Counting the seconds
New Team Ineos recruit Rohan Dennis may be the reigning World Time-Trial Champion, but almost any amateur cyclist – including anyone who has ridden to the shops for a bag of apples – has probably cycled more kilometres outdoors than he has over the last few months.
‘I was at home in Andorra but I left a few days before Spain closed its borders, because our dog needed surgery in Girona, so I have been living in Spain and couldn’t cycle outside,’ explains the 29-year-old Australian, via FaceTime. ‘One week I did just nine hours of indoor training. It was just maintenance work, but if I did four-hour rides on the turbo trainer I’d probably just hang the bike up and kick it. So I went for quality, not quantity. On average I’ve been doing somewhere in the range of 10 to 12 hours a week.’
Although cyclists in Australia were, for the most part, able to continue as normal during the coronavirus lockdown, Spain banned outdoor exercise from March 14 until May 2, meaning Dennis didn’t ride on the road for seven weeks. Instead, he stayed sharp in the digital world, winning a Team Ineos Alpe du Zwift contest, and two races in the Digital Swiss 5, a series of virtual races organised by the Tour de Suisse. But having spent last year wrestling with personal troubles – from issues relating to his confidence, happiness and diet and the subsequent pressure on his marriage, to his shock early departure from the 2019 Tour de France and his bitter divorce from Bahrain-Merida – he
