“I’ve been drunk 12 out of the last 14 nights”: Geraint Thomas on winter “blowouts” and “avoiding the scales”; Cyclocross rider casually pops his shoulder back in after crash; UCI threatens worlds ban for World Cup skipping riders + more on the live blog

Just another day in the world of cyclo-cross 😅 pic.twitter.com/43brzIQLcC

— Eurosport (@eurosport) November 11, 2023

Or: David Cameron desperately attempting to reverse the Conservative Party’s fortunes…

(Alright, that’s my last political comment of the day, I promise!)

For most, let’s face it, normal people, a crash during a cyclocross race – especially one that leads you to suspect that your shoulder may no longer be located in its rightful position – usually results in a swift exit from the course, a nice hot shower, and some extra time stewing on the sofa at home.

But not for Lars van der Haar.

The two-time European champion enjoyed a rapid start through the horrendous, soul-destroying mud and ridiculous mounds of Saturday’s Superprestige Niel race.

However, a heavy crash on a particularly deep mud pool saw him lose the lead to Baloise Trek Lions teammate Joris Nieuwenhuis and eventual winner Eli Iserbyt.

And then, if that wasn’t enough, another crash on the third lap prompted one of the more bizarre moments of the cyclocross season so far, as Van der Haar calmly pulled over to the side of the course before using his bike frame to casually pop his shoulder – which had been partially dislocated in the fall – back into place.

Not my day. On to the next! 😢😅 https://t.co/0kjDYFitZY

— Lars van der Haar (@larsvanderhaar) November 11, 2023

“He’s gone full Mel Gibson, Lethal Weapon there!” exclaimed Eurosport commentator Marty McDonald, as Van der Haar nonchalantly continued on his way following his impromptu mid-race self-examination.

The Dutch champion would eventually, mercifully DNF, later describing the race on social media, in typical understate fashion, as “not my day”. Clearly, Lars.

Don’t try this at home, kids.

Ah, don’t you just love it when residents take it upon themselves to count the number of cyclists using a bike lane? 

> Council insists cycle lane extension will make “popular route” safer, as resident accuses local authority of misleading usage figures

Meanwhile, at yesterday’s third round of the UCI World Cup (you know, the cyclocross series everyone wants to ride all the time, eh David?) in Dendermonde, 19-year-old Zoe Bäckstedt continued her seemingly inexorable rise to the top of the sport by comfortably hanging on for her first elite podium place, the British champion finishing a minute and a half down on the rampant Ceylin del Carmen Alvarado.

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Zoe Backstedt (@backstedt_zoe)

Boosted by her increasingly strong performances at the highest level, Bäckstedt reiterated her desire to take home the U23 rainbow jersey in Tabor in February.

“Worlds have got to be on the cards for under 23,” she said after yesterday’s race. “I’d like to win the under-23 [World Cup] overall as well. But we’ve got to see how it goes first, see if I have some good races, maybe some more elite podiums, and see what it is at the end of the season.”

Lap 2⃣

The wheel of 🇬🇧 Cameron Mason after his problems… In the meantime, he’s making his way back to the front!#CXWorldCup pic.twitter.com/ub1rIBfwVx

— UCI Cyclo-cross World Cup (@UCIcyclocrossWC) November 12, 2023

Things didn’t as quite to plan for the other wearer of the British bands in Dendermonde, Cameron Mason, whose impressive start to the ‘cross season (including a silver medal at last week’s worlds) was frustrated by a series of broken spokes early on in the men’s race, which forced him to run to the pit from the very first corner.

Nevertheless, the 23-year-old once again demonstrated his strength by rapidly riding himself back into contention, before eventually fading to 11th, a minute down on winner Pim Ronhaar.

2 things are constant, you can’t control everything but you can control your attitude towards it.
Lost a lot of spokes in the start. Long run to the pits, then catch up game. Came as close to the front as I could then the lights went out.
I know what’s possible, now we wait 😈 pic.twitter.com/9JL7ScZrlp

— Cameron Mason (@camerooney_) November 12, 2023

“Two things are constant, you can’t control everything but you can control your attitude towards it,” Mason wrote on social media after his eventful race.

“Lost a lot of spokes in the start. Long run to the pits, then catch up game. Came as close to the front as I could then the lights went out. I know what’s possible, now we wait.”

