Hi, and welcome to this week’s newsletter.
This week I’m coming at you from Girona, Federal Cafe to be more specific. I’m back down from Andorra and it is good to be home. While Andorra was incredible, it was starting to get quite isolating and it’s nice to be back in the real world again.
After a lot of training at altitude, I have a bit of an easy week on the bike coming up. When you spend so much time training, it can be weird to all of a sudden have a rest week and all that free time on your hands.
When you’re training hard and always tired, all the real-life logistics get put on the back-burner. This means that rest week is often spent trying to catch up on running errands and things such as that, not the most fun, just real life!
Race season is coming closer and closer, I’m heading to Rhodes in Greece very soon for my first race block, and I cannot wait.
Have a good week pedalling,
Joe
Feel free to email me at joe@nplus1.cc if you have any questions, or feel I’ve missed something that is worth putting in the Newsletter.
📖 Read
#racing
This past week racing on the Tuscan gravel was simply outstanding. Once a year, the pro-road peloton compete in what is effectively a gravel race, Strade Bianche. Tadej Pogacar pulled off one of the most outrageous solo attacks in recent history to clutch the men’s title, and Lotte Kopecky pulled off a tactical masterclass to clutch the women’s crown.
8-minute read
#topical
Toms Skujins is the Latvian National Champion and an all-round good guy. The Trek-Segafredo rider has spoken up about how the Russian-Ukraine war impacted him as a rider from a bordering country, and how his team as a whole is helping the crisis.
6-minute read
#photography
They say a picture paints a thousand words, but what about the story behind the photo? This week’s title photo, Julian Alaphilippe somersaulting through the Italian countryside, has blown up on social media. Tim de Waele took that shot, and this is the story behind it.
4-minute read
#NetflixAndCycling
There has been some big news in the cycling media world. Netflix are reportedly looking into setting up a behind-the-scenes docu-series covering the 2022 Tour de France in a similar fashion to ‘Drive to Survive’ with Formula 1. With the F1 equivalent credited with bringing a whole new fanbase to the sport - is this just what cycling needs?
5-minute read
#environment
Cycling is often seen as an environmentally friendly sport, but that’s not always true. The industry has a need to increase energy efficiency and switch to renewables. This article looks into what makes the kit sustainable, as well as recommending the best renewable brands to try out.
6-minute read
#training
Have you got what it takes to beat, well, me? Is there, for amateur riders, an impossible number – a power figure so high that only pros can achieve it? Likewise, for pro riders, is there a figure that’s literally beyond the limits of (clean) human performance? In this article, I personally explore the ‘Zwift effect’ and how online numbers don’t show the full story when it comes to real-life bike racing!
7-minute read
📱Tweet of the week
Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s a Tom Pidcock….
🎧 Listen
Wout van Aert is, without doubt, one of the best cyclists in the world. The man can do everything: sprints, mountains, time trials, classics, and cyclocross. In this podcast, he sits down with Tour de France winner, Geraint Thomas, to talk all things cycling as well as a little bit of behind-the-scenes family life too.
56-minute listen
👀 Watch
A documentary film that captures the essence of gravel cycling by sharing what it means to the riders. It explores the origins of gravel racing and the impact it has on both local communities and the people who it touches.
28-minute watch
👋🏻 Introducing
In this new part of the Newsletter, each week we’re going to introduce one of the brands that we work with at N+1.
Introducing… Çois Cycling
A sustainable cycling brand out of Flanders, Belgium and an official partner of the Tour of Flanders itself, Çois Cycling are trying to do things differently. Their products are environmentally friendly and have a story going back generations.
Be sure to download our app and browse their collection!