What are the pros doing without racing?
A look at what some pros are doing in this time of no racing, country-wide lockdowns and the coronavirus
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We are in a very uncertain and quite worrying time in the world right now, in part because of the COVID-19 virus.
The UCI has opted to suspend all racing on its calendar in an attempt to prevent the spread of coronavirus.
Athletes haven't been able to avoid the disruption, so what are the pros doing in this second off-season?
The most publicised has to be the whole Mitchelton-Scott men's and women's teams doing their month's worth riding on Zwift, where riders, such as Simon Yates and Amanda Spratt, lead virtual rides, events and races.
Other riders and teams decided to go abroad, the men's and women's CCC Team along with riders like Tom Dumoulin (Jumbo-Visma) and Alex Dowsett (Israel Start-Up Nation) all have had to rush back to their homes though as countries began the process of closing borders.
Dowsett has been tweeting regularly, updating his followers on how he plans to get home.
Many riders in the pro peloton have taken to Zwift, Geraint Thomas (Team Ineos) uploaded a picture to Twitter of him riding the Tour of Watopia on the interactive cycling platform.
Some riders have just been chilling out, Nathan Haas (Cofidis), fresh home from his quarantine in UAE, is regularly out fishing with friend.
Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) uploaded a 6km run (or maybe a walk based on the pace) to Strava after doing a 96km ride the same day. Maybe he'll throw in a swim and have a stab at triathlon as well when racing returns?
Lots of the American and Colombian riders headed back to their home countries before travel bans fell into place, this meant that some riders had to leave Paris-Nice early, such as Tejay Van Garderen (EF Pro Cycling), who make a quick getaway from France back to the US just hours before they closed off all flights between the two nations.
World Champion, Mads Pedersen (Trek-Segafredo) also had to make a swift getaway after stage six of the French race as it was announced that Denmark was closing its boarders completely from noon the next day.
Gorka Izagirre (Astana) has asked Spanish authorities if professional riders can train outside after the Spanish government banned riding outside for two weeks. Being caught riding outside could result in a €3000 fine.
Back here in the UK, organised events are still being allowed to go ahead and we are allowed to ride outside, but as the country may be heading for lockdown, typical the weather stars to improve.
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Hi, I'm one of Cycling Weekly's content writers for the web team responsible for writing stories on racing, tech, updating evergreen pages as well as the weekly email newsletter. Proud Yorkshireman from the UK's answer to Flanders, Calderdale, go check out the cobbled climbs!
I started watching cycling back in 2010, before all the hype around London 2012 and Bradley Wiggins at the Tour de France. In fact, it was Alberto Contador and Andy Schleck's battle in the fog up the Tourmalet on stage 17 of the Tour de France.
It took me a few more years to get into the journalism side of things, but I had a good idea I wanted to get into cycling journalism by the end of year nine at school and started doing voluntary work soon after. This got me a chance to go to the London Six Days, Tour de Yorkshire and the Tour of Britain to name a few before eventually joining Eurosport's online team while I was at uni, where I studied journalism. Eurosport gave me the opportunity to work at the world championships in Harrogate back in the awful weather.
After various bar jobs, I managed to get my way into Cycling Weekly in late February of 2020 where I mostly write about racing and everything around that as it's what I specialise in but don't be surprised to see my name on other news stories.
When not writing stories for the site, I don't really switch off my cycling side as I watch every race that is televised as well as being a rider myself and a regular user of the game Pro Cycling Manager. Maybe too regular.
My bike is a well used Specialized Tarmac SL4 when out on my local roads back in West Yorkshire as well as in northern Hampshire with the hills and mountains being my preferred terrain.
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