I hope you’ve enjoyed the first three stages of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift. Here are my highlights of the race so far…

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🏆 Is Wiebes the Pogacar of the women’s peloton?

Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx Protime) dominated the first weekend of the Tour, winning Stages 1 and 2. It wasn’t a huge surprise — Wiebes is the best sprinter in the world, after all. What was surprising was that Stage 1 actually turned out to be not exactly a sprint day, but a GC day… and Wiebes still won.

If you delete Wiebes (and Noemi Ruegg of EF Education Oatly), the top 10 on Stage 1 is a rundown of the leaders of the major teams: Demi Vollering, Kasia Niewiadoma, Pauline Ferrand-Prevot, Marlen Reusser… they were all there. And yet, at the front, taking yellow: Wiebes.

Wiebes won’t keep winning as we go into the bigger hills (as we already saw on Stage 3), but it just shows what an incredible athlete she is. Wiebes wins sprints on days that aren’t sprints the way Pogacar wins on days that aren’t GC days. Legend.

🕵️‍♀️ The curious case of GC Blasi

UAE Team L’IMAD came in to this year’s Tour with three potential winners: veteran and Giro winner Elisa Longo Borghini, last year’s 4th place Dominika Wlodarczyk, and young star and Vuelta winner Paula Blasi. However, most eyes are on Paula Blasi — and rightly so.

Nevertheless, her team were adamant that she is not their leader. In an interview with In de Waaier podcast she said: "The team’s plans are really clear: we have two really strong leaders and for sure we will be there to support them. [And] No, I am not one of them, we are for Domi [Włodarczyk] and Elisa [Longo Borghini]. This is the team's plan and we will fully commit to that."

Obvs, this has raised some eyebrows. Is it a sneaky strategy to give Blasi more freedom? Is it a way to relieve the pressure on a young rider? Is it a punishment from the team because she is allegedly leaving at the end of the season?

Blasi is currently 2nd of her team in GC (in 13th place) and is leading the young riders classification (a surprise, after the UCI randomly changed the rules). On Instagram she said she’ll “be going all-in” for today’s Time Trial. I can’t wait to see how this pans out… Could she force team leadership by taking time today?

🦵 A bit of a Koch up

I had Franziska Koch (FDJ United Suez), winner of Paris-Roubaix Femmes, down as a potential Stage 1 winner. Instead, she finished in 118th place, losing over 11 minutes. Escape Collective’s Wheel Talk podcast reported that they asked the team car if Koch was sick. The response, apparently, was “Nope, just legs.”

I guess it just goes to show you really cannot be in peak form all season. I hope she’s ok and she can ride into the race.

🥩 Balsamo beef

After a crash disrupted the sprint for some riders in Stage 1, Domestique reported that Elisa Balsamo made this comment to Eurosport: “There are riders who make the same mistakes. If we look at past races, it's always the same person.”

Shots have been fired.

It’s unclear who Balsamo was referring to. Letizia Paternoster (Liv Alula Jayco) went down first, but it didn’t look like the crash was her fault. Honestly, I don’t particularly care who it is, but I do find it interesting that Balsamo is so bothered she’s decided to take her beef to the media.

🍍 Who lives in a pineapple under the sea?

Human Powered Health, apparently. They have been riding special Spongebob Squarepants bikes from their sponsor Factor, while Ma Petite Enterprise have been riding Patrick Star bikes.

Factor Bikes’ Brand Director David Millar said “it’s unexpected and we hope surprising.” Yep.

💐 Super Sigrid

Yesterday, Sigrid Hausget (Uno-X Mobility) won the third stage after an 88km solo ride, holding off the peloton and a pursuit by Lotte Kopecky (SD Worx Protime). After the finish, Hausget said “I haven't been thinking about [winning a stage] because I never thought it was possible. Sitting here, it's unreal.”

“This was the goal for this Tour, the third stage. I called my father; it's his birthday today, and I told him I would get him some flowers today. I was thinking the combative award.”

In the end, her Dad will have no shortage of flowers: Hausget got the bouquet not only for the combativity award, but also the stage win and the yellow jersey. I hope he’s super proud.

It’ll be exciting to see if Hausget can hold on to the yellow jersey in today’s time trial, or if a TT specialist like Marlen Reusser (Movistar) can make up the two minute lead over a relatively short 21km course.

🚨 Bra police

Speaking of today’s time trial, Wielerflits and other media outlets are reporting that riders may face extra checks ahead of the race to be sure they aren’t padding their bras for aero gains.

Wielerflits published an article on Sunday saying riders sometimes appear to have a larger chest size during time trials, with can help with aerodynamics. Ahead of today’s stage, the UCI jury issued a communiqué saying “particular attention will be paid to… accessories worn by a rider… which could modify riders’ morphology.”

These poor women. Of course, I have total faith that the UCI find a way to check this in a non-invasive, dignified, fair way… I have a feeling we’re yet to see the last of this story.

How are you finding the Tour so far? What’s been your favourite story? Any ideas on who will win?

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Catherine xxx

I hope you’re all having a good summer and you enjoyed the Tour de France Hommes. I’ve been having fun hiking and riding bikes and taking the occasional dip in the sea.

We’ve avoided fires in my part of the world, but my weekend plans to visit a friend near Bordeaux have been cancelled — luckily I have a good back up plan, and it involves my sofa, the TV, and watching some super talented women cycle around Switzerland.

Thankfully the outcome of the Femmes isn’t such a foregone conclusion as in the men’s race. The main favourites are Pauline Férrand-Prevot (Visma Lease-a-bike), Demi Vollering (FDJ United Suez) and Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney (Canyon SRAM).

I’d say Marlen Reusser (Movistar Team) is being unfairly slept on as a potential winner, while Paula Blasi (UAE Team L’IMAD) is being hyped too much… it would be a big ask for her to win a second Grand Tour this year, but perhaps I will be proved wrong.

Below, I’ve picked out my winners for each stage. Subscribe and follow along to find out exactly how wrong (or right) I am.

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Stage 1: Lausanne - Lausanne, 138km, flat

This is, in theory, a day for the sprinters, but the punchy uphill at the end means it favours those with some climbing ability. A lot of people are slating Marianne Vos (Visma Lease-a-bike), last year’s Stage 1 winner, to win the first stage again this year. Franziska Koch (FDJ United Suez), who beat her at Paris-Roubaix, should also have a good chance.

Despite all this, I think SD Worx-Protime will be on the hunt for stage wins from day one and will likely take the first yellow jersey. Lorena Wiebes, as the dominant sprinter in the women’s peloton, is the obvious choice, but the kick at the end could also suit Lotte Kopecky. She didn’t look in great form at the Tour of Poland, but she won the green jersey at La Vuelta and will likely have been saving some energy for the Tour.

My pick: Lotte Kopecky (SD Worx-Protime)

Stage 2: Aigle - Genève, 147.9km, Flat

Stage 2 is a more traditional sprint stage, with a flat finish. Riders with a good chance include Elisa Balsamo (Lidl Trek), Charlotte Kool (Fenix Premier Tech), and Noemi Rüegg (EF Education Oatly). I’d love to see Swiss cyclist Rüegg win on home soil, but my head says SD Worx Protime take this one too.

My pick: Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx-Protime)

Stage 3: Genève - Poligny, 156.5km, Hilly

The first hilly stage! The first Category 1 climb! Don’t get too excited though — the biggest climb is very early on in the race, so it’s hard to say whether the GC favourites will make a go of it on this stage or if they’ll just hang on over the first climb and then allow a breakaway to win.

On one hand, GC favourites might want to save some energy for Stage 4’s Time Trial. On the other, it could be tricky for teams to decide who could truly be safely allowed in a breakaway — new GC talents keep appearing almost from nowhere in the women’s peloton.

Either way, it’s likely to end in some kind of reduced bunch sprint. This is not an easy pick, but Dominika Wlodarczyk (UAE Team L’IMAD) won Stages 2 and 3 of Itzulia Women from similar situations. She’s also ostensibly the leader of UAE Team L’IMAD — despite the team including Giro winner Elisa Longo Borghini, and La Vuelta winner Blasi — so I’m guessing she’s on good form.

My pick: Dominika Wlodarczyk (UAE Team L’IMAD)

Stage 4: Gevrey-Chambertin - Dijon, 21km, Individual Time Trial

Stage 4’s individual time trial is a much easier pick. Reusser is the current ITT World Champion, and comes fresh off winning the Tour de Suisse. Vollering is no slouch on time trials either though, so is my back up favourite.

My pick: Marlen Reusser (Movistar Team)

Stage 5: Mâcon>Belleville-en-Beaujolais, 140km, Hilly

This is an odd stage. There’s a lot of climbing, but no Category 1 climbs. There’s bonus points close to the end. There’s a downhill finish.

Like Stage 3, it’s unclear whether the GC riders will allow a break to win or try for this themselves. My guess is they keep near the front, and a big group is still together for the final Category 2 climb. It should be a win for a good climber/descender. Pauline Férrand-Prevot, with her mountain bike background, could be a good bet, but she’ll be riding cautiously, so my money is on someone else known for her descending.

My pick: Cédrine Kerbaol (EF Education Oatly)

Stage 6: Montbrison>Tournon-sur-Rhône, 153.4 km, Hilly

This is the first stage I’m pretty convinced will be won by a breakaway. The evidence: it’s hilly, but not a day for GC riders to make big time gaps; the next day is Mont Ventoux, so GC riders might be saving themselves; and after the time trial and the previous hilly stage, some riders will be far enough back on GC not to be a threat.

Fun potential breakaway riders include Antonia Niedermaier (Canyon SRAM), Paula Blasi or Maeva Squiban (UAE Team L’IMAD), Kristen Faulkner or Cédrine Kerbaol (EF Education Oatly), Marion Bunel (Visma Lease-a-bike), and Célia Gery (FDJ United Suez). However, I’m going to take a wild bet that Puck Pieterse (Fenix Premier Tech) loses some time on GC and then wins this with her excellent cross-discipline descending skills.

My pick: Puck Pieterse (Fenix Premier Tech)

Stage 7: La Voulte-sur-Rhône>Mont Ventoux, 146.8 km, Mountain

Mont Ventoux is a super hard climb. Its 15.7km of climbing with an average 8.8% gradient. This is where the GC will really be decided. The strong contenders for this stage are also the contenders for the overall win: Férrand-Prevot, Reusser, Vollering, and Niewiadoma-Phinney.

There might be a world in which, like on the Angliru in La Vuelta, there are two fights: for the stage win and the GC. If that were to happen, we could be looking at a win from a young climber: perhaps Petra Stiasny (Human Powered Health), Bunel, or even Blasi.

However, this is most likely to be a stage for the GC. Last year’s winner Férrand-Prevot says she has done the climb “quite a lot of times” in preparation, and has tended to deliver what she sets out to achieve throughout her illustrious career.

My pick: Pauline Férrand-Prevot (Visma Lease-a-bike)

Stage 8: Sisteron>Nice, 171.9 km, Flat

Another sprint stage! Or, perhaps, a breakaway. But, with so few opportunities for wins, I think the sprint teams will control this. The obvious pick is Wiebes, but I already chose her so I guess I’ll pick someone else.

My pick: Elisa Balsamo (Lidl Trek)

Stage 9: Nice>Nice, 99.2 km, Mountain

A final chance to make a difference on the GC with four (four!) ascents of the Col d’Èze, finishing with a steeper ascent (averaging 7.6% instead of 5.9%). This would be a great stage to watch in real life. Even at home, it should be really really exciting, especially if the overall win hasn’t been totally decided.

Honestly it’s so hard to pick a winner for this as it will depend so much on how the race has developed up to this point. However, I’m going to guess that Fèrrand-Prevot is far enough ahead on GC after Mont Ventoux to simply not have to worry about winning this to secure her second TdFFaZ win, and it instead ends up being won in dramatic form by Vollering as she tries to secure her 2nd place on the podium ahead of Reusser or Niewiadoma-Phinney.

My pick: Demi Vollering (FDJ United Suez)

Are you excited for the Femmes? Who do you think is going to win? Let me know in the comments!

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Catherine xxx

Saturday 4th July: Stage 1

Ugh I hate Visma so much. They’re still trying to make the “killer bee” thing happen. It’s not going to happen!

Bumblebees are slow though, right? Maybe it is accurate hahaha.

No one talked about my Eminem hair enough. It’s yellow! Like the yellow jerseys! I’m here to win, baby!

Tbf, we didn’t win the time trial today, which I knew we wouldn’t. Visma’s TT bikes are just so much better than ours. God, having sponsors is sooo annoying. Why can’t we just ride whatever bike we want? Like, make it a fair race please?

Urska said not to worry and there’d be more opportunities for me to win, and I was like “ok but when?”

Sunday 5th July: Stage 2

OMG I looooooooove Isaac! Viva Mexico!!!!!

I am totally Mexican now, they gave me a flag and everything, and Isaac said I can probably get a passport too which is awesome, maybe even for Urska too.

Isaac is so cool and hot and good at bike, he’s like a younger version of me.

I let him win today, which was so nice of me, everyone said so. Like I totally could have won? Like it wasn’t hard or anything? But Isaac was so happy and it was a big party with all the Mexican fans, and I didn’t even have to do press cos he did it all.

Isaac is so good at bike, like he could maybe even beat me if he was on another team. I mean he couldn’t cos I’m the best. But we’d have to compete and it would be so boring. This way we get to hang out and it’s so fun :) I told him to move to Monaco.

Got to go, me and Isaac are going to workshop our poses for when we cross the line.

Xoxo Tadej

P.S. NO ONE is getting the Eminem thing enough! Like I am slim and I wear shades. Slim shady! Duh!

Monday 6th July: Stage 3

I won today! Yay! And I got the yellow jersey and everything. Take that, bumblebees.

Winning does feel great, especially today cos there was this dumb breakaway that I guess could have won, but we hunted them down like a pack of wolves, awooooooo!! And my BFF Isaac was so good at the end like he is sooo much better than that French guy people keep saying is sexy, like he’s not even that sexy have you seen his hair?

But then after I won I had to do all the stupid press stuff and they were asking me if I think about the record, and I was like “NO, I don’t think about Mark Cavendish’s 35 stage win record, I only have 22 so I’ll have to wait ages for that”, and they were all like, “Ha! We never even mentioned what record!” And I was like DAMMIT.

THEN some guys in the peloton were whining like “oh, Pogi, you never let the breakaway win”, which by the way, why should I? Winning is literally my job, get over it.

Maybe if they want to win so much they should just get better at cycling, it’s not that hard.

Tuesday 7th July: Stage 4

Dear Diary,

It was sooooo hot today, oh my god. I got a little headache and I was just like “boys, water me!” And all the guys kept going back to the team car and getting water bottles for me and then it was kind of ok.

