January 2022

Procycling

Inside the world's toughest sport

Procycling2 min read
Preface
As someone who hasn’t really explored their creative side, it has been fun for me to work with Ed and the team to create this magazine. There are some themes I wanted to research: cycling as a team sport and the perhaps so far undiscovered ideas of h
Procycling3 min read
Gallery
The peloton rolls through Siena at the start of stage 12 of the Giro d’Italia. The Tuscan hilltop city usually hosts the finish of Strade Bianche, but this time the riders were able to go downhill from the start. The stage finished in Bagno di Romagn
Procycling2 min read
Tonight’s The Night We Forget About Deadlines
First up, a big thank you to our guest editor Lizzie Deignan, who has done an excellent job of making this a very special edition of Procycling and has been nothing but helpful throughout the whole process of putting it together. I’m relegated from m
Procycling3 min read
Something Old, And Something New
The men’s peloton is relatively static regarding transfers between 2021 and 2022, especially at the top end. Of the top 25 riders in the UCI’s official ranking, only two are moving teams into the 2022 season - João Almeida, from Deceuninck-Quick Step
Procycling2 min read
Communiqué
NEWS • GOSSIP • CHATTER Olympic road race champion Anna Kiesenhofer announced in December that Swiss Krono Group will support her until 2024. The Austrian has not ridden for a professional team since 2017, and rides instead as an independent amateur.
Procycling2 min read
Daan Hoole
A very tall Dutch rider with prospects in the classics, then? Daan Hoole is stepping up to the WorldTour in 2022 with Trek-Segafredo after four years with the talent factory that is SEG Racing. What has he achieved with SEG? The Dutchman finished nin
Procycling2 min read
Greg Van Avermaet
Where’s home? Dendermonde in Belgium, where my kids go to school, not far from where I grew up. There are probably better places to ride your bike in the winter, but Belgium has a good tradition and history, and you can always find nice roads. What’s
Procycling1 min read
Coach’s Corner
Daan is a powerful rider, a good time triallist, and a good rider for the classics. At the same time, he can also survive on the long climbs, as we saw already in the Tour de l’Avenir. He was one of the guys who remained with the last 20 riders in th
Procycling1 min read
Objects Of Desire
Images: Olly Curtis, Neil Goodwin. ■
Procycling4 min read
Matteo Trentin
It has been an up and down year. I only won one race and I like to do more. On the other hand, if you see the classics, especially in Belgium, I didn’t have a problem and I was in the front. I would like to win more than being so consistent. I’m 24th
Procycling1 min read
A Life In Cycling
‘21 The last two years of my career were the covid years. 2020 started well in my new team, Israel Start-Up Nation, with good results before a strong training block that I was just winding up when lockdown hit. I maintained focus and motivation, stra
Procycling5 min read
Smelled Like Teen Spirit
A lot of teenage boys can say their world turned with a kiss on a dancefloor or perhaps the first guitar chord they ever heard from a soon-to-be favourite band but not many would attribute the same life-altering potential to a cycling magazine. Yet I
Procycling11 min read
One Of Each, Please
Liège-Bastogne-Liège 2020 is quite an important race in the career and life of Lizzie Deignan. Perhaps not as important as Paris-Roubaix 2021, which we’ll get to later, but there was something about the strategy and execution of her victory that wasn
Procycling2 min read
Lizzie Deignan All Her Major One-day Wins
In her first full season on the road, Deignan presages her future with a solo attack with 25km to go in the inaugural Gent-Wevelgem for women, holding off a pursuit by Dutch rider Iris Slappendel. Bridges up from a small group to chase down solo esca
Procycling11 min read
Go West
LIZZIE DEIGNAN: At junior level, do athletes stand out for their mental or physical approach, and which is most significant? PHIL WEST: With you specifically, it was more about your attitude than the physical thing. Although you could still see you h
Procycling2 min read
Jojo Harper’s Best Images Of 2021
IN PICTURES The 2021 season was exciting from start to finish, but it really ended on a high, a major high, with Lizzie D winning the first ever Paris-Roubaix Femmes. That moment was the highlight of my career as well as year. To be working for Tek-S
Procycling6 min read
A Ride With Lizzie
You cannot separate a rider from their training routes, especially when it’s the ones they grew up on. Lizzie Deignan is having a quick blast around a circuit called the ‘After School Loop’, a grippy 12-mile loop starting and finishing in Otley, taki
Procycling9 min read
How To Win The Tour Of Flanders
After finishing fourth in the inaugural Tour of Flanders Dutch rider Mirjam Melchers went on to win the next two editions “In those years we were really struggling to get a bit more professionalism and that we could compete in those races really help
Procycling11 min read
Once More Unto The Breach
Few riders can claim to be the truly dominant rider of a year. Of course, there is always someone with the most wins, and it’s common to end the year with a best sprinter, a best stage racer and a best classics rider, but it is rare for one rider to
Procycling9 min read
Gregarious Gregarious And Strong Silent Types
INT CLIMBERS EXT SPRINTERS PERFECTIONISM MENTAL TOUGHNESS EMOTIONAL STABILITY SELF-BELIEF Team Sky, it was once said, changed the face of cycling by shearing £100,000 from a rider’s £1-million salary and spending it on a coach. By increasing coaching
Procycling9 min read
Sd-work Worker
YOU HAVE THE LEADERS AND THEY GET MOST OF THE SPOTLIGHT. THAT’S THE WAY CYCLING WORKS. Then there are the people that work for the leaders. It is not a bad thing. I’m not frustrated about it. All you need to know for yourself is that the leaders prob
Procycling9 min read
Powless The Generation Game
We carry our past and our childhood with us. For EF Education-Nippo rider Neilson Powless, the winner of the Donostia Klasikoa on 31 July, these include a chilling tale of racial violence and revenge he heard many times growing up. Simon Antoine, an
Procycling9 min read
Rider's Block
Stress can paralyse many riders when the desire to avoid disappointment – whatever shape it takes – becomes overwhelming. With mortgages to pay and mouths to feed, it’s clear why. But in perversely counterintuitive fashion, this stressful remit can a
Procycling6 min read
Standing On The Shoulders Of A GIANT
I have called Harrie countless times over the past 15 years, and not once has he answered the phone without enthusiasm. That first question always used to be followed by the inevitable second: “When are we going again?” He would be referring to the m
Procycling9 min read
Second Life
The agonisingly slow development of the women’s elite racing calendar has had various negative effects, but there’s one that’s only obvious when you try to figure out precisely where one of the greats fits into the pantheon. The lack of equality of o
Procycling2 min read
Wishlist
£8,599 ||| $8,400 Go get those Strava KoMs with the R5 from Cervélo, Jumbo-Visma’s climbing bike. The Canadian company have improved on the previous model, with the emphasis on less stiffness so it doesn’t feel as harsh on the road. It is a WorldTour
Procycling1 min read
Procycling
Editorial Guest Editor Lizzie Deignan Editor Edward Pickering Senior Designer Mariëlle Scholten Staff Writer Adam Becket Contributors Simon Barnes, William Fotheringham, Daniel Friebe, Dan Martin, Matt Rendell, Owen Rogers, Iris Slappendel, Laurens t
Procycling3 min read
Laurens Ten Dam
I was disappointed when I heard that this would be the last edition of Procycling and therefore my last ‘Last Word’. Not only was writing these words a lifeline for me in order to still be connected to the world of pro cycling after my retirement fro

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