Women’s WorldTour Stories: Strade Bianche, Trofeo Alfredo Binda & Milan-Sanremo by Kim Le Court Pienaar

Trofeo Alfredo Binda has given me a lot of confidence and motivation for Milan-Sanremo

AG Insurance-Soudal rider Kim Le Court Pienaar competed in the Trofeo Alfredo Binda and spent time in a long breakaway group of 14 riders. They didn’t quite manage to stay away right to the finish line, but the Mauritian National Champion managed to sprint to 9th place. 

Photo credit: Wout Beel & Cedric Praetere

Alfredo Binda result:

1. Elisa Balsamo (Lidl-Trek)

2. Blanka Vas (Team SD Worx-Protime)

3. Cat Ferguson (Movistar Team)

4. Marianne Vos (Team Visma-Lease a Bike)

5. Letizia Paternoster (Liv AlUla Jayco)

9. Kim Le Court Pienaar (AG Insurance-Soudal Team)

Kim talks about her season so far, and how she is looking forward to Milan-Sanremo:

Sanremo pre-race build-up

We have been in Alassio, which is along the route of the Milan-Sanremo. It’s really nice being on the beach and the weather is good for now, but I don’t know if it will be like that on Saturday for Sanremo.

The pictures would have been amazing if the weather was nice, but so far the weather forecast is not very good. But I’m looking forward to it, and we will do what we can. 

 

I only started racing in the WorldTour last year, so it’s only been half a year, but it’s been good.  Last year I had some good results. I came into this year with a completely different prep, so I was expecting better results than last year, but I wasn’t expecting it to be this good. 

UAE Tour was my first race of the season, and I wasn’t expecting to be third on GC [general classification] and so that was a really good result for myself – which helped my confidence and motivation for the next races. I had done Strade [Bianche] and [Trofeo Alfredo] Binda last year so I knew what was coming. 

How Strade and Binda were played out

In Strade I went into the race a completely different rider and wanted to do something special – I got into the break instead of just sitting on and trying to hope for the best. 

There were a lot of crashes, a lot of punctures. It’s one of those races where everything has to go your way because you could have any mechanicals or crashes or things like that, so I think you have to have the smoothest of days to get a good result. It’s not only about your physical strength but about luck and hoping it’s your day.

Luckily I didn’t have any incidents but my team-mates did. I narrowly missed a lot of crashes, and I jumped over one bike and managed not to crash! I made my way into the main breakaway, but then we got caught with 15km to go and my legs just gave up. I started cramping and that was it. So maybe I didn’t have a mechanical on the bike, but a mechanical in the legs!

In our group we were fighting for third place [behind Demi Vollering and Anna van der Breggen], but I had used all my matches early on and finished in 14th place. It is what it is, but I had been willing to go into the race with the mindset of losing it all to do something special. Unfortunately it didn’t work out this time – but maybe next time.

Racing at Alfredo Binda (Photo: Matteo Roose)

Binda was a great race. Obviously ninth is not what we wanted but the break I was in never managed to stay away on both occasions that we got away, and so obviously the sprinters came back. 

I’m not the fastest sprinter if I get someone like Elisa [Balsamo] next to me. Not being in a good position on the last lap in both of the climbs and having to bridge the gap to the best riders in the world such as Elisa and Demi, then being there with the top contenders is something super-special and I have now come out of that race having a lot of confidence and motivation and so it’s been super-special for me personally as a rider. 

I needed a race like Binda, as it is helpful for me, coming into the next few races. At Binda and at Strade I felt physically amazing and like my training was on point. Whatever I’d done in the off-season was paying off. Of course there’s still work to be done but so far I’m super-happy with how it’s going. 

Binda confidence-builder

However, I still fan-gaze other riders for sure! My team is trying to change that headspace of mine. For me it’s very different to come from nothing and being part of the best. It’s very strange, very weird to try and realise that I am one of them. I need to see them as just another rider. 