The break went and then on the radio they were all like, “Tadej, should we chase?” as if it is my job to do team strategy as well as doing bike. But then I really didn’t want to do more press after yesterday, so I was like fuck it lets lose the yellow jersey and then the bumblebees have to chase, not me. I don’t want to tire my boys out.

But then no one else even wanted to chase? And at the end this Norwegian guy had like 8 minutes on me or something? And people started being all like, “Tadej, do you think you can catch him? Was it a mistake not to chase?” And then I had to be all like 1) I don’t care, and 2) Do you even know who I am?

Like Eminem said, “I’m the real Shady.”

Hopefully I get some time back on the Tourmalet though.

Xoxo, Tadej

Wednesday 8th July: Stage 5

Dear Diary,

Had a day off today. I mean technically I had to do a bike ride but it was a sprint day, so it basically doesn’t count. I don’t know why they bother with sprint days really? Like they’re so boring?

The only good thing that happened was at the end I actually got a bit of a gap on the lead bumblebee, and I was like HA take that, but then later they told me I didn’t even get given any extra seconds on GC, which I knew I wouldn’t but I just think everyone ought to notice more that once again I AM BETTER THAN VISMA. Also the French guy. Not that I care, cos I don’t.

I am totally going to show them all in the mountains tomorrow. It definitely definitely won’t be anything like that one time. It won’t it won’t it won’t.

Thursday 9th July: Stage 6

Yayyyyyyyyy!! I won the stage and I got the yellow jersey and I have like soooo much time so now I can just have fun for the rest of the race, yay!

At first the bumblebees were being so annoying, and they all wanted to get in the breakaway so there would be a satellite rider to help Jonas, but me and my boys were just like nuh-uh and we Chased. Them. Down!

Then on the Tourmalet we were like let’s just go as hard as we can and if we blow up, we blow up, YOLO. But then the boys were great and in the end Isaac was SO good, he went so fast that NONE of the stupid bumblebees could keep up and it was just him and me, it was so cool. Then I went, and in the end it turned out he came third on the stage! And he’s third on GC too!

So happy the Tour is done! Phew, what a relief. See you next year.

Xoxo, Tadej

It’s that time of year again. The Tour de France is upon us.

Every year, new people get into cycling just because of the sheer volume of cycling on TV — which explains why Grand Tours last three weeks and each stage is 5 hours long.

Commentary on TV and online likes to make cycling sound like 4D chess. While it’s true that stage racing isn’t just about how fast riders can cycle, I’ve come to realise that stage race strategy is less like chess and more like project management — i.e. not that complicated, but somehow still manages to go wrong 90% of the time.

So, for some reason (too much free time?) I’ve decided to summarise the main “tactics” of stage racing here.

If I’ve missed something please explain it to me in the comments because honestly this is all I see happening.

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The Beginning: Breakaway Formation

The main thing that happens at the beginning of every day of a stage race is the formation of the “breakaway” — the riders that cycle ahead of the main peloton.

If it’s a flat stage, the teams with big sprint hopes – think Alpecin-Premier Tech – will try to control who gets in the breakaway. They will want a big sprint at the end, so they’ll try to stop anyone who might be able to win the stage ahead of the peloton getting into the break.

It’s pretty hard for the breakaway to win a flat stage, so, if there is a breakaway, it’s usually just riders from smaller teams trying to get airtime for their sponsors – think Caja Rural or Cofidis.

Don’t get excited by the underdog story, they almost certainly won’t win.

If it’s a hilly stage, it’s a little more complicated.

Teams aiming for the overall general classification (GC) win, like UAE or Visma-Lease a bike, will be trying to stop anyone getting into the breakaway who could be a threat. If a rider like that does get away, they might send one of their own riders into the break to sabotage them by riding slowly, not taking turns on the front and generally being annoying. I would love this job tbh.

Teams aiming for a top 10 in GC like Bahrain Victorious or Groupama FDJ United could try to sneak their riders into the breakaway too. Other teams will try to stop them or compete with them, depending on what the GC currently looks like. If Lenny Martinez is 10 seconds behind Guillaume Martin, for example, and Martinez gets into the breakaway, Martin would probably try to go too.

Potential stage winners will try to get in the break as well – think Ben Healy (EF Education EasyPost) or Luke Plapp (Jayco Alula). Exactly who will depend on who the profile of the stage best suits.

Of course, the Caja Rurals of this world will be there too, getting airtime for their sponsors.

On a mountain stage, it will be a pretty similar situation to the hilly stages: smaller teams getting airtime, stage hunters, and people aiming to work their way up the GC. However, on big mountain stages, the big GC teams will also often try to send a “satellite rider” into the breakaway (more on them later).

In all types of stages, riders aiming for the mountains classification or intermediate sprint points might get into the break to get those points during the stage. Whether they’ll be allowed will depend on their chances for the stage as a whole.

The Middle: Watching the Clock

There are a few main things that happen in the middle section of the race, once the breakaway has gone but before we’re into the final decisive moments.

Firstly, the teams might try to control the gap to the breakaway. On flat stages, the sprint teams will try to catch the breakaway before the finish. On hilly and mountain stages, the GC teams will try to stop the breakaway getting so much time that they could threaten their riders’ GC standing. The teams will burn through their domestiques to keep the pace up, and protect their potential winners.

Controlling the gap is usually left up to the team with the yellow jersey, except in circumstances where a rider in the breakaway is specifically threatening another team’s GC position. For example, if Lenny Martinez is in 6th place, but has got into the breakaway, and Kevin Vauquelin is in 5th but isn’t in the breakaway, we might see domestiques from Netcompany Ineos riding at the front of the peloton to keep the gap down, rather than UAE.

In the breakaway itself, the question is how well the group works together to stay ahead of the peloton. If a team has more than one rider in the breakaway, they will usually pick which one is the leader and which one will do the work so that the leader arrives fresher at the finish line, which will usually mean riders from other teams will try to ride less too. If there’s a saboteur in the breakaway, they won’t work either, or will do slow pulls at the front. Otherwise, breakaways that all have a fairly equal chance of winning tend to work together fine to keep ahead of the main peloton, taking turns to ride at the front.

Secondly, teams will try to get points for the mountains classification or intermediate sprint points. This can sometimes bring some excitement to the middle of the race — for example on the last day of La Vuelta Feminina we saw Lotte Kopecky sprint for the overall win of the sprint classification before L’Angliru began in earnest.

The final thing that could happen is long range attacks. These are probably most likely to come on hilly stages from stage hunters who aren’t a threat to the GC. Stage 9 this year, a hilly day with a rest day afterwards, is a prime suspect for a long range attack from Luke Plapp or Ion Izagirre.

There’s also the risk of crashes, of course. Unfortunately they can often be decisive at this stage of the race, especially if a favourite gets stuck behind a split in the peloton.

The End: Lead Out to the Line

The end of races pretty much always happen in the same way, albeit at different speeds.

In a bunch or reduced sprint, everything happens super fast. As the peloton approaches the line, the teams start to organise themselves into sprint “trains” — a line of riders, with the intended winner at the back, benefiting from the drafting from the riders in front. The idea is that, one by one, the riders in front go as fast as they can and then pull away, until the leader pops out and makes their final dash to the line, having benefited from their team’s slipstream up to that point.

If this all goes to plan it’s a miracle. Sprints are mostly just a terrifying, lightning speed mess. Often the winner has managed to draft off another sprinter’s slipstream and then got out ahead at the last moment.

If the breakaway is going to win, it will happen much more slowly. As they get towards the finish line, either one person manages to attack and get away solo to win, or they’ll all slow down and start looking at each other to see when to launch their final sprints. The person in second or third place when the sprint starts usually has an advantage here, as they don’t need to be looking behind them, so can react quicker, and might benefit from the slipstream of another rider.

Sometimes they all look at each other for so long that the peloton nearly, or does, catch them, which is very exciting/terrifying. There’s nothing like seeing a whole peloton of cyclists bearing down on two skinny breakaway riders. It’s like when Mufasa dies in the stampede in the Lion King.

If it’s a GC day, in the hills or mountains, teams usually also organise themselves into a lead out train as they go into the final climbs. The domestiques will take turns on the front until the leader finally launches, much like in a sprint train but much, much slower. As soon as one leader launches, the other GC hopefuls have to try and follow them. Then it’s mostly down to who can cycle fastest.

There are two exceptions that can make this more interesting:

• A team has two (or more) GC leaders who can keep up, in which case they can take turns attacking and wear out the other team’s GC hopefuls, giving them an advantage (Visma used to do this with Vingegaard and Roglic, and UAE could do it this year with Pogacar and del Toro)

• A team has a satellite rider in the breakaway, who gets caught and then helps their leader in the final climbs, giving the leader an advantage (we’ve seen Wout van Aert do this for Vingegaard, and this year you could see Adam Yates doing this for Pogacar).

That’s it.

(I think).

Catherine xxx

This week, I’ve been thinking about the Tour de Suisse. I’ve had it on every day in the bike shop where I work, watching the riders go through sunshine and storms, and Marlen Reusser, one of my all time favourite riders, winning the Time Trial and going into the overall lead (yay).

This year, for the first time, the men’s and women’s races happened on the same days, starting and ending in the same places. It’s been widely seen as a positive thing, although the press release announcing the change is honest that it was largely driven by the need to ensure the financial sustainability of the race.

It made me think of the ruckus around Paris-Roubaix Femmes this year, when the race was moved to the same day as the men’s, leading to gutted TV coverage, but much higher viewing figures. From the business side, the decision seemed to be driven by cost, not strategy. From the fan side, the backlash was somewhat undermined by the TV stats.

Nevertheless, all these decisions, and the discussions around them, seem largely based on costs and vibes. I hadn’t seen any real evidence on the impact of combined events on interest in women’s cycling, so I went in search of it myself.

Let’s go back in time. It’s January 2016. The final of the Women’s Big Bash League, a professional Twenty20 cricket league in Australia, is about to get underway. Melbourne Cricket Ground is full of fans screaming for either the Sixers, or Sydney Thunder. The Sixers are on a nine-match winning streak; Sydney Thunder feel like the underdogs, despite being top of the league table.

It’s a tense match, but Sydney Thunder win, taking home the trophy for the first time.

Later the same day, Sydney Thunder also win the men’s Big Bash League, in the same stadium, in front of the same crowds, whose tickets have bought them access to both games — a double-header.

Fast forward to 2025. Salaries in the Women’s Big Bash League have grown from around $3-10,000 in 2016 to an average of $54,000. Average live viewing figures have grown around 46% year-on-year. And the finals of the two leagues were held as single-headers: more than a month apart, at different venues.

In the intervening decade, there had been a mix of single- and double- header matches.

This League might just give us the evidence we’re looking for.

A 2024 study by King’s College London looked at the Big Bash League to measure the impact of hosting women’s matches alongside men’s on levels of interest in the women’s game. To do this, they used a “difference in differences” approach: looking at how the volume of searches for female cricketers had differed before and after both single-header and double-header events.

In the study, the authors note that doubleheader events have been heavily criticised in the past, for “reducing the women’s game to a sideshow,” – a criticism also leveled at this year’s Paris-Roubaix format. Nevertheless, the study found that double-header events – where women and men play on the same day, as part of the same event – had a significant, positive impact on interest in women’s cricket, with up to 27% higher search volumes for female players after combined events.

And, of course, this is good for the sport. More interest in the players means more value for them, for sponsors, broadcasters, hosting venues, and even fans.

So, perhaps that’s the end of the story. If cycling is anything like cricket, joint events, like the Tour de Suisse or Paris-Roubaix Femmes, are better for the sport than giving women’s races their own day.

However, there are two crucial nuances here:

• Timing: The 2015 Women’s Big Bash League final was held as a double-header, while the 2025 final was a single-header. The results of the study didn’t take into account how differences in interest might have changed over time. Once the women’s league grew and became established in its own right, there were fewer combined events. This timing factor is something I’d like to look at more.

• Format: In the Big Bash League, the women’s games were shown in their entirety, even in double headers. The format simply borrowed the men’s audience and infrastructure to build the women’s game up. This is comparable to what is happening in the Tour de Suisse, where organisers have created a festival style event around the races and stream both in their entirety. However, in Paris-Roubaix, the women’s race was simply folded into the men’s slot, cutting costs, but leading to a worse start time, less air time and fewer journalists.

In conclusion, combined events are likely to help build interest in women’s cycling, but only if they deliver the whole product: full broadcast access, clear billing, and the feeling that this is a serious standalone event, not an afterthought.

Combined events should mean men’s and women’s races receive equal resources. And isn’t equality what all this is about?

Thanks for reading,

Catherine xxx

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A couple of weeks ago we shared the first part of this interview with professional soigneur and osteopath, Kaya Simon. That focussed on how she got into working as a soigneur for professional road cycling teams, what the day-to-day is like, and the biggest challenges. If you haven’t read that, you can read it here:

This week, we’re sharing the second half of the interview, where Kaya talks more about the physical side of her work — helping athletes before and after races, and her clinical work as an osteopath.

Before the interview with Kaya, I (Catherine) mentioned it to some of my friends and asked if there was anything they thought I should be asking her. Of course, my friends being the sporty types that they are, they all had questions related to their own training and recovery — you’ll see their influence in the questions.

Kaya was super generous with her time and expertise, so I hope you get as much out of this as I did, and do subscribe to my substack for more interviews and coverage of women’s cycling, and to Kaya’s substack for more from the world of soigneuring and osteopathy!

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Catherine: How is supporting the British squad different to the pro team?

Kaya: I work a lot with the Under-23 squad. It’s nice to be involved with the sport at that kind of level because they don’t have the same level of equipment, so we focus on getting the basics right, which a lot of cycling is lacking nowadays. We can get so bogged down in supplements and aero socks and all these really minuscule things that sometimes we can forget about the basics.

C: What kind of basics are you working on?

K: A solid sustainable fueling strategy is a really big one. Like I said, people get so bogged down in taking all the newest supplements and cherry juice and lactate buffers and bicarb and all these kinds of things. It’s easy to get wrapped up in all of that without focusing first on just hitting your carb goal in a sustainable way.

I also have the opportunity to teach them some basic activation exercises before a race as well. Mountain biking is a little bit more dynamic, so there’s definitely a lot more scope for giving them a proper warm up.

C: Ok, I actually have some quick-fire questions on training and recovery. First, stretching. Do you recommend it before and after cycling?

K: Stretching isn’t detrimental (unless you’re a bit hyper mobile), but it’s also probably not going to be that beneficial.

Beforehand, I would recommend an activation: low-weight, high repetition kind of stuff (with a band or just body weight) as opposed to stretching. If I had to pick one or the other, I’d say activation over stretching, for sure.

