Tour de France, between Grenoble and Les Deux Alpes, which Pantani had started with a three-minute deficit to the German. It would require an explosive effort on his part to get back on terms.

And so when he attacked on the Col du Galibier, Pantani gave it everything. The Italian’s on-the-drops climbing style mimicked the way the sprinters grip their handlebars, and he wouldn’t have been far off them speed-wise, either.

On such a damp and grey day, Ullrich’s equally grey pallor contrasted with Pantani’s glowing, glistening tan, and the pops of blue and yellow of his matching bike, team kit, glasses and bandana.

‘Il Pirata’ would end the day all in yellow, after turning his three-minute deficit into a six-minute advantage.

While the German would claw back two and a half minutes in the final time-trial to secure the second step on the podium in Paris, Pantani’s heroics on the Galibier had decided the race and he held on to win his first, and only, Tour de France.

Tragedy would later befall one of the Galibier’s heroes: Pantani was found dead as the result of a cocaine overdose in a Rimini hotel on Valentine’s Day 2004 – a sad end to one of the most exciting, if flawed, riders of the modern age. 

Early years

Happily, the Col du Galibier is more often the stage for hot, sunny days and happy memories. Situated in the heart of the French Alps, on the northern edge of the Ecrins National Park, the 2,642m-high Galibier will make its 64^th appearance in the Tour de France in 2019.

The last time the Tour visited was in 2017, when Primoz Roglic was first over the top on Stage 17 on his way to a debut Tour stage win.

The time before that was in 2011, when the Galibier featured in two stages. It made its first appearance in 1911 as one of four climbs to showcase the Alps, after the Pyrenees had been introduced to the race the year before.

On the fifth stage of that 1911 edition – a truly epic 366km between Chamonix and Grenoble – the Galibier was on the menu alongside the Col des Aravis, the Col du Télégraphe and the Col du Lautaret.

The stage was won by Frenchman Emile Georget, 15 minutes ahead of countryman Paul Duboc. Georget also holds the honour of being the first rider to crest the Galibier in the Tour.

He, Duboc and race winner Gustave Garrigou are said to be the only riders who got up the climb without walking, which was no mean feat seeing as it was still an unmade road in those days.

The Galibier has only been used as a stage finish once in the 63 times the Tour has visited. Instead, it tends to feature either early or late on in a stage, with Briançon to the south a popular start or finish, depending on which way the climb is tackled: north to south or south to north.

From the north, the Galibier ‘officially’ starts from the town of Valloire, from where it’s 18km uphill at an average of 6.9%. In reality, the climbing starts another almost 20km further north, at the town of Saint-Michel-de-Maurienne, and takes riders via the Col du Télégraphe, with a short, shallower downhill section splitting the two climbs.

From the south – the direction being used in this year’s Tour, the climb begins from the top of the Col du Lautaret, and as you turn north onto the D902 road from the D1091, you’re faced with an 8.5km climb at an average of 6.9%, with a maximum gradient in the final kilometre of 12.8%.

A huge monument to Tour founder Henri Desgrange stands proudly near the summit on the south side, and the Souvenir Henri Desgrange, introduced in 1947, remains a prize awarded at the Tour to the rider who is first across the highest summit featured in the race each year: often it’s the Tourmalet (2,115m) or the Izoard (2,360m) in years when the Tour skips the Galibier, which is in turn trumped by the Iseran (2,770m) – the high point of the 2019 Tour – or the Cime de la Bonette (2,802m).

In fact, from its first appearance in 1911 until 1938, the Galibier appeared in every edition as the Tour’s highest point, before the Iseran was introduced.

Both climbs featured again in 1939 before the Tour ground to a halt during the Second World War. Once it started up again in 1947, the Galibier was back (now boasting the monument to Desgrange, who died in 1940) although the climb would never again enjoy the same frequency of use that it had prior to the war.

In recent years, the Galibier has twice had to be omitted from the route due to bad weather. In 1996 it was dropped from Stage 9 because of snow, and the resulting shortened 46km-long stage, famously – or, given what we know now, infamously – saw Denmark’s Bjarne Riis trounce his closest rivals, putting 30 seconds into them to win the stage and take the yellow jersey, which he kept hold of the rest of the way to Paris.

In 2015, the Galibier was also dropped just prior to the race due to landslides that blocked the tunnel near the summit.

That tunnel was closed between 1976 and 2002 for major repair work, and it was the new road diversion that took the riders up to 2,645m, dwarfing the previous col pass height of 2,556m, which was still nothing to be sniffed at. 

The great escape

Arguably the mountain’s finest hour came at the Galibier’s double appearance on the race in 2011, when Andy Schleck punched the air with both fists as he crossed the line as the winner of Stage 18.

It was, and remains, the only time that a Tour stage has finished at the summit of the Galibier, yet otherwise it was a throwback to the epic solo stage wins of yesteryear, conjuring up the ghosts of the likes of Coppi, Bahamontes or Schleck’s Luxembourg compatriot, Charly Gaul.

In the lead-up to the stage, Schleck and his Leopard-Trek team hatched a plan that they then carried out to the letter.

Maxime Monfort was one of two riders (the other being Dutchman Joost Posthuma) who got into an early breakaway, ready to assist Schleck later on in the stage – a classic tactic employed by the likes of manager Bjarne Riis, from whose Saxo Bank team many of the Leopard-Trek riders had defected.

Monfort recounts his exploits that day in journalist Richard Moore’s book Étape. ‘When I knew I had Andy on my wheel, I could really kill myself,’ the Belgian says of leading Schleck through Briançon and on towards the start of the Col du Lautaret, where he finally ran out of steam.

‘I had a real role. It was important for the team, and there was a plan, a tactic. And it was Andy’s last chance.’

Alone now, going over the Lautaret and on to the Galibier, Schleck was reminded of the difficulty of going on the attack so far from the finish.

‘The headwind was all day, 65km into the wind,’ he tells Moore. ‘You could see the flags. There were lots of Luxembourg flags on the Galibier but all I could focus on was that they were blowing towards me, because of the headwind. It made it very, very tough.’

Fine as Schleck’s victory was, it was only the next day, when the Galibier again featured on the stage, climbed from the north, that the Luxembourger could finally wrest the yellow jersey from Frenchman Thomas Voeckler’s shoulders.

And even then it wasn’t enough. Schleck lost the jersey to Cadel Evans in the time-trial the next day, and Andy and elder brother Frank would have to be content with flanking the Australian on the final podium in Paris.

Back with a vengeance

Thanks to those landslides that saw the climb removed from the 2015 Tour route, the Galibier endured a six-year hiatus since Schleck’s win before returning to the course in 2017.

And with Andy Schleck now retired, and Roglic not riding the Tour this year, a new name will be crowned atop the mountain in 2019.

Unlike for Schleck, whoever is first to the summit this year is going to have to have their descending hat pulled on good and tight, as they will then have to contend with a 19km-long high-speed drop down to the finish in Valloire.