I’m the type of person on and off the bike that always questions herself and second guesses herself. I’ll feel great and I’ll have good races but I still have question marks about whether I am good enough and think they are better than me – especially when you are there with top girls like Demi and Elisa whom I’ve watched on TV since a young age. 

I think in sports you could be very strong but your head is the most important part of it, and maybe mine just needed a race like Binda where I was able to get a top 10 position even with what happened. 

My coach is one of the people who has helped with building my confidence, and for sure my team. The staff, the girls who have raced with me in Binda could see my strength, and they have told me how strong or impressive I was, and how I should believe in myself. 

Ash [Moolman Pasio], Gladys [Verhulst-Wild], Urška [Žigart] have congratulated me, and Jolien [D’hoore], the main sports director of the team gave me a call after the race.

I’m quite a gentle and soft person in the bunch so I get walked over quite easily but they tell me I need to be a bit more aggressive. So I have to work on that as well. I have to stop making friends in the bunch, but I like making friends! That’s just me – but I think overall, the whole team is just super.

Photo credit: Matteo Roose

Looking forward to the Poggio

 

I’m really excited about the Sanremo. I’m feeling great and we are all feeling super-excited for the race. I really don’t know what to expect. We’ve done the recon of the route. It looks good. So we will just have to see. The rain is going to come on Saturday so that might change a little bit of how the race goes but I’m excited to get going and to see how the race will go.

I think in the race you should probably be awake from about 50 to 40km to go. I would say from 50km to go because it starts getting into the small kickers towards the end. Also positioning before going into Cipressa and Poggio is super-important, as well as of course the downhill of Cipressa and Poggio. I think the downhills will be where everything will make a difference. You can win or lose a race in the downhill of Poggio. 

I could try and rely on my mountain bike abilities on the descents but the difference is that in mountain biking you are mostly alone when going downhill so you don’t have to worry about people around you, unlike in a road race. I hope the racing will be hard going uphill so that we are in a small group going into the Poggio at least, and not a big bunch on the downhill. 

Early beginnings and those African rainbow stripes

During the season I have an apartment in Girona, Spain. My parents live in Mauritius and I visit them when I go back for the National Championships, but my home is in Cape Town, South Africa. I settled there in 2021 and was in Pretoria before that.

As the National Champion of Mauritius I wear the jersey but I get a lot of comments about it. It was more last year than this year because it was new to people. At first people were really shocked about it, but slowly and surely in the season as I was racing and getting some results and getting interviewed about it multiple times I tried to always mention that it is my National Champion’s jersey – people need to know that it’s not my fault my national flag looks like the world champion’s jersey. I’ve seen people comment on social media asking what was invented first - Mauritius or UCI? The UCI approved it – they’re my country colours so you can’t really do anything about a flag. They can’t not approve it! Lotte [Kopecky – current World Road Race Champion]  said to me that in the beginning she thought, “What the hell is that?” But then she got used to it – it is what it is! 

Before coming to Europe to join AG Insurance-Soudal I did mountain bike racing around the African continent. Road racing was something I that had always been a dream of mine for a very long time. I was on the European scene in 2015 and 2016 but for smaller teams that weren’t World Tour back then. But that didn’t work out. I was still super-young, I wasn’t paid, which made it financially super-difficult and I felt lonely away from my family.

So I returned to Africa where I had a support network from my husband Ian, and my family, and I switched to the mountain bike. I did mountain biking all these years until I won the Cape Epic in 2023 and the Swiss Epic in the same year, and all the big mountain biking stage races.

 

Then my husband was like “Well what’s next? What now? Are you just going to carry on doing the same thing over and over or do you want to try and do road racing?” 

We could see the women’s scene and the peloton was getting really exciting, and growing enormously, but I replied, “You are mad! Nobody knows me and it’s such a small community. No one will give me a chance. I’m a mountain biker. I’ve no results on the road, no UCI points. I’ve got nothing.” 