It may not reach Braverman or Cameron levels of news worthiness, but one notable casualty (at least to us cyclists) of Rishi Sunak’s not-desperate-at-all cabinet reshuffle this morning is Jesse Norman, Minister of State at the Department for Transport whose responsibilities included, until today anyway, active travel.

Very grateful to the Prime Minister for accepting my resignation. Having laid the ZEV mandate and framed the Automated Vehicles Bill, this is the right time to step down. Looking forward to more freedom to campaign on the River #Wye and other crucial local and national issues! pic.twitter.com/gBPlusDF8K

— Jesse Norman (@Jesse_Norman) November 13, 2023

A self-proclaimed “keen cyclist”, today’s reshuffle brings an end to Norman’s second stint at the DfT, the first of which saw him accused of “headline grabbing hypocrisy” by road.cc contributor Laura Laker for announcing a review into dangerous or careless cycling laws in the wake of the Charlie Allison case.

Just last month, Norman confirmed in parliament that the government has no plans for cyclists to be subject to compulsory registration, pointing out that such a move would “restrict people’s ability to cycle” and “mean that many would choose other modes of transport instead, with negative impacts for congestion, pollution, and health.”

When Luke & G hit the funfair 🤣🤦‍♂️

Get this mad bike to the end wall and win £50.

Drinks on Luke 🍻👏 (and not on G 💀) pic.twitter.com/2KWwBFjYdb

— Watts Occurring (@Watts_Occurring) November 11, 2023

As a cycling commentator, I’d like to express solidarity with political commentators trying to identify middle aged white males in identical kits coming up the road without a visible number on display.

— Ned Boulting 🏳️‍⚧️ (@nedboulting) November 13, 2023

The partner of a rising star of the Irish racing scene killed in a collision with an oncoming driver at the start of summer has spoken out about the “incredibly difficult” aftermath of her death, and said that even before the crash he saw the roads as “like a war zone” for cyclists.

Gabriele Glodenyte, winner of the 2022 Cycling Ireland National Road Series, was killed while training with her partner Seán Landers near Garristown, north Co Dublin, in May. The pair had stopped at the roadside away from each other, with Landers arriving on the scene moments later to see a driver getting out of their car alongside Gabriele’s “really messed up” bike, and the cyclist nowhere to be seen.

In a tragic and moving interview with The Irish Times, Landers recalled finding Gabriele in a ditch and doing CPR during the wait for an ambulance, his motivation for telling his story a desire to see the devastating impact of road collisions laid bare.

Read more: > Bereaved partner of rising cycling star killed in collision warns roads are “like a war zone” for cyclists

After first being spotted on Friday taking in the Colombian soaps during his busman’s holiday at Rigoberto Urán’s gran fondo, Wout van Aert  graciously decided to supply us with even more random pro cycling content over the weekend – by showcasing his best awkward dad dancing skills at a black tie function the night before the EF Education-EasyPost rider’s hotly anticipated Giro de Rigo group ride:

Segura o Wout na pista! 🎥 IG @elgiroderigo pic.twitter.com/ZZJjoIN6DN

— BikeBlz (@BikeBlz) November 11, 2023

Wout for Strictly 2024?

While ‘sadness’ may not be the first word that springs to mind when describing this morning’s cabinet reshuffle, Cycling UK has expressed its disappointment at the resignation of decarbonisation and technology minister Jesse Norman from the Department for Transport, who the charity described as one of the government’s cycling champions.

“We’re sorry to hear Jesse Norman will no longer be championing cycling as part of the government,” Cycling UK’s director of external affairs Sarah McMonagle said in a statement today.

“Jesse has overseen significant changes in the government’s cycling policy – both the past highs and the recent lows. While delivering current policy has been compromised by recent funding cuts, his commitment to cycling has never been in doubt.

“On behalf of everyone at Cycling UK, I’d like to thank him for his work and we hope he’ll continue to be a strong champion for cycling from the backbenches.”

Margot Robbie, eat your heart out…

 

 

 

 

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Folks, Johan Bruyneel has been on his phone again this morning – and he’s been pretty scathing of UCI president David Lappartient’s latest controversial comments on cyclocross riders picking and choosing what events they wish to target (the nerve!), comparing Lappartient’s threat to exclude riders who skip World Cup events from the world cyclocross championships to the actions of puppy-gifting Turkmenistan dictator Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow.

Yep, just a normal day in cycling.

