The picture says it all. The day after the first day and it was time to wake up the legs again. The 197KM stage from Escaldes-Engordany > Revel saw the race return to France.
The majority of the climbing was done in the first 20KM, with the road jumping up from the gun once again. The stage featured a nasty Cat 3 kick-up at 190KM.
Of the 192 riders to finish the stage, Dan came home in 190th position. Tomorrow the race heads west to Montpellier, in a shorter stage of 162.5KM with just two Cat. 2 climbs. Dan's confident that having blown the rest-day cobwebs away, tomorrow will be a better day.
New for 2023, we will be following the progress of Evie Field, a young female bike racer as she graduate from her club teamLiverpool Century, to make her debut season as a Junior withJRC-Interflon Race Team, racing at National level in the UK and on the Continent. In her first regular update she tells us about making the jump from racing as an individual for a club, to joining her first big team and joining their pre-season training camps.
Laura Fletcher takes a quick look at some of the latest cycling titles to hit the bookshop shelves including books by Ned Boulting, Max Leonard, James Hibbard, Jeremy Wilson, Dan Martin. You can also check out Matthew Bailey's review of Jeremy Wilson's biography of Beryl Burton in Conquista Issue 28.
It feels to us like Liverpool is a city at a crossroads. The worst pedestrian and cyclist road safety track record in the country. Deprived neighbourhoods with chronic health issues and low car ownership. Offered millions of pounds of central government funding for local transport development, the city has elected to remove an important active travel corridor prior to the publication of a review into its effectiveness. The actions of a local councillor, praised by the City Mayor, could lead to a huge reduction in local transport funding that will set the city back years. We look back at the last two years, the impact of Covid, and ask is this the end of the road for a co-ordinated active travel plan for Liverpool?