He just said we should try, but I didn’t want to do it. I was just too scared to get rejected. In the end he said he would email people - so he did. He emailed and messaged every single team and finally we got a reply from a few teams. AG [Insurance-Soudal] was the one that stuck. They were also riding Specialized bikes in the team, which was the brand I was already on for mountain biking, so it made a lot of sense for me. AG gave me a chance in November 2023 and it’s because of my husband that I’m here actually. It was a really long shot! 

Photo credit: Matteo Roose

Warm welcome at AG Insurance-Soudal

For sure I was very nervous because of my experience in 2015 and 2016. I thought it would be unwelcoming and cold, as that’s the experience I had in the past. But in fact it was completely the opposite. I was super-welcomed. It was open arms from the first camp and after a few days I felt super-comfortable. I was super-shocked at how nice it was.

I am quite close to the Australian girls because we can kind of relate a little bit. We come from far and we have the same culture back home and we know what it feels like to be away so far from home. But I am also close to a lot of the girls - the new girls that just signed in the team now are super-nice, and I am close to Gaia [Masetti].

 

After Sanremo, I hope to have gelato and pizza and then stay with my team-mate Gladys in Nice. It’s my birthday on Sunday so I’ll go out somewhere nice in Nice with Gladys and join Urška and spend the day there or in Monaco.

There is a very friendly environment but at the end of the day it is a job, and you need to remember that this is work. We will see how things go at Sanremo, but we will do our best to get a result.   

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Freewheeling - The senseless killing of a cycling champion: Davide Rebellin

Italian ex-professional cycle racer Davide Rebellin was knocked down and killed by a heavy goods vehicle while on a bike ride last Wednesday morning (30th November). 

The accident occurred on a roundabout on a road he had cycled on literally millions of times, for it was just four miles from his home in Lonigo, near Vicenza. 51-year old Davide was born and bred in this area, and had ridden around these roads since the time his father Gedeon, who owned the local grocers shop and was cycling fanatic, got him and his brothers into cycling when he was 10 years old.

Carlo, Stefano and Simone liked cycling, but it was Davide who had a real gift for spinning the pedals fast, winning world junior titles and national races. At the age of 20 he got the call-up to represent  his country at the Barcelona Olympics, where he was instrumental in securing a gold medal for team-mate Fabio Casartelli (who died three years later in a horrific crash during the Tour de France).

A young Davide (right) with his brothers
[Credit: Rebellin family] 

Davide turned professional immediately after the 1992 Olympic Games and raced for different teams throughout his 30-year career including Gerolsteiner, Polti and Francais des Jeux. A specialist of the Spring Classics, races that take place in March and April on testing, undulating  sometimes cobbled  windswept roads in Northern France, Belgium and the Netherlands, Davide made his mark in 2004 by becoming the first rider to win Amstel Gold Race, La Flèche-Wallone, and Liège-Bastogne-Liege - the Ardennes Classics Week series. 

Over his 30-year career, he took 62 victories, including a victoria at the Giro d'Italia and a silver medal at the Beijing Olympics. The medal was revoked following a positive drug test, but he was then absolved of the charges following a 7-year legal battle.

Davide finally ended his professional cycling career on October 16th this year, where he took part in a race in Verona, in his home region. 

The quiet-mannered man who lived for cycling, was looking forward to spending more time with his friends and family between Monaco and Veneto, in this next phase of his life. 

But barely six weeks into this new era, on a morning in which Carlo was originally going to join him on a training ride (but was unable to go when something coming up at work) Davide cycled out, never to be seen alive again.

An articulated freight truck registered to Rieke Transport, a family company based in Recke, in the Rhine-Westphalia region of Germany, sped round a roundabout near the Montebello interchange between the Venice-Verona A4 motorway and the regional Stradale 11 road near Vicentino. In the process Davide was hit in the blindspot of the vehicle, trapped and dragged for around 25 metres along the road. Davide died instantly. 

These tragic events bear echoes of another shock to the world of cycling, in 2017 when Michele Scarponi, a racer, preparing to contest the win at the Giro d'Italia (Tour of Italy) was killed in a road traffic accident near his home. 