Usually what’s best after cycling, particularly for pros, is a cool down where you do a really easy spin. You just keep the blood flowing instead of just completely stopping all activity, which can cause you to stiffen up quite a bit. I guess stretching might do a similar kind of thing.

C: Foam rolling. B******* or legit?

K: I wouldn’t say b*******. I would say it’s probably not that effective. If it makes you feel better, go for it. I don’t think it’s going to do you any harm, but I don’t think it’s going to provide much benefit either, unless you feel really good afterwards.

C: Ice plunge or hot shower?

K: Hot shower, I think. Just get the blood flowing. An ice plunge is alright, but maybe it depends. There’s a joke in osteopathy that an osteopath’s favorite answer is it depends, which is very true.

C: What does it depend on for you?

K: Anything that I do in terms of treatment, anything that I prescribe, I say to people it has to be sustainable for you and you have to want to do it. If something makes you feel better and it’s not harmful, I don’t see a problem with it. If it’s placebo and it works, it’s not placebo.

C: Massage gun versus a proper massage?

K: Oh, massage. Again, it’s personal preference, but I’m not a fan of massage guns. For me personally, they’re very blunt. It’s almost just desensitizing your skin. You feel better because you’ve just desensitized the area so much that it’s not going to feel stiff anymore.

We do have a gun that we keep on the bus just in case, and we have one rider who doesn’t like getting massages and prefers to use compression boots.

C: Ah! Do you have views on compression boots? Do they work?

K: You know what? I’m quite a big fan of them because they’re easily portable, so you can take them around anywhere. And they’re just another tool, right? For people who don’t like massage, who don’t like to feel sore the next day, I think those compression boots are great.

C: AI training plans. Good or bad?

K: I actually wrote a substack about this. But the short version, I guess, is that they need to be used within the context of your life, and it’s very hard for you as an individual to be objective about your life and what you need and what’s good for you, especially while you’re also training for some big goal. And I say that speaking from experience.

I think the technology is amazing, but you need to be able to see the big picture. I don’t like it when some people say, “oh, you just need to have common sense, and if you don’t feel good, don’t do the program.” It’s not always that easy.

Kaya's Substack

More Data, More Training… More Injuries?

Over the pat year, I’ve noticed a steady stream of people coming into clinic while training for endurance events — marathons, Ironmans, ultras, Hyrox. And typically, if someone’s come to see me, it means something has already gone slightly off track…

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7 months ago · 4 likes · 2 comments · Kaya Simon

C: Yeah, I liked what you wrote about that. It was particularly interesting that you said people can often bounce from one AI training plan to the next and they don’t get the blocks of recovery that they really need.

K: Yeah, absolutely. Back when I was working in the clinic, we saw a massive boom in the number of people that were running since COVID. It was incredible. But I would say 95% of people that I would see in the clinic with running related injuries had never spoken to a coach. If they were using any kind of program, it would be from an AI platform.

It’s so easy to just do a bit too much. It’s hard to tell yourself to stop when you feel like what you’re doing is benefitting you, until it’s too late and you’ve got an injury.

C: What would you say the main mistakes are that people make in recovery, apart from not doing it? People seem to think about training a lot more than they think about recovery.

K: Definitely. Nutrition is a big one. The amount of energy that you’re expending and the amount that you’re taking in is a fine balance. Women particularly don’t always get it right. Also just being mindful of sleep as well is a massive one.

The main pillars of recovery and rehab are good quality sleep, good exercise, and good nutrition. Those are your foundations and they sound really really simple. But to actually do those three things right is not easy.

Different things work for different people, but sometimes it takes a bit of trial and error. If you want to be fit and active and healthy and do a lot of training, it’s not easy.

C: It’s easy to underestimate, I think, especially with social media. You see so many people running and cycling all the time and you can think, oh, why not me as well?

K: Yeah, I think sometimes people aren’t as honest with their audiences as they should be. You’re looking at athletes or influencers that are sponsored by brands to go to four different marathons in a year. And they’re being paid to do these things, or they’re being helped out by brands. That will make your life a million times easier when you’ve got to train six days a week.

C: I really wanted to ask you about women in sport. How is the physical profile of a female cyclist different in terms of injuries and vulnerabilities? Do you see differences?

K:I don’t work with a women’s team so I don’t get to see it from that perspective. But if I look at what I see day to day, women are a little bit more prone to overuse injuries, particularly knee, foot and ankle injuries. That’s because women have higher levels of estrogen and relaxin that make ligaments a bit more lax. Women are also naturally a bit more flexible, so that can put you at risk of anterior knee pain.

One thing that maybe not a lot of people are aware of is that women are prone to more and more severe concussions. Women have less muscle and they have smaller necks and smaller bodies. Women also tend to have more cognitive symptoms of concussions. Things like “I just don’t feel right”, feeling mentally foggy, or having memory loss. There also seems to be a higher rate of post-concussion syndrome in women: concussions that take a long time to heal. [Note: Kaya later wrote a post on concussion in cycling, do read it!]

On the positive side of things, women have more estrogen which means they metabolise fats at a different rate, particularly at moderate intensities. So we tend to see that actually women are better at endurance sports at moderate intensities. Rachel Entrekin won the [ultra trail race] Cocodona 250, and she smashed the men’s record as well. The more women we get participating in endurance sports, the more we’ll start to see that women are as, if not more capable.

C: Yeah. And now Lael Wilcox is trying to get the fastest known time for cycling around the world.

K: Yeah, exactly. There’s definitely differences in male and female physiology that we don’t know enough about yet. I think about Kristen Faulkner [professional road cyclist on the EF Education-Oatly team], who has a background in computer science and is trying to train AI models based on her data as a female athlete. We need more people like her to be speaking about it and pushing for more research because there was a growth, and then people kind of got complacent. But actually, there’s still so much that we don’t know yet about women’s performance and women’s sport.

I think it’s an exciting time to be in that field, and it’s something I definitely want to do more of — more working with female athletes and more on women’s health and performance — it’s massive.

C: That’s it in terms of my questions. Thank you so much!

K: Thank you. I enjoyed that!

Thanks for reading! This interview has been edited slightly for length and clarity, we hope you enjoyed it.

Let us know what you think in the comments. What would you like to hear more about from Kaya? Who else would you like to hear from in the world of cycling?

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xxx

That’s exactly what I heard about when I spoke to professional soigneur (and trained osteopath) Kaya Simon. Our chat was so wide-ranging that I’ve decided to publish it in two parts: this week’s covers Kaya’s journey to become a professional soigneur, and her experience working with road cycling teams, while next week’s will focus more on our discussions on training, injury and recovery in cycling.

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But first — what exactly is a soigneur?

Every cycling team, whether a professional road team like UAE, or a national team like British Cycling, has a team of staff supporting the riders. This includes directors, coaches, mechanics, and, for the bigger teams, doctors and nutritionists.

But the most important — and overlooked — job is that of a soigneur (pronounced swan-yer). Except for actual bike maintenance, a soigneur is responsible for nearly every aspect of the team’s daily life and performance support. “It’s all-encompassing,” said Kaya. “We’re like a medic and a counselor and a nutritionist and a massage therapist all in one… we do everything.”

Kaya had an unconventional path into cycling. After a BSc in Sports Rehabilitation at Nottingham University, she studied for an MSc in Osteopathy, before beginning clinical work, largely with athletes from rugby and football. She hadn’t even considered working in cycling, until a surprise suggestion.

“My dad, who’s kind of obsessed with cycling, jokingly — or maybe not joking, I don’t know — said, “Oh, you should look into being a soigneur.” And I had no idea what that word was. I didn’t know anything about cycling… then I looked into it and I was like, “Yeah, it seems quite cool.””

But Kaya found the UK’s cycling industry to be quite elusive. “It’s not easy to get in if you don’t have a foot in the door, and I had nothing. I knew no one.” Luckily, Kaya’s network eventually worked for her — the ex-coach of a triathlete friend from university knew the coach of a new men’s road cycling team, and had heard she was looking for support staff. That team turned out to be what is now Unibet Rose Rockets, the team founded by ex-pro cyclist and YouTuber Bas Tietama.

Working at Unibet Rose Rockets was a “wild journey.” The Rockets started in 2019 as a YouTube channel. By 2024, when Kaya joined, they were in their first year as a UCI ProTeam (the level below UCI WorldTeams like UAE and Visma-Lease a bike) — established, but still relatively small.

“Starting off at that level was really good,” says Kaya. “Back then they only had a camper van and two race cars and it was a very small squad. I didn’t really know what I was getting myself into.”

The Rockets have been clear about their goal to get to the Tour de France. But going from not existing in 2022 to racing Grand Tours in 2026 (they are currently competing as a ‘wildcard’ team in the Giro d’Italia) takes a toll on the riders and the staff. “They’re very honest that it’s been difficult to keep up with the amount of growth they’ve had.” The team are currently running three separate squads to maximise their exposure, in what is known as a ‘triple programme.’

At the end of the 2025 season, a friend of Kaya’s who also used to work for the Rockets said her boyfriend was riding for a new team. “She said, “They need someone. Do you want to maybe look into it?”” According to Kaya, this kind of word-of-mouth recruitment is not uncommon. “Everyone within the cycling world knows each other,” she said, “often the jobs come up and they’re not really advertised… you just see the same faces at the same races. You’re in a completely different part of the world, and you’re like, “Oh, hey, I saw you back in France last week and now we’re in Turkey.””

Kaya left the Rockets at the end of last season and now splits her time between working as a soigneur for the new team — UCI ProTeam Modern Adventure Pro Cycling — and supporting British cycling squads at events including the Mountain Bike and BMX World Cups.

For Kaya, Modern Adventure’s approach is a stark contrast to the Rockets. “When I spoke to them [Modern Adventure], they were like, “you know, we want to just focus on developing the guys. We’re not worried about results. We’re not worried about points. We want to just have a single European program. Take it easy.””

Kaya is enjoying the change of pace in her first season with her new team. “I definitely miss some of the craziness at the Rockets,” says Kaya. “The success they’ve had is immense. It’s really cool to see.”

One thing that struck me in my chat with Kaya is how difficult Brexit has made it for riders, staff and teams from the UK to race in Europe. As a UK national, Kaya can only be in the EU for 90 days out of 180, and is often pushing these limits. “When I worked for Unibet [Rose Rockets], it was such a foreign concept to them. They were like, “What do you mean you can only be here 90 days in 180 days? What does that mean?””

It’s not just Kaya who’s had problems with working in Europe. “A lot of teams won’t hire British staff because it’s too much of a headache for them… Ineos, for example, although it’s a British team, doesn’t really hire many British staff because they want people that will do the full calendar.” Even bringing the British squad and bikes across the border into Europe requires hours at the border to fill out customs declarations.

Being a soigneur is still something Kaya would recommend; it is, despite everything — a lot of fun. As a trained osteopath, Kaya is almost over-qualified for the job. For the most part, the only things you need are certificates in sports massage and food safety, a driving license, and — most of all — common sense and initiative.

And if a rider turns up with two left-handed gloves and you don’t have any spares?

“Just tell him to turn one inside out.”

Thanks for reading. Remember to watch out for part 2 next week, to hear Kaya’s thoughts on training, injury and recovery in cycling.

Check out Kaya’s substack here — it’s really great!

Catherine xxx

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In this weeks newsletter: my reflections from La Vuelta Feminina, plus a round up of the news from the week’s cycling.

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Reflections from La Vuelta

This time two weeks ago, I was following the final stages of La Vuelta Feminina around Asturias. I’ve been reflecting on the experience for a couple of weeks now, and I wanted to share with you what it’s like to follow a Grand Tour for the duration — the travelling, the spectating, the reporting — but I haven’t been quite sure what to say.

I could tell you what a feat of endurance it was just travelling all that distance by car, let alone also riding your bike.

I could tell you how at times I felt creepy, how no one else followed the whole race who wasn’t in some way employed by it, how I recognised everyone but knew no one.

I could tell you how little I saw of the places I visited, and yet how I made core memories there: Mischa Bredewold and Lotte Kopecky sprinting past me in Astorga to get first and second place, sheltering from a huge thunderstorm in Asturias while watching the live feed, descending Les Prares de Nava with the pros — and trusting their lines on the wet and windy roads, the whole experience of the Angliru.

I could tell you how proud I felt just to finish the climb to Les Praeres de Nava on Stage 6 of La Vuelta, how much it tested my fitness, strength, and gravel gearing, how the next day I only cycled half way up the Angliru but regretted it, how I desperately want to go back.

I could tell you how it feels to wait for the race. The signs and barriers go up early in the morning, then there’s a long period of waiting. Workmen lounge by their vans, smoking. People mill around the finish area. TV crews look for good places to film their segments. It’s quiet, a racecourse without a race. Then suddenly the peloton is coming, the riders at the front whizz past, sometimes at 40 or 50 km/h, and everyone is clapping and shouting in support.

I could tell you how surprisingly long it takes for the whole race to come through. That’s the part you don’t see on TV: the domestiques who’ve done their job and are chatting as they finish the climbs, or encouraging each other to the finish, “we’ve come too far to give up now.” Sometimes you clap for them even more than the riders at the front.

I could tell you how quickly the race is dismantled once it’s over. The last rider comes through, and workmen immediately start dismantling the race. By the time you’re driving out of the town it’s as if it never happened — children have taken the discarded bottles, the barriers have been packed up by forklift, the race organisers have taken the signs down, and they are, like you, already on their way to the next day’s stage.

But what really stood out to me is how great it is to see support from so many fans.

Our part of the sport is growing.

You see it in the numbers of people asking for photos at sign-on, the small children asking for autographs, cheering the riders as they set off.

You see it in the crowds at the finish lines.

You see it in the hundreds of people that climbed Les Praeres de Nava or the Angliru.

You see it in the children in their favourite team’s kit, begging the riders for bottles.

And yes, you see it in rowdy fans getting too close to riders, trying to push their bikes on climbs, or shouting in their faces — all things we’re used to seeing in the men’s side of the sport, but which hit different when the rider in question is a 21-year-old woman. As the sport grows, fan management will need to be addressed urgently.

But the majority of the fans were there for one thing: to see these athletes complete spectacular feats of endurance.

And we were rewarded oh so well: by Lotte Kopecky’s comeback, by Petra Stiasny’s ascent of the Angliru, by Paula Blasi’s amazing dominance.

This Grand Tour felt like a turning point for women’s cycling. New talents emerged. New climbs were submitted. A new era was welcomed in.

I can’t wait to see how it develops.

If you want to join me, please consider subscribing to follow along, or if you already subscribe, like and comment to help my writing reach more people.

And if you’re thinking about going to watch a race live? Please do. You won’t regret it.

