Earlier this year, former duathlon AG world champion Claire Steels ditched running (and the UK) in favour of riding for cycling team Fusion Velo Performance, as she moved her personal training business to the Spanish cycling haven of Pollença in Mallorca.

Here, the 31-year-old chats through a typical day in her new life in Mallorca, from training clients to bagging some seriously impressive Strava QOMs.

Photo: SWpix.com

From interviewing riders to recceing the course and swotting up on stage notes, cycling journalist and commentator Rebecca Charlton’s schedule is jam-packed this week as she covers one of the biggest and exciting women’s cycling events on the pro cycling circuit: the OVO Energy Women’s Tour, which runs from 13 – 17 June.

Despite her non-stop schedule, Rebecca somehow found time to squeeze in writing a guest post for me during Wednesday’s opening stage from Framlington to Southwold. Here, the avid cyclist and OVO Energy ambassador shares a behind-the-scenes look at her hectic day commentating, reporting, and interviewing the pro peloton’s leading female cyclists.

Photo: Wooter Roosenboom

German-born Monika Sattler (aka RAD Monika) is on a mission to inspire more people, especially women, to take up cycling. Her plan: to be the first woman in history to ride the entire course of this summer’s professional road cycling race, the Vuelta a España – one of cycling’s toughest Grand Tours – just hours ahead of the pro cyclists. The brutal 3300km route is designed to test even the most seasoned of professional riders and includes 21 days on the bike, notoriously difficult climbs and the searing heat of a Spanish summer. Phew!

I caught up with Monika over the phone from her home in Mallorca, Spain, to chat about her cycling background, her brief stint as a pro cyclist, and how she’s preparing for her record-breaking Vuelta Ride challenge.

Photo: Imani Lee

With three humungous world records in ultra-cycling to her name, including Highest Annual Mileage Record (86,573.2 miles), Highest Monthly Mileage Record (8,012 miles) and Fastest 100,000 Miles ridden (423 days), ultra-cyclist Amanda Coker is one of the world’s leading ultra-distance cyclists. Yet somehow, despite cycling on average 236 miles every day for 423 days, she’s managed to fly largely under the radar of mainstream and cycling press.

Here’s the story, and my Q&A with Amanda.

Juggling a full-time job with training and racing, squishing into a hired minibus to travel 30 hours to European races, burying yourself during a hard stage race to then cook your own meals and wash your bike/kit. It’s all par for the course for small cycling teams on limited budgets. Here, rider Alice Sharpe of sponsor-seeking elite team NCC Group-Kuota-Torelli, reveals the highs and lows of Tour life on a small budget – and how it didn’t stop her kicking ass on the Tour Ta Malta podium.

Last month I wrote about my cycling session with Dr Barney Wainwright, applied sport scientist at Leeds Beckett University, who adjusted my bike position, introduced me to the benefits of pedalling effectively (you can read the post here) and armed me with some simple pedalling drills as my homework. There were gains to be made. And the fundamentals were pretty simple.

Here’s a quick update…

Whether you’re a wannabe runner, cyclist, or swimmer the chance to chat with an expert in your sporting field is a dream come true – especially when that expert is a sport scientist with the expertise to reveal how you can improve your performance, speed and energy conservation.

Regular readers may remember that I’m taking part in a case study for Wattbike’s new Pedalling Effectiveness Score (PES) function. Thanks to this, I was fortunate to have a cycling one-to-one with Dr Barney Wainwright, applied sport scientist and Research Fellow at Leeds Metropolitan University. Because the case study will document how improving my pedalling technique affects my performance on the bike, this session with Barney was essentially a lesson in the basics of cycling efficiency.

Here’s what I learned in just a few hours.

At 13.1 kilometres long, 1803 metres high, and with an average gradient of 8.19% (max gradient 12%), Alpe d’Huez is one of France’s most iconic cycle climbs. Here, 54-year-old Lori Hoechlin recounts her experience of cycling up it an incredible EIGHT times in one day to achieve the feted ‘Everest’ – a continuous hill climb repeated until the height equivalent of Everest has been reached (a crazy 29,029 ft.)

The Fireflies Tour is a beast of a charity cycling event, taking its riders up and down momentous Cols and legendary Tour de France climbs during the nine-day journey from the Swiss Alps to Cannes in France. It covers a crazy 1,000km distance and a leg-busting 26,000 metres of vertical climbing. All in all, it’s pretty epic and takes a serious level of badassery, grit and fitness to complete.