Where Scarponi was hit by a transit van whose driver stopped at the scene and was charged (though later died of cancer) the Rebellin incident had a shocking twist. 

The driver of the articulated lorry, a 62-year old Wolfgang Riecke, fled the scene. The man stopped, briefly looked at the scene of the accident, then jumped back in the cabin and fled back to Germany. Unsurprisingly, the social media pages for the freight company has been flooded with angry comments and insults.

Aftermath of the fatal accident [Credit: ANSA]

Although Italian police are due to charge the German national with road traffic homicide, at present they can't arrest him because this charge is not classed as a crime in Germany, and so no extradition can take place. 

The sight of Davide's road bike all crumpled up and in pieces, gives chilling thoughts about what happened to the cyclist in those final fatal moments. Coupling that with the notion that the perpetrator could practically get away with murder is sickening. Note that the driver has antecedents, having pleaded guilty in 2001 of leaving the scene of a road traffic accident he caused while driving, and having his driving licence temporarily revoked in 2014 for drunk driving. I hope that justice is done for the Rebellin family.

In the mean-time an autopsy is due to take place on 13th December, and the funeral will take place soon after that, in the cathedral of Davide's home town in Lonigo. 

May Davide rest in peace.   

Coronavirus Lockdown!

So, after all this talk of coronavirus firstly hitting Asia, then coming over and ravaging Northern Italy the thing just got all the more real, now that it has arrived in the UK and has claimed the first few victims.

Breeze Yoga, like other leisure places, sadly had to close

After what appeared to be a smug insouciance by many, including the UK Prime Minister, we have been forced to face the harsh reality that Coronavirus disease, Covid-19 (offically known as SARS-CoV-2) is taking hold of the country. In short, we are in deep s***.

Folks thought that it might be the capricious behaviour of certain world leaders, or even Brexit that might cause a socioeconomic meltdown. But no, all it has taken to bring the country into disarray is a tiny monster. And it is tiny. This organism of just one thousandth the size of a pinhead is causing havoc to countries across the world.

I was saddened to hear about what was happening in Asia, when the disease intially struck China, South Korea and parts of Japan.

However, I must admit I felt a certain complacency about the situation knowing they had overcome the first SARS outbreak 17 years ago, and so they would have the means to overcome this not dissimilar situation. I also perceived it has a problem that could potentially affect people in the UK, but not to any life-changing extent.

But then when I heard about the number of people killed there, it became more of a talking point. While I was in Milan, and then skiing in Courmayeur and Chamonix at the start of February coronavirus was a prominent talking point on the Italian news programmes. At that time a couple of people with the disease had been identified in Rome. But in a way people weren't so alarmed because they were folks who had returned from China, and as they were in isolation everything seemed under control.

But then one Sunday evening in late February when I was looking at the figures showing the number of coronavirus cases around the world, I was shocked to see how many people in Milan and the Lombardy region had been affected.

Once the disease had come to Italy everyone instantly knew it would be a matter of time before the scourge would arrive on UK shores.

My friend Silvia, who lives in Milan, spoke to me from her flat where she was holed up due to the government-imposed isolation measures. The thing that struck me was when she said that she did not mind being stuck there if it would help protect people, notably her elderly parents, from succumbing to the disease.

You need this when you go out in Italy during Lockdown

It was then that I first heard about the horror of people who die being left with no loved ones around them. Such is the contagious nature of the disease that sufferers can't make contact with anyone other than the hospital physicians and nurses.

Apparently some seriously patients, on realising that their days were numbered would ask to see their daughter or their husband, only to be told this wasn't allowed. I couldn't think of anything more heartbreaking and ruthless.

The other measures in place in Italy seemed equally alarming. No one in Italy is allowed to go outdoors at all unless it is to see a doctor or pharmacist, or to go to the supermarket. Even then, only one member of the family is allowed to go out and do the shopping and you can only go once a week. Furthermore, you have to go to the nearest supermarket to your home.

No outdoor exercises are permitted including cycling, but dog-walking within 200m of your home is okay.