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In the news this week

EUSKAL HERRIA

Road racing continued in this part of the world.

• Finally: Itzulia women finished on Sunday, with Mischa Bredewold (SD Worx-Protime) doing a spectacular effort to get back to the front group on a descent in the third stage to secure the overall victory, after coming second the last two years. Yara Kastelijn (Fenix-Premier tech) was the runner up, while Dominika Włodarczyk (UAE Team ADQ) won the second and third stages.

• Moving on up: Taking the final spot on the podium was up and coming Scottish rider Lauren Dickson (FDJ United-SUEZ). Since we thought Juliette Berthet and/or Evita Muzic would be the leaders in this race for FDJ, this was a bit of a surprise. Dickson, like Paula Blasi (UAE Team ADQ), is a former runner and triathlete. It’s her first year in the WorldTour, so it will be exciting to see how she progresses.

• All she does is win: Speaking of Blasi, she took the win in the first division race Durango-Durango here in the Basque Country on Tuesday where fans were out in force. Tadej Pogacar’s agent, Alex Carera, apparently wants Blasi to become the first female cyclist to get a salary of €1 million a year.

USUAL/UNUSUAL

• SD Worx dominate: Lorena Wiebes won the first two stages of Vuelta a Burgos, and Mischa Bredewold won stage 3. Wiebes is winning the overall classification going into the final stage today.

• Mixing it up: Mountain Bike Marathon World Champion Kate Courtney raced in Czechia, not in Nove Mesto… but in a road race! She won stage 4 of the Tour de Feminin for USA cycling, and came 3rd in the points competition in her first ever road race. Read about it on her substack.

THE POWER OF PUCK

• Vuelta a Barro: Speaking of Nove Mesto, Puck Pieterse (Fenix-Premier Tech) returned to mountain biking this weekend and scored a convincing win in the XCC. Let’s see what she can do in the XCO!

• Crashing out: Alessandra Keller (Thomus Maxon) had a huge crash in the XCC which also affected Jolanda Neff (Cannondale Factory Racing), who’d been looking super strong in the race up to that point, and Evie Richards (Trek - Unbroken XC). In classic women’s racing style, the crash got replayed from about 7 different angles. STOP IT.

That’s all folks! See you next week,

Catherine xxx

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In this week’s newsletter, I’m going to give you a little update from the Basque Country, catch up on the last week or so’s racing and take stock of how the Women’s World Tour teams are doing so far this season.

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Basque Country dispatch

I’m enjoying being back in San Sebastian. Highlights from this week have been seeing my cats again, getting back to my semi-regular Adamo tortilla habit (one of the best tortillas in town, after Bar Antonio), and drinking natural wine at Bar Material.

On the content side, I’ve been enjoying: Kaya’s post on how to sync your cycle training with your menstrual cycle; the Cycling Podcast’s coverage of the Giro; and the second series of Escape Collective’s excellent Overnight Success podcast.

Itzulia women is the main event over here. The peloton had a rainy start on the first stage from Zarautz to Zarautz, won by Mischa Bredewold (SD Worx-Protime). Bredewold has history in this race — she’s won the first two stages of the three day race for the last two years in a row. She was hoping to do so again this year, but she was just beaten to the line in stage two by Dominika Wlodarczyk (UAE Team ADQ) — the Polish rider’s first ever World Tour win.

Stage 3 is a loop from San Sebastian, and goes over two of my favourite climbs: Jaizkibel and Mendizorrotz. It’s more suited to climbers, so we might see some changes on the General Classification, currently led by Bredewold.

I watched the departure of Stage 2 in Abadiño on Saturday morning and there were, of course, huge cheers for the Basque riders Usoa Ostolaza (Laboral Kutxa-Fundacion Euskadi) and Paula Ostiz (Movistar). World Champion Magdeleine Vallieres (EF Education-Oatly) got mobbed by small children asking for her autograph and photos, as did Lianne Lippert (Movistar) and Ostolaza. As for me, long-time readers will know that as far as I’m concerned, the biggest star there was this woman:

In the news this week (ish)

FALLOUT FROM LA VUELTA CONTINUES

Angry-loo: I’d like to believe that La Vuelta really proved that women’s cycling needs to be taken seriously, but sadly we got news this week that there will be no Tour de Romandie Feminin this year. There were lots of reasons cited, including a lack of sponsors, and a lot of other races in the area (including the Grand Depart of the Tour de France Femmes), but still… the men’s one went ahead.

• Luckily, Paula Blasi (UAE Team ADQ) is definitely being taken seriously following her win at La Vuelta. Escape Collective reports that a low (€100,000) buy-out clause in her contract means a team could easily pinch her. “Blasi could go from making near the minimum to €800,000-€850,000, putting her in the top 6 best-paid riders in the peloton,” reported Abby Mickey.

• After abandoning Stage 6 of La Vuelta, Neve Bradbury (Canyon SRAM zondacrypto) has announced she is going to have iliac artery surgery.

STAR POWER IN THE GRAVEL WORLD

Road rage: Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx-Protime) won Marly Grav, Tiffany Cromwell (Canyon SRAM zondacrypto) won SEVEN, and Cat Ferguson (Movistar) won (jointly) the Traka 100. Leave some space for the gravel specialists, maybe? Still, Sofia Gomez Villafañe (Specialized Off Road) won the Traka 200, so there’s still some hope.

MOUNTAIN BIKING IS BACK

Slip ‘n’ slide: The first MTB World Cup took place in Mona Yongpyong, Korea, two weeks ago. The XCO race drew a lot of criticism — unable to withstand heavy rainfall, the circuit (a new one for 2026) become more of a trail run, with riders having to push their bikes through slick mud. Cyclists including Jenn Jackson (Orbea Fox Factory Team) have criticised the organisation.

• Sina Frei (Specialized Factory Racing) took the win in both XCC and XCO races - she said she’d had to run a lot over the winter due to injury, so maybe that helped. Jenny Rissveds (Canyon XC Racing) came second, and an excellent Madigan Munro, who has moved from Trek to Liv Factory Racing this season, came third.

• Valentina Höll (Commencal Schwalbe by les Orres) was once again dominant in the downhill. Unfortunately Tahnee Seagrave (Orbea FMD Racing) suffered an elbow injury and will be out for a few weeks.

• Puck Pieterse (Fenix Deceuninck) is set to compete in the next World Cup in Nove Mesto — it will be exciting to see what she can do after a packed cyclocross and Classics seasons.

Midseason Stocktake

Now that all the Classics are out of the way, along with the first Grand Tour of the season, it seemed like a good time to take stock of how the Women’s World Tour teams have performed so far this season.

The Women’s World Tour calendar is absurdly front-loaded. As the recent Cyclist’s Alliance report points out, a third of all race days are in the 35 days between 3 May and 7 June, and nearly 70% happen before July. So it’s not crazy to call this midseason.

In the first half of this season, some teams have been punching above their weight, and some might be a little… disappointed. Let’s take a look.

THE WINNERS

• UAE Team ADQ are obviously smashing it. Paula Blasi won La Vuelta. That alone would be huge, but the team also won two major Classics — Amstel Gold Race with Blasi, and Trofeo Alfredo Binda with Karlijn Swinkels.

• FDJ United-Suez has been on a winning streak, and have shown they are much more than just Demi Vollering. Vollering has had a ton of victories though, including Ronde van Vlaanderen, Liège-Bastogne-Liège, La Flèche Wallone and Omloop Nieuwsblad. But it was Franziska Koch winning Paris-Roubaix that really wowed us this year. Plus, Elise Chabbey won Strade Bianche, and the duo of Juliette Berthet and Evita Muzic looked good at La Vuelta. They are stacked.

THE PUNCHERS

• Human Powered Health exceeded expectations purely through Petra Stiasny’s win on the Angliru. They’ve only had one more win this year, but who cares?

• Movistar have had two big wins, with Marlen Reusser getting the gold in Dwars door Vlaanderen, and the young Carys Lloyd winning Ronde van Brugge. Quality, not quantity.

• EF Education-Oatly will likely be pleased with their showing — they won the Tour Down Under plus two stages of La Vuelta. Their socials are also 10/10.

THE AVERAGE

• AG Insurance-Soudal Team, Lidl-Trek, Liv-Alula-Jayco and Fenix-Premier Tech are all doing ok. A couple of wins here and there. Some agonising second places or good chances. Some exciting riders (Shari Bossuyt, Fleur Moors, Monica Trinca Colonel and Puck Pieterse, respectively). Not much to write home about yet.

THE LOSERS

• Picnic PostNL and Uno-X Mobility both haven’t had a single win this year, and are sitting below pro teams in the UCI team rankings. Are you ok, huns?

• Visma-Lease a bike also haven’t had a single win. While there have been some stand out performances (Marion Bunel at La Vuelta, Lieke Nooijen at Dwars door Vlanderen), their big stars, Marianne Vos and Pauline Ferrand-Prévot, have so far not delivered, and the two of them lost to Franziska Koch at Paris-Roubaix.

• Canyon//SRAM-zondacrypto have only had a couple of wins, at Vuelta a Extremadura. Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney had an agonising string of second and third places at the classics, and looked isolated at La Vuelta. Their sponsor, zondacrypto, is enveloped in scandal. If I were there, I’d jump ship now.

THAT JUST LEAVES…

SD Worx-Protime

I would love to know what this team is making of their season so far.

On the one hand, they got three stage wins, second on GC and the points jersey at La Vuelta. Lorena Wiebes won In Flanders Fields. Lotte Kopecky won Milan San Remo.

For any other team, that would be great. But for this team…? They used to dominate.

They might well have expected Anna van der Breggen to win La Vuelta. They likely also expected Lorena Wiebes to pick up a couple more wins, for example in Ronde van Brugge, which she won last year. They might have expected Lotte Kopecky to pick up more victories too — after all, she’s a former winner of Ronde van Vlaanderen, Strade Bianche, Paris-Roubaix, Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and the UAE Tour.

If happiness = reality - expectations, this team might not be that happy.

Let me know if you agree or disagree in the comments. Have a good week!

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Catherine xxx

Hi everyone!

I’m writing this from my home in the Basque Country, after the most intense and emotional of days, a day where we welcomed in a new era of women’s cycling.

Today, Petra Stiasny (Human Powered Health) took the stage win on the first ever women’s race on the Angliru, while new Spanish superstar Paula Blasi (UAE Team ADQ) won the overall victory at La Vuelta Feminina. The big stars of previous years — Anna van der Breggen (SD Worx-Protime), Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney (Canyon//SRAM-zondacrypto) and Pauline Ferrand-Prevot (Visma-Lease a bike) — were relegated to supporting roles, as the younger women stole the show.

I cycled from the bottom of the Angliru climb up to about a kilometre after the real ‘rampas' inhumanas’ started. I can confirm the ‘easy’ first part of the climb is indeed manageable, but after yesterday’s experience I couldn’t quite face more than a kilometre or so of >20% gradient climbs… maybe next year!

I also thought — after yesterday’s experience — that might be where we started to see GC action unfold. How wrong I was!

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What happened on today’s stage?

If you haven’t seen it, it really is worth watching at least the final 25km of today’s stage, or at least the highlights or final kilometres on YouTube. The top line is: the Angliru delivered. Whoever finally decided to include this in the women’s race made the right decision: we got GC drama unfolding in buckets, and the race lead changed multiple times over the course of the climb.

Here’s a quick rundown:

• Lianne Lippert (Movistar), and sisters Femke Markus (SD Worx-Protime) and Reijanne Markus (Lidl Trek) made up today’s doomed breakaway

• Lotte Kopecky (SD Worx-Protime) and Franziska Koch (FDJ United-Suez) took the final intermediate sprint points, meaning Kopecky won the points competition overall

• The breakaway were still ahead at the beginning of the final climb of the Angliru, but with nearly 13km of climbing, there was plenty of time for things to change

• Lippert held on the longest, until around 6km to go. She was chased down by a select group of mountain riders, including Stiasny, Blasi, Anna van der Breggen and Valentina Cavallar (SD Worx-Protime), Marion Bunel (Visma-Lease a bike), Juliette Berthet (FDJ United-Suez), Urška Žigart (AG Insurance Soudal), Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney (Canyon//SRAM-zondacrypto), Usoa Ostolaza (Laboral Kutxa-Fundacion Euskadi) and Gaia Realini (Lidl Trek).

• As Stiasny attacked, only Blasi, van der Breggen, Berthet, Bunel and Cavallar could go with her. Lippert was caught and passed.

• At about 4km to go, the young frenchwoman Bunel made a huge attack! Only Blasi could go with her (barely). Stiasny and Berthet looked like they might be in trouble, and van der Breggen was clearly suffering and dropped back!

• But Bunel must have gone too hard, because soon Blasi caught her, and went into the lead not just of the stage, but La Vuelta overall — she’d gone into the day second in the overall standings behind van der Breggen

• BUT Stiasny (not a threat for the overall race lead) slowly caught Blasi and passed her, and pushed ahead to get the first ever win on the Angliru

• Crossing the line shortly after her, Blasi won La Vuelta Feminina overall and took the red jersey (the first time a Spanish woman has done so!)

• Blasi also won the Queen of the Mountains competition, and Bunel, who crossed the line 43 seconds later in fourth place, won the young rider competition.

Best moments from the day

• Paula Blasi winning La Vuelta Feminina: Let’s be honest, noone had really heard of 23 year old Blasi until a few weeks ago. Last year she was still on UAE’s development team. Now, she’s won a Grand Tour, beating the likes of Anna van der Breggen, Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney and Pauline Ferrand-Prévot. She was emotional at the finish. I felt emotional, too. A new GC star is born.

• Petra Stiasny’s getting a surprise win on the Angliru for Human Powered Health: There’s just so much to like here. Stiasny is only 24 and a relatively unknown rider. It’s Human Powered Health’s second win this year. Nobody could have predicted this. But Stiasny’s been excited about this climb since it was announced (I think she might have been the only one). What an amazing story.

• Pauline Ferrand-Prévot doing domestique duty for Marion Bunel: After yesterday, leadership of Visma-Lease a bike switched to 21 year old Bunel, who was ahead of Ferrand-Prévot. The Tour winner seemed genuinely happy for Bunel, and worked hard for her on the lower slopes of the Angliru. Lovely.

• Feeling like we were watching the future of women’s cycling: Stiasny is 24. Blasi is 23. Bunel is 21. They’re just getting started. These are the future stars of the sport. I can’t wait to watch their careers unfold! How exciting!

• The weather holding off until just after the race: The peloton got to go up the Angliru in the dry, which was great — thunderstorms would have made this climb even more miserable. But just as I got to the bottom (a while before the peloton), a huge thunderstorm broke. Thank you weather gods for waiting! (P.S. The peloton will have had to descend back down 15km or so on wet roads to get to the team buses in La Vega — I hope they all made it down safely).

