REGULAR RIDER, CLASSIC CHALLENGE

We could hardly expect him to mimic Tadej Pogacar’s breathtaking gravel heroics, but what would CW’s Steve Shrubsall learn from taking on the white roads of Tuscany?

- Steve Shrubsall

One-day Classics are arguably the toughest races on the professional cycling calendar. They are long, relentlessly undulating, and many of them include sketchy, bone-clattering cobbled and gravel sections. As this Classics season approached, I pondered what it would take for a regular rider like me to ride such a course – and what I might learn in the process.

Right on cue, an email came through suggesting I ride the Gran Fondo Strade Bianche, a 148km sportive the day after the pro race, using many of the same roads. In fact, it’s almost exactly the same course used by the WorldTour women’s race, including 51km of white roads, i.e. gravel sections, with more than 2,600m of climbing. Gulp!

How to prepare?

Thankfully, I wouldn’t be the only CW-affiiated rider providing a point of comparison with Tadej PogaÄar’s awesome performance from the previous day. Alongside me in the clamouring start pen in Siena was Danny Lloyd, one of the trio of new participants in CW’s 2022 Big Fitness Project series (see page 54). Danny’s target was clear: to finish the event in as close to five hours as possible. How had he trained for this A-list adventure?

“Not as well as I’d have liked,” said Danny. “I had Covid in the first week of February, meaning nine days off the bike. I resumed full training just 16 days before the event. In that time I managed 19 sessions and 25 hours”