All this was underpinned by a special form, known as an "autocertificazione". The form has your name, address, date of birth, ID number, reason you're going out and address of the place you're going to. You take the form with you every time you go outdoors, and be ready to show it to the police if you are stopped. Failure to have the form, or a breach of the rules leads to a heavy fine and potentially a prison sentence.

Italy had suddenly become a police state.

And now, given that there are over 8,000 who have tested positive with 422 deaths, including 87 in the last 24 hours the government has decreed the same measures in the UK as in other major European countries - well almost the same. We are allowed to go out and do one form of exercise - cycling or running; there is no time or distance limit, though we just have to make sure we maintain a social distance of at least 2m from others. We can do the activity alone, or just with members of our own household, but we can't do group activities.

So there you have it. We are offially in lockdown.

My first inkling that things were going wrong for us was last Tuesday when the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson announced that schools would be closing at the end of the week, and then on Friday he suddenly announced that sports centres and bars should close with immediate effect.

At that point I rushed out to get in my final class at Breeze Yoga. When I parted company with the instructors and other regulars some were optimistically seeing it as a couple of months' pause to catch up on other things. But now, given the extent of the disease I suspect that I won't be seeing the guys from Breeze at the end of May. In fact, given that so many businesses are now in trouble as a result of the enforced closure I really hope Breeze Yoga stays afloat through this difficult period.

As for me, I am just going to hope that I can stay in employment as well as remaining healthy. We have a physical and mental health lifeline in the shape of being able to go out and be active, as well as cycling. So I intend to make the most of that opportunity. Here's hoping that the Covid-19 reaches its peak soon so that we can then return to some semblance of normality as sooner rather than later. (Though sadly, it could be later.)

Italian cycling tales from towns on the Giro d'Italia route - 1

Stories from the places on the 2019 Giro d'Italia route. One thing I like about watching the Giro d'Italia cycle race is when the route goes through areas that I am familiar with - either places where I lived or stayed when on holiday, or places I cycled through. When I see the places on TV it always conjures up memories of the time I was there. In most cases I wish I could go back and ride in those areas - even if I am a little older and slower than I was a few years ago!

Verona (Stage 21)

Verona city entrance 

I love Verona. The first time I ever visited Italy I went to Venice. During that visit I also visited Vicenza, Lake Garda, and Verona.

All those places were pleasant and exciting, but my favourite place was Verona.

It didn't have quite as many tourists as Venice, and seemed a more manageable sized town.

There was also more space than the never ending narrow alleyways of Venice. In my opinion Verona looked prettier than Venice and didn't have a tired look about it from the gazillions of tourists, which I seem to notice in Venice.

I love the central central historic areas in Verona, and its Roman arena, where the Giro d'Italia finishes.

The time trial that the pros are doing for this final stage goes up the Toricelle road. I have never ridden up this road, but I have driven up it. Once, on a weekend away in the Veneto region I booked to stay at a B&B just outside the city centre, and it involved me driving up this climb. I hadn't realised that the road up to the B&B would be so twisty or that it even went uphill! So it was a bit of a test of my driving skills, especially as it was late at night, I wasn't that sure of where I was going and was stuck in among all the local drivers.

Verona Arena and City Hall at Piazza Bra

The B&B was very pleasant and we were treated to beautiful views of the city below, so going there was worth the effort.

The Toricelle climb was used in the World Race Championships in 1999, and is a regular time trial route for the locals. A nocturnal time trial takes place there every year around the end of August/early September. They call it a "cronoscalata" (hill climb). That must surely be one for the bucket list - well after a bit of training.


Feltre and Croce d'Aun (Stage 20)

The route from Feltre to Croce d'Aune is essentially the same course as the Gran Fondo Sportful Dolomiti, which takes place in a couple of weeks. This ride was previously known as the Gran Fondo Campagnolo, which is probably a more relevant name given that the guy who invented Campagnolo components was from Vicenza, not far from this area.

