“He’s ready for a rainbow jersey”: Tadej Pogačar records 415 FTP on a 6.5 hour training ride paced by a Vespa as cyclists say “he’s taunting us mortals”; British race dropped from cycling calendar after abbey trust declines to host + more on the live blog

In some of the most bizarre news we’ve read recently there appears to be a new trend online, with Strava users paying people to complete activities on their behalf so they can impress followers with uploads to the ride-sharing app.

> Even if it’s on Strava, it might not have happened — some cyclists are paying ‘mules’ to ride activities for them

“When you want that carb hit but need to be aero”.

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by matt stanbury (GLORIOUS) (@rock_n_donuts)

The already suffering road racing scene in the UK has taken another hit, as the organisers for the Ryedale Grasscrete Grand Prix have announced that the latest edition, held on 18th August, is going to be the last one for the foreseeable future.

The race, held on the grounds of Ampleforth Abbey, North Yorkshire, with two circuits extending out over the rolling Howardian Hills was the 19th edition. It was also the fifth race out of six in British Cycling’s 2024 National Road Series, the next being the Beaumont Trophy in Stamfordham this weekend on 15 September.

Bob Howden, the organiser of the Ryedale GP, announcing the news via a Facebook post, said: “Sad to report that the recent 19th edition of the Ryedale Grasscrete Grand Prix was the last one. The Ampleforth Abbey Trust has decided not to be our hosts again.

“We are however currently looking into other possibilities for Team Yorkshire to continue delivering a high level British Cycling and Lloyds Bank National Road Series Event.

“In the meantime it’s a big thank you to all the staff at Ampleforth, who over the years have helped to keep the show on the road and a shout out to North Yorkshire Council, to North Yorkshire Police and to local suppliers and providers who have never wavered in their support.”

> Latest cycling event cancelled in Richmond Park, as organiser highlights “increased focus on security and logistics of cycling events in public spaces”

Tom Williams of Thriva SRCT wins the 2024 Ryedale GP (Craig Zadoroznyj/SWpix.com)

The Ampleforth Abbey, founded in 1803, is a monastery of Benedictine monks, descending from the pre-Reformation community at Westminster Abbey, and has been the home of the Ryedale GP since its first edition in 2005.

Previous winners of the race include James Shaw, now of EF Education-EasyPost, former world and Olympic champion Nicole Cook, and Olympic track silver medallist Ollie Wood.

road.cc has reached out to the Ampleforth Abbey Trust asking for a detailed reason behind the decision to not play host to the race from next year.

> “A sad day for women’s cycling”: RideLondon Classique cancelled for 2025 as UCI “unilaterally” moves dates “without consultation or prior warning”

Unfortunately, this is far from the first race to be cancelled from the National Road Series in recent memory, with sponsor woes, logistics issues and the cost of living crisis, all playing some part in the racing scene’s downturn.

The Tour of the Reservoir was put on hold in 2023 and 2024 due to “a number of recent operational challenges”. Likewise, the series shrunk in 2023, losing the three-day Manx International stage race and the Stockton Grand Prix.

The Vuelta is over, and that can only mean one thing: Goodbye T-Rex Quick-Step, welcome (back) Soudal Quick-Step.

My Aurchosaurian jokes aside, the Belgian team’s newly double-gilded star Remco Evenepoel has quite straightforwardly quashed any rumours you may or may not have heard about the Olympic champion’s joining of Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, and indicated that he’ll continue to ride for Patrick Lefevere’s team in 2025.

After the final stage of the Tour of Britain, he was huddled around by Flemish media curious about the rider’s future, and asked about any plans of switching teams amidst interest from Red Bull, to which Evenepoel replied: “I don’t know anything about that.”

“So much always comes out without any truth to it. I have no idea what that would be about. I haven’t seen anything myself.” When asked if he will still ride for Soudal Quick-Step in 2025: Evenepoel replied: “That’s a yes.”