UCI president Lappartient has been fiercely criticised over the weekend for what many perceive to be an attack on the sport’s up-and-coming young star Thibau Nys (son of legendary ‘crosser Sven), who missed Sunday’s World Cup race in Dendermonde citing tiredness following his first full pro year on the road with Lidl-Trek.

(Alex Whitehead/SWpix.com)

“Nys had a bad result at the European Cyclocross Championships and says he is tired, but why would you ride in Niel [the Superprestige event] on Saturday?” Lappartient said in an interview with DirectVélo.

“If you’re tired, you don’t ride. Now Thibau Nys is someone who needs cyclocross, but he is not the only one who ignores World Cups. The World Cup is not a ranking from which you can simply choose to your heart’s content.”

The Frenchman continued: “If a cyclo-cross rider prefers a national competition while there is a World Cup, he will not participate in the next World Cup and therefore also not the cyclocross World Championships.

“The World Cup is not a competition where you can choose what you want to ride. Everyone just has to participate.”

While many on social media criticised Lappartient’s focus on the likes of Nys, while the sport’s two biggest names Mathieu van der Poel and Wout van Aert are yet to even glance at a knobbly tyre this winter, with a limited ‘cross campaign scheduled in for the two multidisciplinary riders at the moment.

“As far as I understand, David Lappartient wants to massacre the concept of multidisciplinary riders, after all. It is inhumane to oblige the Nys-WvA-MvdP trio to do a mandatory 14-round World Cup after 70-80 race days and countless road training sessions at full intensity,” cycling fan Bence wrote.

Former US Postal DS Bruyneel – who knows a thing or two about cycling dictators – went even further, writing on the social media platform this morning: “[The UCI president] starts to show personality traits similar to the former Turkmenistan dictator Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow (whom he awarded the ‘UCI Order’ in 2020, the highest possible honour in cycling!).

“Or is it perhaps possible he is too confused and gives comments in interviews on subjects at moments that, due to his extremely busy agenda (holding an official leading position at 10 different organisations!), he isn’t able to see the forest for the trees anymore? Working 85 hours a week takes its toll on the mind after all…”

Shots fired by the Hog.

Well, it was a fun few hours while it lasted, but the rumours that emerged over the weekend linking currently banned and exiled climber Miguel Ángel López with a move to Ivan Basso and Alberto Contador’s Polti-Kometa team for next season have been definitively quashed by the squad’s Italian boss.

While the Tour de France stage winner’s signature would have cemented the team’s commitment to upholding the 1990s pro cycling heritage of its new title sponsor Polti, Basso – who knows a thing or two about doping bans – today firmly denied the rumours, telling Tuttobiciweb: “We all know Miguel Ángel López is a good rider and a very strong climber, but he was never part of our plans. Within Eolo-Kometa Cycling Team we never spoke about him as a team.”

Basso drives the group, including a young Thibaut Pinot and a struggling Nico Roche, at the 2013 Vuelta (Unipublic:Graham Watson)

So that’s our hopes for a Quintana-López redemption duel at next year’s Giro down the drain then…

The news also means that López’s exile from European racing continues, after the grand tour podium finisher was provisionally suspended by the UCI in July due to a potential doping violation allegedly committed in the weeks before the 2022 Giro d’Italia.

> Miguel Angel López victim of kidnap and robbery

The mercurial Colombian climber was sacked by Astana in December last year after the team claimed that it “had discovered new elements” linking him to alleged doping doctor Marcos Maynar.

These “new elements”, Spanish newspaper ABC reported at the time, relate to a document claiming that López received a dose of menotropin, a human growth hormone that increases muscle mass and eliminate fluids, before the start of last year’s Giro in Hungary, a race he withdrew from on stage four.

López was initially, and briefly, suspended by Astana last July after reports emerged claiming that the Colombian was being investigated for his alleged involvement in a drug trafficking ring in Spain, led by physiologist Maynar, who was arrested in May and charged with crimes against public health, drug trafficking, and money laundering as part of the Spanish police’s Operation Ilex investigation.

López was welcomed back into the Astana fold a few weeks later, and finished fourth overall at the 2022 Vuelta a España. He was eventually sacked when the fresh allegations emerged in December and has spent 2023 dominating the South American racing scene for Team Medellín–EPM until his suspension.

While pro cycling’s new breed of super talents appear to have opted for a monk-like existence all year round, with the winter months punctuated by staggeringly fast runs and stints on the ‘cross bike (more on that later), it’s fair to say that grand tour veteran Geraint Thomas belongs to the more old school variety of bike racer.