• A huge day for Spanish cycling: A Spanish woman winning La Vuelta is HUGE. Blasi is going to become an instant celebrity here. But it wasn’t just Blasi doing well for this funny collection of places that calls itself a country: Basque rider Usoa Ostolaza (Laboral Kutxa-Fundacion Euskadi) came fourth overall, which is a big result for the team. Mavi Garcia (UAE Team ADQ) was 22nd in her final year as a pro, and Mireia Benito (AG Insurance Soudal Team) came 25th. Mireia is also a star — she is well worth a follow on Instagram for her excellent blogs.

• Seeing the next generation get inspired: There were LOADS of spectators on the Angliru today, including quite a few children. I was near a very little girl (maybe about 5 or 6 years old) who was there with her dad, and it was so lovely to see her so excited for all the riders. Lianne Lippert was her favourite, but she recognised lots of them (with the help of dad), and even Lotte Kopecky cracked a smile when she shouted for her. I bet she’ll remember this day for a long time!

What were your favourite moments? Let me know in the comments :)

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After the race I had a four hour drive home in thunderstorms, so plenty of time to reflect on everything. I have lots of thoughts, but I’ve gone on enough here, so I’ll share them another time. My heart is very full, but my legs and brain are tired.

Thank you for joining me over the last week. It’s been a real pleasure to share all these experiences with you all. I hope you’ve enjoyed La Vuelta as much as I have, and I hope you’re as excited as I am about the future of women’s cycling. Just like the weather on the Angliru yesterday, it’s looking bright.

Over and out,

Catherine xxx

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Today was my absolute favourite day of La Vuelta so far, despite getting lost, doing 3.6km of some of the hardest climbing I’ve ever had to do in my life and getting caught on a mountain in a thunderstorm. This is probably somewhat to do with the exercise…

BUT its also because we finally got a mountain day!

Yes, after five days of sprinting, which was honestly getting a little tedious, we got a day that made a difference to the overall race lead. And what a surprise we got!

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What happened in the race?

Today was the day we found out that Anna van der Breggen is BACK. She won convincingly on the 3.6km climb of Les Praeres de Nava, storming into the race lead, and dropping pre-race favourites like Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney and Pauline Ferrand-Prévot like hot potatoes. This is a woman who, in 2021, retired from cycling. Ha. Ha.

Here’s what happened:

• There was, of course, a doomed breakaway of four riders. Obvs the peloton brought them all back anyway. This was a GC day, baby!

• There were more crashes. Notably: Paula Blasi (UAE Team ADQ) had to spend a lot of the day chasing after an early crash; her teammate Maeva Squiban had to abandon; and Lotte Kopecky (SD Worx-Protime) was caught behind a crash.

• While Kopecky was catching up, and before the breakaway were caught, there was an intermediate sprint. The first four sets of points went to the breakaway, but Franzi Koch (FDJ United-Suez) sprinted for the last points, to try and close the gap to Kopecky in the sprint/points/green jersey competition. However, Kopecky’s teammate Mischa Bredewold OUTSPRINTED Koch to stop her. I told you intermediate sprints might become exciting.

• Then the climbs started! Kristen Faulkner (EF Education-Oatly) led out Cedrine Kerbaol, who was leading into the final climb. But she went too hard too soon (I can relate), and was caught by van der Breggen, who was followed by Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney (Canyon//SRAM-zondacrypto), Marion Bunel (Visma-Lease a bike) and Blasi(!). Van der Breggen dropped Niewiadoma-Phinney with 2.8 km to go, and only Blasi could stay with her (ish).

• Finally van der Breggen won the stage, with Blasi coming in only EIGHT SECONDS behind her. Bunel came third and went into the lead of the white jersey/young rider competition.

Things that made me happy!

• Vikings: Uno-X mobility, the scandinavian team, have a reputation on the men’s side for excelling in horrible wet, windy, cold conditions. Today ticked all those boxes, and Katrine Aalerud got a top 10. The team also seemed very well represented in the earlier groups coming through. The female vikings also viking!

• Paula Blasi, future superstar: She came second! After crashing and having to chase all day! She was only 8 seconds behind AvDB! Can’t wait to see what she can do tomorrow!

• Viva España (eta Euskadi): Blasi came second. Usoa Ostolaza came 11th, only 1’09” back. Mavi Garcia was 25th. Mireia Benito was 35th, which is still pretty damn good out of 112 riders. Every time a Spanish rider goes past me I get to use all my Spanish encouraging phrases, plus some Basque for Usoa.

• Supersonic youth: I LOVE to see Paula Blasi doing so well, and Marion Bunel too! It’s like we’re getting to see the next generation arrive right in front of us. So much fun! Pick a favourite now and enjoy fandom for the next 10 years.

• MORE TOMORROW: The Angliru is basically like today’s climb but doubled. You’d think whoever did well today will do well again tomorrow, but, who knows? What if someone overdid it today? What if someone just has a great day tomorrow? ANYTHING could happen! (Well, sort of).

• (Also…more at the Tour: PFP and Kasia fans should not despair. We don’t want them to peak for La Vuelta, we want them to peak for the Tour. This might all just be part of the plan).

How was my day?

I thought you’d never ask.

I drove to Nava this morning, skipping Gijon, had a delicious four course lunch at a Sidreria there during a big rainstorm, then headed off on my bike when the rain stopped. Did I plan a route? No, of course not, I just followed the race signposting.

What I didn’t realise is that the race went through Nava twice today, in two different directions. And guess what? I went the wrong way. After about 10km, I realised I should be at the finish by now, or at least started a horrible climb. I checked the map and reversed. Whoops.

Luckily it wasn’t raining, though the descent into the final climb was a bit terrifying. The peloton went through it when it was even wetter, and I was surprised noone crashed, though as one of the organisers pointed out to me, they are professionals.

This was drummed into me even more when I began the climb. After a while, I thought I should definitely have seen the 3km marking by now. It was very steep and my four course lunch was threatening to come back up. Maybe they weren’t doing the kilometre markers today?

Spoiler: they were.

I had to walk some parts of (most parts of) the climb between kilometres 3 and 2, because it was so steep and so hot and I was carrying all my (seemingly unnecessary) wet weather gear plus my four course lunch in my stomach and I was regretting it all.

I did finally make it to the top though! Yay! It felt like such an achievement just to get there.

Then I headed down to just before the 1km mark to watch the race, because you could see all the way down to the 2km marker, which I thought might give me a chance of seeing some action unfold.

While I was waiting, and watching on my phone, there was a HUGE thunderstorm. There were a few of us who had cycled or hiked up and were watching there (a nice change from sprints finishing in towns, where there were a lot of curious passers by), and we all huddled together and shared umbrellas and race info. It was a nice vibe actually. At this point I was VERY glad I brought my wet weather gear.

Luckily the worst of the storm had passed by the time the riders started to come past, though it was still raining. No chance of seeing action happen — Anna van der Breggen already had a huge lead. Paula Blasi got huge cheers from everyone. Then we started to get the riders just trying to make it up the climb. A few made faces to us of how horrible it was (we already knew!), or made jokes. Some of the riders towards the back really seemed to be really suffering though — it’ll be interesting to see if there are many that don’t start tomorrow.

I was a bit terrified to cycle back down the, now very wet, climb, and I walked a bit, but I ended up cycling with two Lotto Intermarché riders, and two AG Insurance Soudal Team riders (the team buses were also in Nava) which was nice, because I could just follow their lead on the descents. Fun!

Will I cycle the Angliru tomorrow? Absolutely not. But I’ll be watching!

Buenas noches,

Catherine xxx

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Catch up on Livin’ La Vuelta Loca

Hi everyone and welcome back to Livin’ La Vuelta Loca!

Today Lotte Kopecky (SD Worx - Protime) gifted the win to her teammate Mischa Bredewold in a sprint to the line in Astorga, in the fifth stage of La Vuelta Feminina and the FINAL SPRINT DAY (hooray!). Letizia Paternoster (Liv-Alula-Jayco) managed to come third, despite a crash earlier in the day.

Then, the teams and I all headed off on the transfer to Asturias. It’s beautiful here, but I didn’t arrive til about 8pm, so I’ll keep this short.

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What happened in the stage?

• Five riders got into the doomed breakaway of the final sprint stage, including three Spanish riders: Sara Martín (Movistar Team), Idoia Eraso (Laboral Kutxa-Fundación Euskadi), and Marina Garau (Vini Fantini-Bepink). They were joined by Aniek van Alphen (Fenix-Premier Tech) and Alice Coutinho (Mayenne Manbana My Pie).

• Coutinho picked up the most QOM points and goes into the polka dot jersey tomorrow. Once the last QOM points had been collected, she dropped back, leaving three riders in the break (Garau had already been dropped).

• With 27km to go there was a crash which took down four riders including Paternoster and Marthe Goosens (AG Insurance-Soudal Team). Paternoster did a huge effort to get back to the peloton, helped by teammate Josie Talbot.

• The breakaway managed to take all the bonus seconds at the intermediate sprint, but Kopecky and Franzi Koch (FDJ United-Suez) sprinted for the last points, with Kopecky narrowly beating Koch. The breakaway were caught soon after.

• With about 1.4km to go, rain failling as the teams were trying to organise their lead out trains for the sprint, there was a crash that brought down riders including Anna van der Breggen (SD Worx-Protime).

• Bredewold opened up the sprint, apparently leading out for Kopecky, but when Kopecky saw they were leading comfortably, she eased off.

• Bredewold won the stage, and Kopecky stays in the red and green jerseys, with Koch second in both categories.

Just a little takeaway

• It seems as though Bredewold’s win was the plan, based on her post-race interview. Nice!

• Today was the final sprint day, and Kopecky is leading the points competition by 11 points. Stages 6 and 7 both have intermediate sprints though, so Koch could still take the green jersey. Let’s see how it goes!

• I’m really enjoying Mayenne Manbana My Pie making the QOM competition their thing on these sprint days. They’ve held it for two days in a row now, and although I’m sure they will lose it once the mountains stages start tomorrow, it means they’ve had lots of podium time. It’s difficult to make a mark on a Grand Tour as a small team, so good for them.

• Fenix-Premiertech seem to be underperforming on this Tour. Their best placed rider is Lotte Claes in 22nd place, followed by Yara Kastelijn (presumably their leader) in 41st.

• No major G.C. action today… roll on tomorrow!

Field notes

• There were much fewer children today in Astorga, but lots of pilgrims doing the Camino who seemed to have no idea what was going on. One chap asked me where I thought “the girls” would be drinking tonight, and I should text him to let him know.

• Spanish AG Insurance-Soudal Team rider Mireia Benito has been vlogging La Vuelta on her Instagram. Today she asked her teammates which riders on other teams had impressed them this Tour. A few of them said they’d been impressed by how certain riders had worked to control the peloton; Urška Žigart said Aude Biannic (Movistar), Ashleigh Moolman Pasio said Megan Jastrab (UAE Teeam ADQ), and Benito said Julia Kopecky (SD Worx Protime). We don’t get to see this much on the live stream, so its nice to know.

• It will have been a late-ish evening for the cyclists tonight too… I was near the Visma-Lease a bike team bus almost the whole way after the stage (at one point it tried to overtake me then decided against it), so they’ll have arrived late too and be eating late etc. Asturias looks promisingly mountainous though!

Safety first

After yesterday’s debacle with the barriers, the organisers had clearly decided to take safety more seriously…

Exhibit A) This flimsy rope should definitely stop any barriers getting knocked over, right?

Exhibit B) Got to make sure we stick these Skoda signs down to the floor really well (there was still a corner flapping up)

I just feel like they should have got this stuff sorted by now, after years of experience of men’s and women’s races.

Ok, that’s all folks,

Buenas noches,

Catherine xxx

P.S. Here are the team buses beneath the Palacio Gaudi in Astorga. Up there with one of the best team bus parking spots this week!

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Catch up on the rest of Livin’ La Vuelta Loca

Hi everyone,

I’m writing this just after the finish of Stage 4, where Lotte Kopecky (SD Worx-Protime) finally got a win!

I was pretty near the barriers that fell down about 150 metres from the finish line. They were in front of a gap in the houses on the street, and a gust of wind just sent them toppling over — there weren’t any fans around. Luckily no riders were hurt.

It doesn’t look great for La Vuelta, who have been criticised on safety before (particularly after the 2023 men’s Team Time Trial). But actually I was impressed at how quickly they responded — the policeman on the motorbike got there almost immediately and was able to direct the riders around the obstacle, and by the time the riders arrived there were several people pulling the barriers back up.

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What happened in the race?

Another doomed breakaway today, on a day where it finally wasn’t raining. The peloton must have been relieved, and this was the first day where there were no notable crashes and nobody had to abandon.

The riders in the breakaway were Annelies Nijssen (Lotto-Intermarché), Marine Allione (Mayenne-Monbana-My Pie), Lauretta Hanson (Lidl-Trek) and Marta Jaskulska (Human Powered Health). They managed to get a lead of about 3 minutes.

At about 13km to go, Jaskulska attacked, taking Hanson with her but dropping the other two. They were ultimately caught about 2km from the finish line, which must have been heartbreaking for them.

Then SD Worx-Protime started organising for the sprint, with Mischa Bredewold, Nienke Vinke and Anna van der Breggen setting Lotte Kopecky up in a good position going into the final two corners.

Kopecky won the sprint, with van der Breggen coming second and Letizia Paternoster (Liv-Alula-Jayco) taking third.

Steaming hot takeaways

• This was a huge win for Kopecky, who’s had a frustrating few days. “The last two days were not so lucky; every time something went wrong, so today the motivation was really high,” said her teammate van der Breggen. “If for three days you are really close but not getting it, then we were really motivated to get a stage victory.”

• In a great coup for small team Mayenne-Monbana-My Pie, Allione picked up the most Queen of the Mountains points today and has gone into the lead of that competition, ahead of Maeva Squiban (UAE Team ADQ) and Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio (AG Insurance-Soudal Team). She’ll wear the polka dot jersey tomorrow.

• Kopecky and van der Breggen now have some precious seconds on their GC rivals. Most of the main contenders are now 26 seconds behind Kopecky and 6 seconds behind van der Breggen. This could make a big difference when it comes to the big climbs of the final two days.

• Franzi Koch (FDJ United-Suez) has a nine point lead in the green jersey competition, securing an extra 2 bonus points today in the intermediate sprint. Kopecky is in second place, and tomorrow will almost certainly be another sprint day, so expect that to be an exciting finish! (My money is on Kopecky).

