“These pro cyclists are crazy”: 18-year-old rider’s 100km “recovery ride” immediately after 157km race ridden at 48km/hr; Local’s New Year resolution to be less “grumpy” towards cyclists who think “red lights don’t apply to them” + more on the live blog

Here’s a cheerful start to your Friday with a humble reminder of how good the pros are — a realisation made even more shocking when you find that the rider is just 18 years old.

Fresh off the back of winning the young rider jersey at the Tour Down Under in his first-ever pro race, Lidl-Trek’s Albert Philipsen continued his racing season in Australia with the Surf Coast Classic, a UCI 1.1 one-day stage race.

Albert Philipsen at the 2023 UCI Cycling World Championships, Men's Junior Road Race, Glasgow (Pauline Ballet/SWpix.com)

Although the multidisciplinary Danish rider came home in 44th position in the race, which ended in a bunch sprint finish won by Tobias Lund Andresen—another young Dane from Team Picnic PostNL—Philipsen has managed to draw attention to his post-race escapades thanks to his Strava upload, which showed that he added almost 100 kilometres to the race.

The coolest thing? He labelled the update on Strava as “Recovery ride”.

Actually, what’s even cooler is that despite the race being ridden at almost 48km/hr from Lorne to Torquay, Philipsen’s 252km-long ride ended with an average speed of 41.8km/hr (he hit a top speed of 94.2km/hr), lasting just over six hours with almost 3,000 metres of climbing.

The 2023 junior world champion also claimed the King of Mountain badge on the  Lorne-Benwerrin Climb, riding the 25km segment with over 400 metres of climbing in 17:50, beating Michal Kwiatkowski’s record by one second.

So to sum up his last few weeks: He turned pro with Lidl-Trek, skipped the U23 classifications, made his debut in the Tour Down Under, and then went on to prove his GC credentials by winning the youth classification and securing a top 20 overall finish. And now, he’s showing off in front of us amateurs by casually doing a 100km recovery ride and setting several personal bests along the way.

Alright then, I’ll note him down in my diary as one for the future, or maybe the present.

Poor management, missed opportunities, burned bridges, call it what you want — but Tom Pidcock has wasted no time settling into his new team Q36.5 Pro Cycling after the uncomfortable exit from Ineos Grenadiers, with the 25-year-old rider claiming a second victory at the AlUla Tour and gaining a comfortable lead in the general classification.

A 9km attack saw Pidcock fly solo across the Skyviews of Harrat Uwayrid, the queen stage of the five-day tour with riders climbing the volcanic mountain. And just like in the second stage, in which he claimed victory for the first time in Q36.5 colours, there was basically no competition for the double Olympic champion.

🌟 Tom Pidcock does it again! 🌟

The @Q36_5ProCycling rider soloes to a SECOND stage at the 2025 AlUla Tour and extends his lead in the GC 🙌 pic.twitter.com/fKcF6PsF13

— Eurosport (@eurosport) January 31, 2025

> Boom! Tom Pidcock starts life at Q36.5 with a bang by blowing away rivals with vicious attack to win abridged hilltop finish stage at AlUla Tour – and celebrates by pointing to his new sponsor

With this win, Pidcock is in a comfortable lead in the general classification, with Bahrain Victorious’ Rainer Kepplinger 29 seconds behind him, and barring any terrible misfortune, he should have his first stage race GC victory in the bag with his new team.

> £1,000 fine and 12-month ban for DPD delivery driver who left cyclist with broken neck after cutting across cycle lane

Credit for these goes to Steve Fleming, who shared images of these très bizarre and très amusante road signage for cyclists from France, including a wicked speed bump for a poor cyclist who just wants to have a chill ride, an interesting mix of cyclists, pedestrians and horse riders indicating a shared ‘greenway’, and finally, a road cyclist with a helmet making their way down a serpentine descent that looks a bit too much like the Ventoux...

(Credit: @SteveFlemingM9 on Twitter)