Because, when he’s not supporting 5,000 children, many of whom are disabled or from disadvantaged backgrounds, to get into cycling, there is nothing – as avid readers of his According to G series of literary masterpieces will know – the 37-year-old former Tour de France winner loves more than going out on the lash in Cardiff once the cycling season is over.

> Geraint Thomas to support 5,000 children to get cycling by 2028, with projects to deliver cycling programmes to disabled children, young carers as well as for those in deprived areas

“The last two weeks, honestly, I think I’ve been drunk 12 out of the 14 nights,” Thomas, who recently signed a new two-year deal with the Ineos Grenadiers, told the Times recently.

“Since coming back to Cardiff, it’s been mad. That’s the way you meet your mates. Like, ‘Oh, do you wanna catch-up? Yeah, let’s go for dinner, or just go down the pub’.

“I don’t drink during the season, apart from the odd drink, but in the off-season you let yourself go. For sure, the tolerance [to alcohol] is lower at the start, but I feel like I have a good drinking condition now,” he added, which – let’s face it – is the kind of sporting condition most of us are more likely to aspire to during the depths of winter.

“I don’t know if it’s a British, or an Aussie mentality, the culture of just going out and getting drunk when you’re young. That sticks with you and that’s the way I socialise. You go to the pub, meet your mates, have a few pints and go home. And it’s a knock-on effect – you have a few drinks, get the munchies and the next day you’re hungover and you want something salty, bacon or something.

“That blowout – that real normality – is what I need, because now I’m like, ‘Mate, I really need to just get on my bike and get structured.’”

Ah Geraint butt, he really is just like us.

 (Zac Williams/SWpix.com)

“To have those periods of real intensity, focus and dedication from November to whatever the big goal of the year is, to do that I kind of need these blowouts, where I switch off from the whole cycling world,” he continued. “I speak to some cyclists because they are my mates but I don’t think about cycling. I don’t have anything to do with it, really.”

In the interview, Thomas also noted the generational divide that has opened up between the hyper-focused Gen Zers now dominating the pro scene, and the old timers who need to switch off from cycling’s relentless pressures for at least a few weeks a year – a potentially pivotal factor in obtaining the career longevity the likes of Thomas have achieved.

“I feel like I’ve been able to enjoy my time,” he said. “It’s rare now that a young rider actually has a drink. Not that you’ve got to have a drink to have a good time. It just shows the difference in the mentality — everything is measured, and they’re all on it 12 months of the year. Even in the off-season they still ride their bikes or they’re running marathons.”

> Cyclists who run: From Pidcock and MVDP to Yates, Ovett, and, naturally, Chris Froome

Of course, winter blowouts also mean one thing: winter weight gain, something Thomas described as his “old foe”.

He told the Times that he reaches 75kg five weeks into his off-season, seven kilos heavier than his ideal grand tour condition, which he hopes to attain once more in May for another crack at the “tempting” Giro d’Italia, the scene of his agonising last-gasp defeat to Primož Roglič on Monte Lussari earlier this year.

(Zac Williams/SWpix.com)

“Now I’m at my biggest, I avoid the scales,” he says. “When you get older, I think it feels like groundhog day. Here we go again, another year where I’m going to have to knuckle down. The first bit is OK, say when you get to 70/71 kilos. It’s the final kilo and a half which is the hard bit.

“It’s not like you can just do it over a couple of weeks and, bam, it’s gone. That makes it harder. If it was like Ricky Hatton, nail it and then it’s off… it’s the fact that you’ve got to keep it. Even in the race you’re watching what you’re eating. It’s a mental fatigue.”

However, Thomas also pointed out that the days of mental anguish brought about by Team Sky’s penchant for infamous low-carb five-hour rides fuelled by only an omelette are now a thing of the past.

“Having a bit of a crazy diet back then definitely affected your mood, but that’s a big change. We still have a few low-carb rides, but now I tend to fuel the rides a lot more. Then I’m not as hungry off the bike, so I eat less. When you’re riding, that’s when your metabolism’s working and you’re just burning [weight]. That’s the new thinking, it has been working,” he says.

“It’s the last two years that it’s really changed. In most races we are eating 80 to 120 grammes [of carbohydrates] an hour. The mindset is the biggest challenge. Having that old-school approach for so long, you’re now eating quite a lot and to get your head around it was a challenge. Being able to adapt and move on with innovations, that’s allowed me to stay competitive.”