Set to retire on the finish of this season, Annemiek van Vleuten has begun her farewell tour, nevertheless it is not only a celebratory lap as a result of she plans on coaching onerous and racing to win at each alternative.
Her final Spring Classics marketing campaign of a outstanding 16-year profession received underway at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, and it’ll resume at Strade Bianche, Tour of Flanders and the Ardennes Classics.
It will solely be pure for a professional athlete who has been round so long as Van Vleuten to really feel nostalgic in her remaining season. She admitted that, whereas she wasn’t feeling overwhelmed or busying herself with ideas of retirement, she would steal just a few small moments right here and there to replicate on fond recollections, particularly throughout a few of her favorite races.
One such race is Strade Bianche.
“I do not really feel very totally different,” Van Vleuten advised Cyclingnews when requested about competing in Strade Bianche for the final time on Saturday.
“I am nonetheless focussed. I need to be at my absolute best stage and provides my every part, so it is nothing totally different [from previous years]. I purpose to be at my absolute best stage.
“However, sure, tomorrow after the end on Piazza del Campo, I am going to suppose, ‘I cannot be right here subsequent yr,’ and I’ll go searching possibly a bit bit further to benefit from the second. Additionally, my boyfriend shall be on the end line, so it is good. After which that is it, after the end, possibly I am going to have a fast go searching and suppose, ‘that was the final one.'”
Van Vleuten has expressed her pleasure for racing in Italy many occasions throughout her profession, and Strade Bianche is a race that she has focussed on annually. She has received the race twice, in 2019 and 2020, and hopes so as to add a 3rd title to her lengthy record of achievements this weekend.
“I feel it has probably the most stunning end of our complete calendar with a end within the Piazza del Campo within the middle of Siena. I actually wish to race in Italy. I just like the folks right here, the followers, and the tradition, and in order that’s additionally a part of it, and it is a stupendous race; onerous. It has all of the elements to adore it,” Van Vleuten mentioned.
Strade Bianche is a comparatively younger race, with its inaugural version in 2015, nevertheless it has gained reputation for its trek throughout the scenic, white gravel roads of Tuscany. The ladies’s 136 kilometres embody a complete of 31.4km of gravel throughout eight or 9 sectors. The climbs additionally make the race particularly difficult, ending on the steep 16% By way of Santa Caterina and into the Piazza del Campo.
“The images afterwards on the gravel sections are all the time stunning. Racing it? Nicely, you’ll be able to have unhealthy luck, that is the factor with the gravel, and there may be all the time quite a lot of rigidity and nervousness to be in the proper place and in the proper second,” Van Vleuten mentioned.
“I feel that it is one thing epic to race, though I feel the climate tomorrow just isn’t going to be so epic higher, nonetheless, it’s extremely difficult.
“It’s kind of totally different from different races, and I feel that is additionally why I prefer it. It isn’t a race that fits me effectively. So, possibly it is also a giant problem for me, and possibly that is additionally why I prefer it,” she admitted.
“It has fairly quick climbs, so the efforts are just one or two minutes within the remaining, for instance. The quick climbs are often not my cup of tea or a spot to make a distinction within the race, however when it is raced actually onerous, it is onerous.”
Through the years, Strade Bianche has attracted a variety of versatility among the many peloton, everybody from Van Vleuten, Lotte Kopecky, Chantal van de Broek-Blaak, Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio, Mavi García, Marianne Vos and Marta Bastianelli.
Likewise, within the males’s race, the latest podiums have included Tadej Pogačar, Mathieu van der Poel, Egan Bernal, Alejandro Valverde, Kasper Asgreen and Julian Alaphilippe, to call just a few.
“Another excuse why I really like Strade Bianche a lot is that the Traditional riders come right here along with the climbers. Generally you see podiums, like with the boys’s race. I keep in mind Egan Bernal was sharing the rostrum with a Classics rider. So I feel that is additionally fairly a cool factor about this race,” Van Vleuten mentioned.
Gravel driving for enjoyable
Off-road driving, typically, has a sure enchantment to Van Vleuten, who has dabbled in mountain bike stage racing and cyclocross through the years. Whereas she has been crucial about gravel sectors in stage races, she likes the gravel points of one-day races like Strade Bianche.
Requested if she may switch her success on the street into aggressive gravel racing after retirement, Van Vleuten mentioned, ‘no’, including that she has no intention of racing gravel occasions, such because the UCI sequence or the Gravel World Championships.
She does, nonetheless, plan to enter gravel occasions in Colombia sooner or later, not in a aggressive capability, however to easily take pleasure in driving her bike and having enjoyable.
‘I am not likely a contest animal. So I do not suppose that I actually need competitors in my life to be joyful. I do not really feel that I shall be persevering with racing. I shall be persevering with driving for positive however not racing,” Van Vleuten mentioned of her prospects for driving after her professional racing profession, an off-road endeavour she plans to take up together with her accomplice.
“I’ve to say, I did join the Crocodile Trophy, along with my boyfriend, in November, and that is a mountain bike stage race I already did in 2016. He additionally received me into some, possibly, a gravel race subsequent yr in Colombia, so yeah, however that is it for me.
“He shall be extra aggressive there than I’m. I shall be simply driving. I do not need to be racing. However, yeah, possibly some enjoyable occasions, nevertheless it’s nothing that I need to work at subsequent yr; to organize myself for the coaching classes and coaching schedules, and no matter. No, I feel I’ll simply take pleasure in it.”
