Puck Pieterse is well-known for her achievements on the cyclocross bike, successful 9 races together with the U23 European title this winter, so it is maybe no shock that the rising star has chosen Strade Bianche to make her Ladies’s WorldTour debut on Saturday.
The 20-year-old has come by the ranks with Fenix-Deceuninck and is already one of many prime riders on the cyclocross scene with 4 UCI World Cup wins plus silver on the Hoogerheide Worlds in the course of the previous season.
The deal with cyclocross to date in her profession has meant a really restricted street calendar, with final weekend’s Omloop van het Hageland her solely outing as a professional. Now, the gravel roads of Strade Bianche lie in look forward to the Dutchwoman.
Forward of the race, Pieterse uploaded a video of the crew’s Thursday recon of the Tuscan route. The squad, which additionally consists of cyclocrosser Yara Kastelijn and Briton Sophie Wright, have been met with moist, grim circumstances in the course of the trip, with the digital camera and riders alike spattered with mud.
Pieterse took to the course with a digital camera mounted on her chest, giving viewers a recent perception into what it is wish to trip on the well-known white roads. Alongside the best way, she commented that the gravel is “nonetheless higher than the Belgian roads” and exchanged suggestions along with her teammates, saying she would “strive to not cry on these climbs right here”.
Pieterse additionally jokingly identified a degree the place the Fenix-Deceuninck squad ought to assault en masse throughout Saturday’s race. The video rounded off with Pieterse pulling a wheelie because the crew rode by Siena, whereas cops warned the riders about their velocity within the metropolis – a problem they will not encounter this weekend.
Pieterse concluded the recon with a joke: “Two days earlier than Yara Kastelijn wins Strade Bianche, I come second, and the remainder of the crew all come third.”
The race is the primary top-level outing of the season for the new-look Fenix-Deceuninck crew, which moved as much as the Ladies’s WorldTour over the winter and switched racing identification from Plantur-Pura.
They are going to be doing battle with the likes of defending champion Lotte Kopecky (SD Worx), Annemiek van Vleuten (Movistar), and Ashleigh Moolman Pasio (AG Insurance coverage-Soudal-QuickStep) on the 136km course this weekend.
Fortunately for the riders participating, the climate outlook for the races is healthier than it was in the course of the course recons – it is set to be cloudy with temperatures of round 14°C and little probability of rain.
To learn the way to observe the motion at each the lads’s and ladies’s races this Saturday, head over to our complete streaming information – How you can watch Strade Bianche.