• As for the FDJ United-Suez race leaders, it turns out Juliette Berthet had a mechanical yesterday — she wrote on Strava that she thought she just wasn’t doing so well, then realised after the race that her wheel wasn’t turning properly. She’s sitting 2’06” behind Kopecky, while Evita Muzic is in 6th place, 22” behind, so I’d imagine she’s now their sole leader.

Outside the race

• Daniel Benson has reported on his Substack that Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney is on the verge of signing for Lidl-Trek. Tbh this would be a great move for her. It’s a strong team, and Kasia looks increasingly isolated at Canyon//SRAM-zondacrypto, without riders to support her. Not to mention the fact that zondacrypto isn’t a thing anymore, so her team has a big funding gap.

• The organisers didn’t do a great job of organising today. The team parking wasn’t where it said it would be in the road book and I saw team cars getting lost. The podium was almost impossible for the public to access. Oh, and the barriers fell down. It was all just a bit chaotic.

• Antas de Ulla is a pretty small, sleepy village, but the road here from A Coruña took me through Melide, a famous stop on the Camino de Santiago. Despite being far-ish from the coast, it’s famous for octopus. Apparently it’s actually better, or more tender, for being frozen to travel and then defrosted. I ate at Pulpería Ezequiel, where the speciality is pulpo a feira — galician-style octopus — a simple dish of octopus with olive oil, paprika and sea salt. They also had a cyclist on the wall…

• At least two people I’ve spoken to here in Galicia have told me I need to try the local wine, specifically Godello, rather than the more famous Albariño grape. I ordered a glass of it at dinner last night and the waiter was visibly pleased. It’s nice — the glass I had was a little sweet, with apple, citrus and mineral flavours, kind of like a cross between a Riesling and an Albariño.

• Finally, I thought these Human Powered Health bikes were scratched, but no — the paint job is just designed to make them look like they are! Seems like an odd choice to me, but ok.

More tomorrow from the final (!) sprint stage. And then… mountains!

Catherine xxx

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Catch up on the rest of Livin’ La Vuelta Loca

Hi everyone and welcome back to Livin’ La Vuelta Loca!

I’m writing this from sunny (!) A Coruña, on the day where I met Tour de France winner Pauline Ferrand-Prévot and absolutely did not act cool. I asked her for a photo, then said “I’m a mountain bike fan!” She said, “thank you.” (She no longer competes in mountain biking).

The photo is so bad (of me) that I shall never share it anywhere.

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What happened in the race?

There was a doomed breakaway today! Fun!

Sadly the doomed breakaway wasn’t from a small local team, but Felicity Wilson-Haffenden from Lidl-Trek and Sterre Vervloet from Lotto Intermarché. Wilson-Haffenden stayed ahead of the peloton until only 15km to go. Well done her, Lidl will be super happy. Think how much broccoli all that airtime is going to help them sell.

Once the peloton had caught the breakaway, there started to be attacks:

• Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney (Canyon//SRAM zondacrypto’s leader) went shortly after the break was caught (why, Kasia, why?? Save your legs for the Angliru!)

• Kristen Faulkner (EF Education-Oatly) attacked with about 12km to go, cue lots of commentary about her being the Olympic Champion. ALSO apparently Faulkner’s been using AI to help her train… so was this a robot-brain move? If so, robot may need more data, as she eventually got caught.

• Finally, Cédrine Kerbaol (also EF Education-Oatly) took a flyer with about 2km to go, and managed to hold on until the finish (Yay!)

• Lotte Kopecky (SD Worx-Protime) came second, and Sarah van Dam (Team Visma-Lease a bike) came third, which is great for a team who lost their main sprinter, Marianne Vos, after she broke her collarbone in the first stage and still finished seventh (no, I’m still not over that).

Key takeaways

• Kerbaol’s win must be so nice for EF Education-Oatly after then-red jersey Noemi Rüegg’s crash yesterday. It’s really been a rollercoaster of emotions for the team this week. But if there’s one thing you can say about EF, it’s that they are never boring.

• Not so much can be said for the general classification. There was no major drama for the main G.C. favourites. Niewiadoma-Phinney, Ferrand-Prévot, Kopecky and van der Breggen are all safely within 18 seconds of Franziska Koch (FDJ United-Suez) who is still holding the race leader’s red jersey.

• Urška Žigart (AG Insurance-Soudal Team) is also still safe at 18 seconds back, despite being involved in a crash today(!). Keep an eye on her.

• BUT Juliette Berthet (FDJ United-Suez) is nearly two minutes back. I thought she was meant to be FDJ’s G.C. lead, but maybe it’ll be Evita Muzic?

• Paula Blasi (UAE Team ADQ) is still leading the Spanish classification technically, but her teammate Mavi Garvia and Usoa Ostolaza (Laboral Kutxa-Fundacion Euskadi) are both on the same time as her, so it stays interesting!

Field notes (a.k.a. my personal emotional rollercoaster)

• Worrying: On my way to Padron this morning, I listened to Escape Collective’s Wheel Talk podcast, which featured an interview with Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney (listen on a podcast app or read more here). In it, Kasia says, “I think that personally, for me, the biggest stage race is the Tour. And I know that the more I suffer on the longer climbs, the better I get over time… The goal is to do the absolute best every single day, not only wait for the last stage, but try to steal some seconds here and there.” I do get this, but, honestly, I want Kasia to save her matches and then smoke everyone else on the Angliru.

• Inspiring: At the start line in Padrón, there were dozens of school children waiting for the race to start, wearing the Carrefour hats being handed out and banging on the barriers. I spoke to one of their teachers, who said he thought it would be good for the children—especially the girls—to see the race. The children in question seemed more interested in getting on TV, but maybe it inspired them deep down. There were lots of children at the finish in A Coruña too, collecting team branded bottles.

• Surprising: The big stars were all surprisingly gracious about taking photos with fans at the team presentation in Padrón. In fact, the only rider who I saw ignore requests for photos was Lotte Kopecky. No judgement here, it’s absolutely within her rights to do this, but I did wonder if it said anything about how relaxed or not she was ahead of the stage. I hope she gets a win at some point this week.

• Australing: Liv-Alula-Jayco brought an inflatable kangaroo to the team presentation, just in case we forgot where they’re from.

• Guarding: I’ve never bothered to go to the podium at a stage race before. It’s quite weird. Whoever is being given a jersey gets helped into it by a woman, who zips it up at the back, while a man stands awkwardly in front of them. What is the purpose of this man, I wonder? It looks like he’s a dad at the beach trying to save the riders’ dignity, while they essentially put on a jacket. Any ideas?

Back tomorrow. We’ve got another day that could be a sprint, or a reduced sprint, or a breakway. Personally I’m hoping for either a fun breakaway win, or some random G.C. action. A girl can dream.

Buenas noches,

Catherine xxx

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Catch up on the rest of Livin’ La Vuelta Loca

Hi everyone,

I’m writing this from Bike-ingham Palace, where I’m eating a very Spanish 10pm supper of (slightly less Spanish) sardine pasta. The Galician rain, which has been off and on all day—huge downpours followed by the sort of sunshine that makes you wonder why you wore a jumper —is currently thundering down on my roof.

Yes, I’ve made it to Galicia. I’m near Gundias, which the peloton went past today on their way towards San Cibrao das Viñas. It’s really beautiful around here, hilly and green (well it would be green with all this RAIN).

The big news this morning was that Marianne Vos (Visma-Lease a bike) is out with a broken collarbone. My brother broke his collarbone when he was a teenager, and the doctor told him it was one of the most painful bones to break. Vos broke hers, got back on her bike and came seventh in a stage of La Vuelta. I wonder what was going on? Adrenaline from the crash? Denial? Pure stubborn-ness? I’d love to get some insight, because I’m pretty sure I’d have curled up in a ball and refused to ever get back on a bike again.

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What happened in the stage?

Most of Stage 2 unfolded relatively uneventfully. A breakaway did manage to escape today, but they were kept at a manageable distance and reeled in with a pretty long way to go. Then, there started to be some more moves: Lidl Trek, Franzi Koch (FDJ United-Suez), and Katrine Aalerud (Uno-X Mobility) all had a go, but ultimately were all reeled back.

The worst news of the day came with around 10km to go, when red jersey (race leader) Noemi Rüegg (EF Education-Oatly) crashed and brought down white jersey (best young rider) Eleonora Ciabocco (Picnic PostNL). Ciabocco was able to finish the stage two and a half minutes back, and is now seventh in the young riders classification. Rüegg has had to abandon, with a reported fractured shoulder.

As the group went into the final climb, there began to be attacks. I was watching near the top of the final climb, about 1.4km before the finish line. When I stopped looking at the live feed, SD Worx-Protime were in a train on the front. But by the time the riders came past me, it was Juliette Berthet (FDJ United-Suez) leading, with Anna van der Breggen (SD Worx-Protime), Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon//SRAM - zondacrypto), I think Paula Blasi (UAE Team ADQ) and some others in a big group.

Despite the attempts from the GC hopefuls, it all came back together for a final sprint. If you haven’t seen it, go and take a look on YouTube. Eurosport or TNT usually post the last few kms. It’s worth a watch.

Ultimately Shari Bossuyt (AG Insurance - Soudal Team) won the sprint, after something happened that made Kopecky seem to lose a pedal and veer off to the side. Kopecky has since been relegated.

What a win for Shari Bossuyt though! AG Insurance-Soudal Team weren’t at all guaranteed to get a win on this tour, so I bet they’re celebrating this evening. Bossuyt has had a hard time of it in recent years, with a two-year ban for testing positive for a banned substance that even the relevant doping agency confirmed was unintentional (and which doesn’t have any performance enhancing benefits itself), so it’s nice for her to get a win here.

Rounding out the podium were Franziska Koch (FDJ United-Suez) and her teammate Evita Muzic. Koch takes the red jersey after also coming third in yesterday’s stage.

For anyone else keeping track of the Spanish classification, Paula Blasi (UAE Team ADQ), Usoa Ostolaza (Laboral Kutxa-Fundacion Euskadi) and Mavi Garcia (UAE Team ADQ) are all on the EXACT SAME TIME (16 seconds behind Koch). Exciting stuff. Usoa looked like she might be in with a chance on the final sprint for a minute, too.

Field notes

Here is some high-quality on-the-ground reporting for you:

• There are quite a lot of spectators. Nothing like any men’s race I’ve been to, but a lot more than the women’s races I’ve been to before. I saw a rider throw her empty bottle to a small girl. We love to see it.

• I saw Kopecky cooling down at the team bus at the end of the stage and she looked furious. Of course, its hard to tell how much that was me projecting based off what I’d seen on the live feed, versus someone’s normal face when they’ve just ridden 100km and they’re trying to cool down in peace. The UCI have relegated her to the back of the sprinting group, and whether or not you agree with that, of course you’d be pissed. It looked like a really good stage for her and everything was going so well. Luckily she’ll have plenty more opportunities this week.

• I also saw Pauline Ferrand-Prévot at the Visma-Lease a bike bus, and once again was reminded how much of a pro she is. The vibe around her is of someone just doing her job really well. She’s the cycling equivalent of a neatly ironed shirt and a firm handshake. Get me to the prediction markets (jk).

• I know we know, but its striking how much less money there is in women’s cycling than in the men’s. This was mainly clear in the paddock. Most big men’s teams have a really fancy bus. Even the Rockets have a bus now (it’s SD Worx-Protime’s old one, actually). The women’s teams though… not so much.

Cast your vote: Which is the saddest team bus?

Exhibit A) Laboral Kutxa-Fundacion Euskadi — This bus has been through it. It has so many dents all over it. What was it in its past life?

Exhibit B) Vini Fantini Bepink — Not a bus. I thought someone had got confused on their way to the campsite.

Exhibit C) Lotto — Smaller campervan plus your dad’s old people carrier

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I’m considering starting a crowdfunder.

Local colour

After the race I headed to nearby Ourense for some well-deserved R&R after all my hard-hitting journalism (see above). Galicia apparently isn’t volcanic, but there are a lot of hot springs around. Lobios, where today’s stage started, and Ourense, where it ended (San Cibrao das Vinas is practically a suburb of it) are both known for their thermal waters.

I had a nice wallow in some eggy-smelling warm water at Termas Outariz, next to the Miño river. I’d recommend it, eggs aside, it’s just lovely to sit outside in bubbling hot water surrounded by greenery. It started to rain, and then the sun came out, and a rainbow arched over the river. It’s moments like this that remind me what’s really special about the Grand Tours—it’s not just a bike race, it’s an exploration of a whole, diverse country, with endless corners to explore.

Okay, it’s late and I’m getting soppy. More tomorrow (Padrón pepper day!),

Catherine xxx

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Hi everyone and welcome to Livin’ La Vuelta Loca!

I’m writing this sitting in a bar in a small town just outside Leon…

I absolutely intended to make it to Galicia for the first stage. You know, even though it was a sprint I thought it might be exciting to see the first red jersey won in person.

But things started going wrong before I even left. For Reasons, I couldn’t leave til this morning. So, I got up bright and early to try and make it to Galicia in time.

After two hours, I realised I’d forgotten to bring a raincoat. It’s forecast to rain all week.

After four hours of driving, I had to make the choice between driving 2-3 hours in the rain to hopefully catch a few seconds of sprint, or stop, watch the race online, and then go for a sunny bike ride.

Sadly I also got rained on during the bike ride.

I WILL BE THERE TOMORROW. I promise.

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I did however buy some wine from the Rias Baixas area the peloton was riding through today, and I can confirm it was delicious.

What happened in the stage?

The peloton also had to cope with rain today, setting off from Marín in wet and windy conditions. No breakaway managed to form, and after a hotly contested intermediate sprint (won by Franzi Koch of FDJ United-Suez), the peloton went into the last 25km together, with rain falling again after a respite in the middle of the race.

With about 10km to go there was a crash that brought down quite a few riders including Marianne Vos (Visma-Lease a Bike), one of the favourites for the sprint. Lots of team mates were deployed to try to bring Vos back to the front group, while her teammate Pauline Ferrand-Prévot ended up in a (ultimately doomed) five-rider breakaway, and then stayed at the front alone to protect her own position for the General Classification. Finally, Vos was unable to catch up, though she was very close.

In the final kilometre, Koch launched the sprint, but it was Noemi Rüegg (EF Education-Oatly) who ultimately won the stage and the first red jersey, ahead of Koch and Lotte Kopecky (Team SD Worx-Protime).

Key takeaways

• I’m calling it now: Ferrand-Prévot is going to win La Vuelta. It may not sound like the biggest call, given that she won the Tour last year, but I was doubtful because a) she has said her big target for the year is to win the Tour again, and b) she wasn’t showing the best form in the classics. But in today’s race she looked like she was absolutely on it, she stayed close to the front the whole time and at one point it even looked like she might be able to win the stage. She is the clear leader for her team, not riding for Vos.