In today’s episode of the “weird and bizarre” in cycling, Dan reported of this new trend of Strava users paying people to complete activities on their behalf so they can impress followers with uploads to the ride-sharing app, adding another chapter to the various already astounding ways of rigging rides.

Don’t believe us, we’ve already got a few applicants for the Strava “mule” or “jockey” position. First up is Andrew, who replied on our Twitter post with: “If any Strava user wants to pay me to ride to my local cafe this afternoon, I’m available.”

If any Strava user wants to pay me to ride to my local cafe this afternoon, I’m available.

— Andrew Craig (@GoodClearTweets) September 10, 2024

We’re going to need a little more than that Andrew. How about some FTP numbers and VO2max levels, and don’t forget to share your palmares — all your KOMs and CRs, of course.

It’s gloomy, it’s been pouring down, it’s getting really chilly, and training outdoors is about to become a cumbersome activity… So if Zwift’s your thing, why not join our team and show us what your’re made of (the only downside, for us, is, that you’ll see what we’re made of too).

Here’s the link to enroll yourself and join our B and C team, both in the Open EMEA-W Eastern leagues, which means an 18:45 start in the UK. Dave tells me we’re looking slightly slim on the Category B riders, so if you’ve got a power output of 4W/kg or thereabouts, feel free to join us!

> Virtual racing revamped, more hardware and more roads: here are 6 things you need to know about Zwift as it turns 10

Italian component manufacturer Campagnolo has introduced the new Super Record S Wireless groupset, a second-tier electronic groupset that offers “greater affordability”, a wider range of gears and just 150g more weight than the flagship Super Record Wireless. Priced at over £3,000, it promises to deliver comparable performance for considerably less cash, and is still a “Special Edition” product so we’re told. 

> Campagnolo launches new second-tier Super Record S electronic groupset offering “greater affordability”… and it’ll still cost you over £3,000

A cyclist, who narrowly avoided being hit by an HGV driver who pulled out in front of the rider at a junction on Friday evening, has expressed frustration with the police’s inaction and suggested Leicestershire Police “have shrugged it off” and claim to be unable to trace the driver of a company-branded vehicle.

> Cyclist frustrated by police inaction after being “nearly killed” by lorry driver, as rider told he was in “blind spot” and driver in company vehicle can’t be traced

Not the old school throwback we’re on the lookout for, but still a throwback nonetheless. CERA EPO in 2024? Hmph, amateurs, don’t they know it’s all about clostebol and menotropin now?

CERA, or Continuous erythropoietin receptor activator, or simply referred to as EPO is an endurance-enhancing drug banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), and the latest rider to have been found with an unscrupulous sample with the aforementioned substance is Astana Qazaqstan’s rider Ilkhan Dostiyev.

The UCI Continental team said that it was informed of a possible anti-doping rule violation by the Kazakh rider, with CERA being found in a sample taken out of competition on July 30, 2024.

“Upon being notified of an Adverse Analytical Finding, the rider admitted to using the banned substance, providing explanations to the team and the UCI. Ilkhan Dostiyev was immediately suspended, and his contract was terminated,” the team added.

Dostiyev had previously secured second position in the general classification of the Tour of Rwanda in February this year, while also winning the UCI WR.2 stage-race Tour of Romania in August, just over two weeks after his sample was collected.

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Astana Qazaqstan Development (@astanaqazdev)

Alexandr Shushemoin, Head Sports Director of Astana Qazaqstan Development Team, said: “This news came as a shock and disappointment to us. We trusted Ilkhan Dostiyev as one of the team’s leaders and we had great expectations for him, which are now completely shattered.

“After receiving the information, we promptly contacted the rider and demanded an explanation, which Dostiyev provided, also expressing full willingness to cooperate with the UCI and anti-doping authorities.

“I can state with absolute certainty that Astana Qazaqstan Development Team has no connection to this incident. Our team adheres to a ‘zero-tolerance’ policy, we work continuously with the riders and do our best to ensure that athletes understand not only the consequences of using doping but also the absurdity of attempting to violate anti-doping rules.

