'The most fun I've had in years'

Former pro Matt Holmes is back on his bike and loving every minute of it

- Adam Becket

At the end of 2022, a 29-year-old Matt Holmes hung up his wheels after 11 years as a pro cyclist, the final three of which were at WorldTour level with Lotto-Soudal. The man from Wigan had fallen out of love with the sport.

“I stopped because I didn’t really enjoy it that much, that last year,” he told Cycling Weekly. “I got a normal job, I did that for, like, four days. I was working for a sports travel agency, I was going to be an ambassador. It was just a job to help pay my bills. I wasn’t in a good place at the time, everything went wrong all at once. I just didn’t know what to do for a long time. I somehow managed to pay my mortgage, just through reaching out to people and doing different things. It was a random year.”

Eighteen months on, Holmes is winning again. The 30-year-old announced his return to road racing with victory at the Rapha Lincoln GP, and followed it up by winning the Gralloch, the UK’s premier gravel race (see p16). He is back.