• The weather is going to be a main character. Yes, with climate change this is increasingly the case in Grand Tours. The rain already caused crashes today (although it looked like the riders were mostly ok), and it’s likely to continue this week. It’s impossible to believe a weather forecast for this part of Spain more than a couple of days in advance though, so who knows? I’m just saying, the Angliru is bad enough already without rain. (AND what a shame it would be if the stage got shortened for bad weather!).

• The competition for the green jersey might actually be exciting. I am a Bad Cycling Fan, because I do kind of think sprints are boring. But this Vuelta is one for the sprinters, with the first five stages all potential sprints, so I’m going to have to get on board. Luckily, it might be fun. A few riders — notably Rüegg, Koch, Letizia Paternoster (Liv-Alula-Jayco) and Loes Adegeest (Lidl-Trek) — look like they’re really going for it. Intermediate sprints, not just wins, will be important in deciding the final green jersey classification. Yay. (Fwiw, I’m backing Koch).

• Paula Blasi (UAE Team ADQ) is—unsurprisingly—winning the Spanish classification. She’s in 13th place. Her teammate Mavi Garcia is 19th, and homegirl Usoa Ostolaza (Laboral Kutxa-Fundacion Euskadi) is 24th. Name a more iconic trio.

• EF Education-Oatly is great vibes. They’re fast becoming my favourite team. They’re obviously the coolest. Their helmets are kind of terrible though, the three holes at the front make me think of how children draw hair.

Ok, I’m signing off now before I make any more predictions, I don’t think my soothsaying powers have been right once. If I’d lived in the olden days I’d never had have to worry about being burned as a witch though, so that’s good.

More tomorrow, if I survive the night in the Palace.

Catherine xxx

Here’s the deal. Every Friday, around 40 of the top riders race the XCC — cross-country short-track (or short-circuit). This is a sprint of a race. It only lasts about 20 minutes and the course consists of several laps of a not-too-technical course. It’s a discipline in its own right, but it’s also a key part of the weekend: how the riders do in this race determines their start positions for the cross-country Olympic (XCO) race on Sunday.

Sunday’s XCO race lasts around an hour and 20 minutes, with the riders completing five to seven laps of a technical circuit featuring long, steep climbs; rooty and/or rocky technical sections; and tricky downhills featuring drops and jumps.

This year, the series kicks off in Mona Yongpyong, South Korea, before coming to Europe for most of the summer, and finishing in the United States in the autumn.

1-3 May - Mona Yongpyong, Republic of Korea

22-24 May - Nové Mesto na Morave, Czech Republic

11-14 June - Saalfelden-Leogang Salzburgerland, Austria

19-21 June - Lenzerheide, Switzerland

3-5 July - La Thuile-Valle d’Aosta, Italy

9-12 July - Pal Arinsal-Andorra, Andorra

20-23 August - Les Gets, Haute-Savoie, France

19-20 September - Soldier Hollow, Midway, Utah, United States

2-4 October - Lake Placid Olympic Sites, New York, United States

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Here are the storylines I’ll be watching in the women’s pack this season.

1. Will Jenny Rissveds stay on top in the Olympic distance?

Jenny Rissveds is World and European XCO Champion, and won three out of the final four World Cups in 2025. Although Samara Maxwell (Decathlon Ford Racing Team) just beat her to the 2025 World Series win, Maxwell is taking a sabbatical year, so Rissveds is undeniably the one to beat.

But things change fast in XCO. Riders can peak for a few races, then face setbacks. Yes, Rissveds was dominant at the end of 2025, but that doesn’t mean she will be in 2026.

Vying to take the throne will be last year’s third place Alessandra Keller (Thomus Maxon), Evie Richards (Trek Unbroken XC), and Nicole Koller (on the new Lapierre PXR Racing team, formerly Ghost Factory Racing). Puck Pieterse (Fenix Deceuninck) could also challenge her for the win, if her road calendar allows her to compete enough.

2. Can Evie Richards retain her short-track crown?

Evie Richards (Trek Unbroken XC) is undeniably one of the most charismatic racers on the cross-country circuit, just as likely to talk about mowing her lawn in her post-race interviews as her race tactics. Richards is also a powerhouse with a formidable sprint, and a strong mental game.

Last year she won the overall short-track despite a season with a lot of illness and setbacks. If she has better luck this year, she should be well set to defend the title. Her biggest threat is likely to be Alessandra Keller (Thomus Maxon).

3. Can Alessandra Keller get a win?

Alessandra Keller (Thomus Maxon) is an incredibly consistent athlete. Last year she came third in the World Series in both XCO and XCC. She is always near the front of the pack. But, considering her overall results and what a good rider she is, she just doesn’t seem to get as many wins as she deserves.

In 2025, Keller won two XCC races, in Pal Arinsal, Andorra and Valais, Switzerland, and one XCO race, in Lenzerheide, Switzerland. That’s not too shabby, by any means, but I’d love to see her stand on the top step more this year, and maybe even get a World Series victory.

4. How will Haley Batten be doing post-injury?

Haley Batten (Specialized Factory Racing) has been a strong contender in cross-country mountain biking over the last couple of years. She even got the silver medal at the Paris Olympics. However, injuries and the death of her mother have meant she hasn’t been on peak form since 2024.

I’m hoping Batten is able to come back strong this year and vie for some wins. She’s already in Korea for the first World Cup, and I’m looking forward to seeing what she can do this season.

5. Will new riders shake things up?

Every year, riders move up from the Under 23 to Elite categories and cause some upsets. The most exciting rider coming through this year is Under 23 World Champion Isabella Holmgren (Trek Unbroken XC). Holmgren has won five World Championships and 11 World Cup races. However, she’s also competing on the road with Lidl Trek (she recently came 6th at Liège Bastogne-Liège), so let’s hope we get to see her race her mountain bike too. If she does, we can expect to see her shaking things up at the front of the race.

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Hi everyone,

In a couple of days’ time, I’ll be setting off to watch La Vuelta Feminina 2026. The race starts in Galicia and then meanders eastward, before finishing — for the first time ever — on the forbidding slopes of l’Angliru.

I’ll be drinking wine from the Rias Baixas and cider in Asturias. There’ll be padrón peppers (stage 3 starts in their birthplace, Padrón), pulpo (octopus, which Galicia is famous for), and maybe even some pilgrims, as the route criss-crosses the Camino de Santiago.

Oh, and I’ll be watching some bike racing too.

I’ll be sending out dispatches every day to let you know what I’ve been up to, give you all the behind the scenes action from the bike race, and share any gossip from on the ground.

Subscribe for free to follow along on the journey. And, if there’s anything you’d like to know about or you want me to cover, let me know in the comments!

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Here’s what I’m looking forward to most at La Vuelta:

1. Fangirling over some of my favourite riders

The full startlist for La Vuelta Feminina hasn’t been confirmed yet, but we know that some of the best riders in the world are going to be there.

Pauline Ferrand-Prévot, winner of last year’s Tour de France, will be there for Visma-Lease a bike, as will Marianna Vos. Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney will be leading Canyon//SRAM-zondacrypto and definitely tageting the podium, if not the win, while Anna van der Breggen will likely be leading for SD Worx - Protime, with Lotte Kopecky by her side.

I’ll also be keeping an eye out for local legend Usoa Ostolaza (Laboral Kutxa-Fundación Euskadi), and Spanish star Maví Garcia (UAE Team ADQ), who’s still winning races in her 40s.

2. Exploring Galicia

The first three stages of this years Vuelta will take us through the coastal and Rias Baixas areas of Galicia. While the scenery will, I’m sure, be spectacular, I’m more excited about the food and drink.

Rias Baixas is famous for its wine. Stage 3 starts in Padrón, home of the pepper. Galicia as a whole is well known for its seafood, particularly octopus, and there are distinctively Galician versions of both pie and soup that I’m keen to try.

There will no doubt be lots of picturesque little towns, but I’ve also picked out some interesting places I’m hoping to see along the way, like a partially submerged Roman villa with hot springs near Stage 2. If I can, I’ll get some bike rides in too.

3. Seeing surprise wins

If there’s one thing you can predict about women’s professional road cycling, it’s that it will be unpredictable. The depth and strength of the field in a sport that’s growing fast means we almost always see surprise winners and break out stars.

Paula Blasi (UAE Team ADQ) has been having an amazing season, and I can’t wait to see what she can do in a stage race. Sarah Gigante (AG Insurance - Soudal Team) will be racing for the first time since the Tour de France, and should be one to watch too.

FDJ United Suez has been having an incredible season so far. Two-time winner Demi Vollering won’t be there, as she’s targeting the Giro d’Italia Donne, but I’m sure we’ll see her teammates deliver some standout performances.

4. Visiting Asturias

The final two stages of the race take place in Asturias, a part of Spain known for its green mountains, rugged coastline and… dairy farming? Like, it’s known as cheese country (Pais de Queso). The famous Picos de Europa are there, and I’m hoping to explore it a little more after the race is over.

Stage 6 goes from Gijón to Les Praeres de Nava, a grassy, mountainous area that looks absolutely idyllic, with wild deer wandering around (and a pretty brutal climb). It’s also famous for cider, apparently, like many a celtic area.

Stage 7 will go from La Pola Llaviana to l’Angliru, which brings me on to…

5. Watching the women’s peloton climb l’Angliru

Maeva Squiban has described it as “the climb of hell.” Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney says it is “crazy, brutal.” But, as Pauline Ferrand-Prévot puts it, “it’s going to be legendary.”

Known as one of the hardest climbs in professional road cycling, l’Angliru is 12.4 kilometres long with a 9.7% average gradient, with slopes as steep as 23% and entire kilometres climbing well beyond 15% to cover 1,200 metres of elevation gain. That’s, like, really hard.

It was on these slopes that Primoz Roglič and Jonas Vingegaard memorably dropped their own teammate, red jersey holder Sepp Kuss in the 2023 Vuelta. João Almeida attacked and won here in last year’s Vuelta, too.

The climb will come right at the very end of La Vuelta, with several days riding already in the legs of the favourites. I’m planning to try and cycle some of it myself before the riders come through, to get a good spot to watch from, and even that is making me nervous! But I know it will be worth it to watch the action unfold.

Subscribe now to follow along on my journey, and make sure you don’t miss anything.

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Feel free to message me, leave me comments, or recommend me things to do — I’m all ears!

About me

My name is Catherine. I live in San Sebastian in the beautiful Basque Country, but I grew up in the equally beautiful(?) county of Essex, UK. I used to work in economic policy, but I quit and ran away to be an English teacher. Now I’m a freelance writer and editor.

My substack, Spinning Tails, covers women’s professional cycling, cycling policy, and life riding bikes in the Basque Country and beyond.

I’ve been thinking a lot this week about why I follow sports and what I get out of it. I really love following cycling, but I know that I am perhaps a but unusual. None of my female friends follow a sport. Even some of my very sporty male friends don’t actually watch much sport.

But I know there are lots of us out there, and specifically here on Substack. Earlier this week, I wrote a note calling for others’ reasons for following a sport. The answers were incredibly beautiful and interesting. I’ve drawn on them for this piece, as well as my own experience — and a little bit of science.

So, here’s my take on what it brings us.

1. Sports help us understand our emotions

Understanding your emotions makes you more able to manage them. Most of the work in a therapy session is understanding what you’re feeling and why. Sports are a shortcut, in at least one area:

Watching sport makes us concentrate, much more than we would normally, on how it feels to compete against our fellow humans — to strive, to win, and to lose. The complexity usually present in everyday life — what does it mean to be doing better than someone? — is gone. There’s a score, a finish line, a clear reckoning of how an athlete or team has performed. Sport intensifies the emotional meaning of competing with, or being compared against, others, and makes those feelings more coherent to us.

Athletes become our avatars in this simplified version of life. We relate to them, we win with them, we lose with them. Through athletes, as through a character in a book, we can experience emotions at a safe distance.

Identifying with athletes or teams is key. Daniel Wann, a psychology professor whose research centers on sports fandom, found that “the more a fan is identified with a team, the greater that that individual is likely to have a well-rounded sense of psychological health, lower levels of loneliness, lower levels of alienation, a higher sense of self-esteem, less social isolation.”

2. Sports give us hope

When our favourite athletes win, we too feel pride and elation, as if we ourselves have won. Although it sounds strange, accessing this part of ourselves more frequently is good for us — it can help us manage inevitable ‘defeat’, however that might show up in our lives, whether it’s being rejected for a job, or doing something embarrassing in public.

When Wout van Aert won Paris-Roubaix in 2026, after years of injuries, second places, and sacrificing his race for others, it brought an outpouring of emotion from fans. It was particularly special to us because we know how rarely we get what we want, how rarely our hard work is rewarded, and how hard it is to come back after setbacks. But van Aert did it. Life sometimes seems difficult to everyone, but wins like Wout van Aert’s give us hope.

And hope breeds success. One thing I’ve learnt from watching cycling is that success is often tied to how much confidence and optimism a rider brings to the race. How many times have you seen an athlete have a second win shortly after a first one? In 2025, the young and relatively unknown French road cyclist Maeva Squiban won a stage of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, taking everyone by surprise. The very next day, she won again.

Perhaps some of our failures might be due to a lack of hope, rather than a lack of skill?

3. Sports ease our suffering

Sports can teach us how to suffer. Everyone suffers. It is simply part of being human. But while in the outside world our troubles might be met with awkwardness — we might be offered solutions, a bright side, or told to cheer up — in sport, suffering, losing and sadness are inherent to the format.

Many sad things feel worse because we feel we are alone in suffering them. We might feel it is a failure of our own character that we can’t simply get over it. Watching your team lose alongside other fans in a stadium brings a community to our suffering. We may feel able to cry, knowing that our sadness is not due to any personal defect — after all, the crowds around us are crying too.

Even if we aren’t in a packed stadium, seeing a beloved athlete suffer sorrow and disappointment — and how often have we seen athletes in tears, or lying on the floor completely spent? — dignifies our own suffering. We, too, have lain on the floor and cried.

When Pogacar said, “I’m gone, I’m dead” on the Col de la Loze in the 2023 Tour de France, we saw that even the very best sometimes have to admit defeat. We are not alone. Everyone experiences disappointment sometimes, even the young and talented.

4. Sports help us accept ourselves as we are

Sports also remind us that we can’t be good at everything. It can feel like any weakness in life is a failure. Someone who is very proud of what they have achieved in their career might feel ashamed that they’ve never mastered cooking a delicious dinner for their friends. The excellent chef might feel ashamed at their lack of commitment to learning another language.

But even the very best athlete will have areas of relative strengths and weaknesses. Federer was better on grass, Nadal was better on clay.

