Zoe Backstedt On What It Really Takes To Ride The Tour de France - Domestique Hotseat Podcast

Zoe Backstedt came out of her first Tour de France Femmes with an all time 20 minute power best, a stage 9 pain face that went round the internet, and a very clear idea of what the race is missing. She tells George Burgess what nine days of it actually asked of her.

Her job at CANYON//SRAM was to protect Katarzyna Niewiadoma-Phinney and Antonia Niedermaier, which she describes as bodyguard duties for the whole week. That means positioning, following attacks she was not built to follow, and an endless loop back to the team car for bottles and ice. It was the hottest week she has ever raced. She could not tell you how many bottles the team went through, only that the ice had melted before she reached the front with it.

She is good on Niewiadoma. On the stage 5 climb to Belleville-en-Beaujolais, Backstedt was going sideways up an 18 percent ramp to make it flatter. At the bus afterwards she found out her leader had ridden the same climb in the big ring. On Mont Ventoux, where Niewiadoma went solo with nine kilometres to go and took yellow, her verdict is that the mind games behind made no difference at all. Niewiadoma was the strongest rider in the race from breakfast onwards.

The numbers are worth the episode on their own. Over 1,100 watts in a bunch sprint, and 225 to 250 in the Ventoux gruppetto. On the final stage she set a 20 minute best that beat her old one by 20 watts, with Niewiadoma shouting at her to keep going. She also explains why she was fourth in the Dijon time trial rather than on the podium. Getting over that took a phone call with her sister about anything other than cycling.

There is plenty more in here. Why the UCI clothing checks were not the story people thought they were, why nobody in the peloton was surprised that Lorena Wiebes could climb, and why she once got on the radio to tell her sprinter that she was not doing the final. She also wants one change for next year, and it is not a harder route. She wants a rest day and a proper sprint stage, because there was not a single day in the nine where anybody could ride easy.