Difficult start to the season for Orléans rider Pierre Rolland, after having contracted covid 19 and missed his first race of the year, it is finally on the tour of Valencia in Spain let him hit the road again. Currently at the 64th place overall, the 36-year-old cyclist knew that the recovery would be difficult: “I spent a week in bed well slept, I did not expect to fly over the debates“.
He is preparing for future deadlines
However, he sees this tour of Valence as a first warm-up for take on the capital races of the year : “in May, June, July, that’s when you have to be really in good shape”. He is obviously thinking of Tour de France, for which invitations have not yet been sent.
More and more comfortable
“The goal is to rack up the kilometers, the rhythm of the race, to take automatisms with the team and with the peloton” details Pierre Rolland. The tour of Valence started on Wednesday February 2, after a few days of racing he says: “I feel good and day by day I feel that I am more comfortable in the peloton“.
A team with new faces
His team, B&B hotels KTM has undergone a major overhaul this winter: “a lot of young people have arrived, they have the knife between their teeth as they say, they are full of ambition and it takes a little time for everything to fall into place but I think the results should come soon“.