In fact, in some sports, this is key to success — you can’t have a good football team without an excellent goalkeeper, who will probably have very different talents to the team’s star striker. A cycling team will have both sprinters and climbers.

In sports, the differing talents of different athletes are made very clear, in a way they aren’t in normal life. Watching it play out can remind us that we, too, have our strengths and our weaknesses, and that it is normal and nothing to be ashamed of.

At best, we can hope that sport will make us more tolerant not only of our weaknesses, but of the weaknesses of others. We might recognise that, when we feel someone is unable to meet our expectations, it is not because they are an inherently inadequate person, but that their talents may simply lie elsewhere. Just as we wouldn’t expect Usain Bolt to win a marathon, we shouldn’t necessarily expect our loving partner to always remember where they put their keys, or to water the plants when we’re away.

5. Sports make us more moral

The modern world tends to err towards a ‘live and let live’ kind of vibe, and any conversation about ethics or morality can be seen as preachy. No one wants to be told what to do. And yet, I do think most people want to be good. We want to be the best version of ourselves in our relationships, even if we slip up sometimes. We want to help others, even if we don’t always have the energy.

When we watch sports, we reflect on morality in a safe way. When we talk to a friend about one player’s nasty foul, or another athlete’s sportsmanlike act, we are really putting words to our personal morality, and testing it against theirs.

We might balk at an athlete who comes up with a list of excuses for a bad performance in an interview, and swear never to be that kind of person.

When Tadej Pogacar had a small crash on a descent in the Tour de France in 2023, and Jonas Vingegaard waited for him to catch up, we at home watching might have thought that we, too, want to be the kind of person who would wait, the kind or person who would rather lose than win only because of another’s misfortune.

Sport can remind us of the good person we truly want to be.

6. Sports inspire us

When I first started mountain biking, I was very very scared. I knew I needed to be braver if I was ever going to improve. I started following female mountain bikers on Instagram (Jolanda Neff, Rachel Atherton, Kate Courtney, Tahnee Seagrave), and seeing them do tricks and jumps and hurtle down steep descents inspired me with some of the bravery I was lacking. If they could do it, these athletes I related to at least in some way, perhaps I could too?

As someone who is very cautious, the athletes who inspire me are often skiers, surfers and mountain bikers. But if you’re someone with a tendency to be too reckless, you might be inspired by something totally different, like the extreme precision and risk calibration of free rock climbing or Formula 1.

On the other hand, you might like a sport because it inspires you in an area you are already strong in. If you are a person who likes to live a physical, social, outdoors kind of life, the rough and tumble of rugby might inspire you to get out there. If you value beauty and discipline, watching a truly beautiful figure skating routine might inspire you to finish that painting.

Even now, if I need a bit of motivation to go for a bike ride, I will first watch some cycling videos on YouTube. It works every time.

7. Sports help us live in the moment

Sports need to be followed live. GenJo wrote, “I don’t follow sports, but my husband does… passionately… football, rugby, cricket, golf… frequently sitting up into the early hours of the morning to experience live on TV a golf result… Why, why why? After all, the result will be the same, whether you hear it live or pick it up later from sports reports.”

It’s true that the result will be the same, but seeing it live is part of the joy. We know that living in the moment is good for us. In sports, there is nothing else. When you watch sports you are in the present moment for the duration.

Hartger Wessink left a beautiful comment about watching Paris-Roubaix espoirs, the U23 version of the well-known cycling monument. “I was so excited to be there.... The buses, the shiny bikes, the stress on the faces of the riders.

“An hour later they were in the course. A world of its own. For half a day, it is everything there is in this world, nothing else matters. They are giving everything.

“And when it’s over, there is nothing to see anymore. The cobble roads are as empty as they were only that morning at sunrise.”

8. Sports make us feel like we belong

Supporting a team or following a sport can give us a sense of belonging to a tribe, a place, or even a family. If you go to an event in person, it will be surprisingly easy to feel some kinship with the people around you. Laurine said that although she’s never been a fan, she’s “been able to experience intense emotions and connection through events like watching a rugby game in a pub.” I’ve written about making friends whilst watching a Tour de France stage.

If you only watch sport at home, there are podcasts and community Discords and X (twitter) feeds and reddit forums and Instagram accounts, and, hey, even Substack newsletters like mine where you can find other people with the same interest. Just choose your poison.

For many people here on Substack, the sense of belonging was the main reason they gave for following their sport. Ted Fay summed it up nicely when he wrote about why he follows the baseball team the New York Yankees “It’s a connection. A connection to my youth and past, having seen games at every version of Yankee Stadium. It’s a connection to my family, where all are fans of varying levels.”

For Vladimir, that connection was even stronger. “A local football club was a sacred entity. Stadium — like a church. Players — no, not saint prophets as you might have suspected. They were one of us. Sure, not all of them, but unlike nowadays, there were at least some. There would always be a guy who went to the same school as you. Or your friend’s older brother used to play with him. Or we spotted him at the bar the night before the game, and be assured he’s in trouble now.”

Following sport doesn’t solve your problems. It doesn’t make us fitter, or more productive, or a better person in any measurable way. But it can make you feel a little less alone in your struggles, a little more hopeful when things are hard, and a little more at home in the world. That, I'd argue, is not nothing.

If you've never followed a sport before, I'd encourage you to find one — any one — and give it a chance. And if cycling is on the table, well, I might know just the place to start.

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In the news this week

LA FLÈCHE WALLONE

Demi Vollering (FDJ United-Suez) took the win at Ardennes classic La Flèche Wallone. She will be lining up for Liége-Bastogne-Liége today and hoping for the second win of the week.

• Last year’s winner Puck Pieterse (Fenix Deceuninck) launched a late attack and came in second, not quite able to catch Vollering at the line. She, too, us hungry for a win today. She says she’d “rather have one real standout result than three podiums”.

• Paula Blasi (UAE Team ADQ) came third, straight off her win at Amstel Gold Race. The Spanish star only started cycling competitively 3 years ago, and only went professional last year. What a rise she’s had!

• Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney (Canyon SRAM zondacrypto) got stuck in the big ring on the last climb and couldn’t compete for the podium. C’est la vie.

SPONSOR DRAMA

Escape Collective have reported that zondacrypto is in financial turmoil, raising questions about their future as cosponsor of the Canyon SRAM team.

AG Insurance Soudal had to delete a social media post… or did they? In reality, an excellent publicity stunt aimed at encouraging people to donate plasma.

FEMMES ON TOUR, FROM YORKSHIRE TO LONDON

The route for the UK Grand Depart of the 2027 Tour de France Femmes was released this week. We’re getting three stages:

• Stage 1: A fairly flat route from Leeds to Manchester

• Stage 2: A hilly route from Manchester to Sheffield through the Peak District

• Stage 3: A team time trial (a first for the Tour de France Femmes) in London, finishing on the Mall.

Cool!

CASHING IN

The Levi’s Gran Fondo was this weekend, an american road race with a huge prize purse split equally between men and women. The competitors from last week’s Sea Otter Classic were out in force, but this time Lauren Stephens took the win, beating Sofia Gomez Villafañe and taking home $25,000 in prize money. Mountain bike marathon World Champion Kate Courtney rounded out the podium.

One last thought…

When I started writing this newsletter, I knew that my goal was to encourage more women to cycle, and to watch cycling. It’s probably no surprise that I think it’s a good thing for more women to cycle — we’re endlessly being told the benefits of exercise. But it might be more surprising that I actually want to encourage women to watch cycling. Yes. Just sit on the sofa, turn on the TV and watch it.

It’s not that I think women’s cycling needs more of an audience (I do think that, but I don’t care whether that audience is male or female), it’s because I know, both from my own experience and from actual science, that following sport is good for you, and I think many women are missing out.

Not many women follow sports. It’s difficult to get good data, but a recent US survey found that only 30% of women followed men’s professional sports at least somewhat closely, compared to 51% of men. That figure went down to 20% for women’s professional sports, compared to 27% for men.

There are so many reasons for this. Following sport isn’t stereotypically feminine, and even if you manage to overcome that societal hurdle, it can be difficult to find the time for it. There are always a million other things you could be doing. Astrid recently wrote an excellent post on why it can be hard for women to carve out time for hobbies that don’t benefit anyone except themselves.

But I would argue, as I’ve written above, following a sport really is worth it…

Thanks for reading! Catherine xxx

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In today’s newsletter

• Stories from my first gravel race of the year

• Updates on women’s cycling, from Paris-Roubaix to Sea Otter

• A comment that made me laugh

Before I get into it, some recommendations from this week:

• A friend shared this article, about how it’s harder for women to have ‘sovereign’ hobbies. As a woman whose life revolves around cycling, I found it p interesting.

• I enjoyed reading about how one woman’s workout clothes have evolved (or not) — a good read if you’re on the merino bandwagon.

• Joe Laverick has written his takeaways from Sea Otter Classic. What he writes about how gravel now requires all out commitment really struck a chord with me.

• And, in case you missed it, I wrote about why we see so much coverage of crashes in the women’s peloton, why its bad for the sport, and how to fix it.

Ahoy there, gravel racers

This Saturday I did a gravel race in Navarra, a province close to the Basque Country and La Rioja. It’s a beautiful time of year to be in the area, everything is green but its warm and sunny. The race is called Tierra Estella Epic Gravel, and it goes in a loop in the area surrounding the village of Villatuerta.

Villatuerta and nearby Estella (Lizarra in Basque, because although we’re in Navarra everyone still speaks Euskera) are both on the Camino de Santiago. In this area, practically everywhere is on some variant of the Camino, but these are actually on the main Camino Francés, and you see the distinctive blue and yellow signs everywhere.

At 9am in Villatuerta there was huge diversity in the folks getting ready for the race; every different type of middle-aged white man was there. Jokes aside, there were definitely more women than in previous years, including about 10 elite riders who had an earlier start time, a few of us women cheering them on at the sidelines, the amateur men already fighting for position in the mass start behind them, or going for a last wee in nearby bushes.

As always, the mass start was hectic, with jostling and bottlenecks as soon as we got onto the first gravel path outside of Villatuerta. It took until the first aid station, at about 26km, for things to calm down.

The aid station was hosted by a small, sleepy town, which seemed to have gone all out for this bike race. There were lots of people on hand to refill water bottles and fix mechanicals. There was fresh fruit, dry fruit, gummies, coca-cola, tortilla de patatas, pastries overflowing with nutella — and a pirate theme. The Pirates of the Caribbean theme music blared out over loudspeakers, and all the helpers wore hats and eyepatches.

“What’s up with the pirate theme?” I heard another competitor ask.

“Oh!” said one of the pirates, surprised, “I actually don’t know.”

I pressed on, now excited to see what theme the next aid station would have.

After the aid station the field had spread out, there were fewer climbs, and we got lots of long descents on farm roads. A blue lake appeared beneath us, framed by yellow and green fields. The kilometres passed easily, until we reached the last climb of the day: 2.7km at an average of 7.5% and maximum of 14% — and with tens of kilometres and hundreds of metres of elevation gain already in the legs.

It was now pushing 30 degrees and the climb was absolute carnage. I saw people getting off their bikes and simply pushing them up the hill on foot, in the process actually overtaking others who’d decided to grind up in their lowest gear. Stragglers stood in the shade at the side of the path, catching their breath. Anyone who put a foot down in a loose section struggled to start again, wheels skidding on the gravel.

At the next aid station, I was so tired I didn’t even notice there was no theme. The route split here and I heard someone say he’d been planning to do the long route but now he was going to take the short one.

“You’ll regret it later,” said a helper.

“Trust me, I really won’t.”

I also took the short route (for me, planned) and quickly arrived at the finish. Photographers were snapping photos, people were handing out fruit, electrolytes, medals and beers. There was a queue to wash our dusty bikes (and bodies), then everyone sat down at long communal tables to eat the lunch provided by the organisers. There wasn’t much chat, everyone was tired and hungry. We drank our free beer and were happy.

Thanks to Tierra Estella Epic for a fun day out — I’ll be back next year. You can see more on their website.

In the news this week

Wout the f**k — Fans of women’s cycling were vocally upset to find that only the last 90 minutes of Paris-Roubaix femmes would be televised after the race was moved from Saturday to after the men’s race on Sunday. However, fans got to see the most important bits of an exciting race, and it looks like it paid off in terms of viewing figures.

• Super-domestique Franziska Koch (FDJ United-Suez) outsprinted the Visma-Lease a bike duo of Pauline Ferrand-Prévot and Marianne Vos to get the biggest win of her career so far (and what a great season FDJ is having!)

• GOAT Vos was tantalisingly close to winning in her first race back after the death of her father, and many will have been disappointed that she didn’t get this win, especially after Wout van Aert’s emotional victory in the men’s race

• Viewing figures published after the race showed a 70 per cent increase in viewers of the women’s edition, topping out at 1.72 million this year in France compared to 1.06 million last year. This is likely to close the conversation from the business perspective, but many fans and riders will be disappointed if earlier sections, which can be decisive, continue not to be televised.

Supersonic Youth — The next generation of female riders continues to surprise and delight, as I wrote in this article. I wonder if, since women’s cycling has been growing so much, its not surprising that the young guard is coming through so strong?

• Super Célia Gery (FDJ United-Suez) won De Brabantse Pijl on Friday at just 20 years old, outsprinting established rider Mischa Bredewold (SD Worx - Protime)

• Two days later Gery also won GP Feminin Chambery. So you think you’re having a good week?

• Spanish star Paula Blasi (UAE Team ADQ) won Amstel Gold Race on Sunday, leaving Demi Vollering (FDJ United - Suez) and Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney (Canyon SRAM Zondacrypto) to sprint for second place. Blasi is 23.

Sending it at Sea Otter — If you’re at all interested in cycling, you won’t have missed that the Sea Otter Classic bike show has been happening in Monterrey, California this weekend (Joe Laverick wrote his takeaways here). There are a bunch of races that happen during the festival, including the kick off of the Lifetime Grand Prix gravel series.

• Sendy Sofia Gomez Villafañe (Specialized Off-road) won the gravel race on Thursday, going straight to the top of the Grand Prix leaderboard.

• She Sends Racing’s Kate Courtney won the Fuego XL mountain bike race a convincing 20 minutes in front of her closest competitor, a good omen for the 2026 season in which she’s the defending XCM World Champion.

Elsewhere, the UCI’s qualifying series continues here in Europe; last Sunday, Nicole Frain (Factor Racing) took the win in the Wörthersee Gravel Race.

Any thoughts? Anything I missed? Leave a comment below.

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Comment of the week

To end today’s newsletter… a few days ago I posted a note on the reality of being a cyclist and asked for more ideas. This is one of the comments I got back. 💀💀💀

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Catherine xxx