“Given that Dostiyev has admitted to the anti-doping violation, the rider has been suspended from racing, and his contract has been immediately terminated. We are now cooperating fully and openly with all organisations involved to clarify all the details of what happened.”

Anyone interested in a new OnlyFans channel? Too soon?

> EF Education-EasyPost rider sacked for transporting human growth hormone makes interesting career change after doping investigation… by setting up OnlyFans account

Morning everyone, here’s a reminder of how insane pro cyclists are… and also why (most of) you and I would never be pro cyclists…

Pogačar who was on a well-deserved vacation after his heroics at the Tour de France that saw him win the yellow jersey for a third time, is back on the bike and preparing for the Grand Prixes of Québec and Montreal coming up this week, before the big showdown to claim bragging rights on the rainbow jersey at the road race world championships in Zürich on 29 September.

And the Slovenian, who was also on a hiatus from social media during his two-week vacation, is back posting on Instagram, and with yesterday’s post, has broken the cardinal rule of never-post-your-numbers on the internet that most pros swear by, giving us the all-important data to crunch some numbers and find out his closely guarded functional threshold power.

His latest post on Instagram (coupled with the ultimate hype song by Indian rapper Hanumankind that’s taken the world by storm) shows the 25-year-old on a 6 hour 20 minutes ride from Monaco along the French-Italian border, paced by a Vespa of all things and apparently joined for a bit by Aussie rider Michael Matthews as well. He shows his Wahoo Elemnt Roam cycling computer a couple of times in the short clip, but the real good stuff lies at the end of the video, when just for a split second, his end-of-ride is visible — most importantly, his training stress score, or TSS.

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Tadej Pogačar (@tadejpogacar)

If you aren’t aware of this metric (I know, yet another acronymic metric that’s not going to have any real impact on my Sunday 50-mile ride but will still have me stressing for no reason), put simply, it’s a way of measuring how much stress is put on the body from a ride, with Garmin’s guide suggesting that a TSS below 150 means recovery for the ride will likely be finished by the next day, while anything between 300 to 450 will likely keep you tired for several days after the ride.

Pogačar’s TSS on the computer was 390, and now with some complex formulae developed by sports scientists, amateur cyclist who’s interested in sports physiology Ryan Rodman has thankfully already done the number crunching, and found that for 6hr 20min ride, Pogačar’s FTP would’ve been somewhere around 415W.

And if the website ProCyclingStats is to be believed, Tadej Pogačar weighs around 65kg, which would mean his Watts per kg would be around 6.5W/kg.

Yep, you read that right…

IF = NP / FTP.

0.785 = 326W / FTP

FTP = 415W.

— Ryan Rodman (@Rodman1_r2) September 10, 2024

Fans have already started speculating that that Pogačar is well on his way to stun the competition once again at the UCI Worlds, although he’s bound to face stiff competition from the likes of double-Olympic gold winner Remco Evenepoel, Biniam Girmay and current men’s champion Mathieu van der Poel.

Mark Collop on Twitter said: “All this says to me is that he is ready for the WC and a rainbow jersey,” while James Hilbard wrote: “I feel like the average person fails to grasp how alien/ insane these kind of numbers are.”

Meanwhile, the Instagram account Blackcyclistsnetwork commented on Pogačar’s post: “Only Pog can make the life of a pro cyclist look fun and painless,” while Alessandro Colorà, speaking for most of us, said: “I think I wouldn’t be able to keep up with you on a Vespa either.”

Former pro cyclist Alessandro Proni who last rode for UCI Professional Continental team Vini Fantini–Selle Italia in 2013 and won a Tour de Suisse stage in 2007, told Pogačar to “never put watts on the reel screen, you might have on your conscience the lives of many people”, to which another person commented: “He’s taunting us mortals”. I don’t think they’re wrong…