Blog

January 2026

January was a great start to my year, with lots of quality training. I left for France on the 7th and drove 800 miles south from Rotterdam on the 8th. Afterwards, I attended the team training weekend with rides on the 10th and 11th. It was a great weekend to meet my new teammates and set some new power bests. We also had a photo shoot and an interview about our ambitions for the season.

I kept training through the month, with the mountains being perfect for improving both climbing and descending. I built up an early season racing plan with races starting in February and kept ramping up the intensity, trying some new sessions with my coach. My 3, 5, 8, and 10-minute powers all hit all-time levels, and it was great to be so focused in such a good environment.The weather was mixed, with more rain than expected, but I had the trainer to fall back on when needed.

It was a strong opening month of 2026, with high-level racing just around the corner.

February 2026

February marked the start of the racing season, with the first race on the 12th at GP de Manduel. We had a team training camp on the 1st, which included multiple tests for race selection. In the lead-up to the first race, I stayed consistent with my training to get race-ready for the first time in almost six months.

I met with the team for a cold and wet opening race at Manduel on a flat, fast course suited to sprinters. For the first half of the race, I stayed in the bunch, conserving energy and observing how the N1 teams were racing. I kept near the front and was well positioned to lead out our sprinter, though I was still able to secure 12th place myself, which was a strong opening result.

After this, I was invited by the Occitanie regional team to race at the Boucles du Haut-Var. On the first day, it was extremely wet and I picked up an illness that affected me for the remainder of the event. I was unable to achieve any strong results as a result and had to take some time to recover afterwards. I was selected to race in several more GPs as selection races for the first round of the French Cup; however, I had to miss them due to illness and was therefore not selected.

After a few days, I recovered and was able to return to training in preparation for my next races.

March 2026

March was a rollercoaster of a month with a good opportunity for a lot of training due to lack of racing through the month. On the 8th I raced the GP Pierre Pinel where a mechanical issue early on led to an unfortunate DNF. For the next couple weeks leading up to some end of month racing I was able to get some really solid weeks of training completed.

I met a teammate who had came over from Canada for the season for the first time and training with him through the month. My numbers were at peak levels ahead of racing and I was working a lot on my TT bike for the upcoming race. My next race of the month was the Route de Vignobles Cap Leucate with an ITT first stage.

I started the ITT in my best shape until then and felt very excited to be racing on the TT bike again. Unfortunately, into a very strong cross headwind turn, I lost control on the full TT setup and crashed face first. I had to visit the hospital and had stitches in my face. It was a very unfortunate event but I felt very good legs so focused on recovery and started to plan my future races.

April

April was a hard start after my crash at the end of March. I was not able to race until the 6th due to my injuries and felt very bad starting again. I kept building up my training throughout the month and decided my next race was on the 19th. I had 2 weeks of riding before this race to get ready and adapt to the new hot weather that had started.

On the 18th I set off with my teammate to the race which was an early start on the 19th. We rode from the hotel in the morning and I was ready to see how the legs were. It was a technical circuit of around 5km for over 100km and some pretty narrow roads. I felt suprisingly good throughout the race and was able to stay in good position until the final lap and finished in the bunch sprint. I felt weirdly good after the race and happy to be back.

The rest of April was spent getting back to pre crash level and above which I was able to do. The weather was a lot better in April then the previous months so was good to get some heat training before the hotter races in May. I set some new power bests towards the end of April and continued to prepare for my next races in early May.