In fact he came up with the idea of the quick release wheel - something that is in most bikes nowadays - when a problem with his wheel on the Croce d'Aune during a cycle race in 1927, cost him the win.

I have done quite a few cyclosportives in Italy, but I have never done this one. A few years ago, we used to say that that the Gran Fondo Campagnolo (now the Gran Fondo Sportful Dolomiti) was one to avoid because the weather was always bad. The Maratona dles Dolomiti and Gran Fondo Pinarello which happen in early July both take place on very warm days. But at the Feltre event, the rain always showed up on the day, occasionally with the route having to be cut short.

So I tended to steer clear of it. Looking at recent photos of the race, it seems that the weather tends to be okay nowadays. So maybe it is time for me to consider riding it.

Treviso to San Martino di Castrozza (Stage 19)

I know Treviso from the time when I rode the Gran Fondo Pinarello - another cyclosportive that takes place at the home of the eponymous family-owned bike manufacturers.

Start line of Gran Fondo Pinarello with Yvette from Pinarello

It was more than 10 years ago when I rode it, so the route is a little different nowadays. The day I rode it, in July the weather was blisteringly hot and I rode the 200km route. We rode up Passo di San Boldo, which features in this stage.

Our route was from a slightly different side as we climbed for about 5 miles and then went over unmade roads before eventually threading in and out of a series of tunnels. The views below were spectacular. The San Boldo climb was the appetiser for a longer more arduous climb, not to San Martino di Castrozza, but to a ski area called Nevegal, which was again on unmade roads. It was a bit like doing Eroica!

Once there we turned around to do the run back in to Treviso, and passed over the Volpago di Montello, which was only about 2km long, but the gradient went to 12% - so something akin to the steep climbs I ride in the Kent or Surrey Hills. So I felt at home!

Montello climb in Gran Fondo Pinarello

During the Pinarello cyclosportive guys kept giving me tips and offering assistance to improve my ride. Some would tell me to just follow the wheel and save energy, while others would just automatically offer their wheel for me to draft off.

A bit like the equivalent of a gentleman holding a door open for a woman, when biking in these parts, guys would offer women their wheel and allow them to draft. It's not something you'd ever see in a UK cyclosportive.

In the last 20 miles of the Pinarello cyclosportive a group of local Italian guys came by and got me to ride in the group with them. They did a chain gang and told me I didn't need to take a turn on the front, so I basically got towed to within about 400m of the finish, and then they dropped back and allowed me to come through and sprint for the line! It made me feel quite important - even if I ended up finishing in 4,347th place out of 7,000 riders!


Valdaora to Santa Maria di Sala (Stage 18)

I have been to this part of Italy in the past - not for cycling, but to ski, and on one occasion for hiking. I wasn't in Valdaora but I was in nearby Dobbiaco. Although the area is part of Italy, it has a distinctly Austrian look and feel about it, and people automatically speak to you in German. Some people there don't know any Italian!

Cross country skiing around Dobbiaco

I went on a trip with Exodus Adventure Company to learn cross country skiing some years ago, so we were based in Dobbiaco (or Toblach, the German name). I had been enjoying the skiing, but deep down I felt that there was something not right about not being able to do a long downhill. Cross country skiing is hard work.

The trip took place in December, when the temperature was about minus 15 degrees C. So in those temperatures I put on about four layers under my jacket. However, within about 15 minutes of starting to ski I had to remove layers. It got to the point where I just stripped down to my cycling jersey and arm warmers. Anything more, and I was overdressed!

Cross country skiing is not that type of skiing where you can look cool as you drop down a hill at speed and then lounge around over a mulled wine enjoying the views at altitude. It's just rough and ready and you go hard at it uphill, on the flat, and even downhill! You burn more calories than cycling or running and in my case I end up a sweaty mess.

Cortina d'Ampezzo

So when I'd had my fill of working hard in the snow I left the group and caught a bus to get over to Cortina d'Ampezzo (where the riders passed through during this stage) to enjoy a bit of the gravity-assisted stuff - proper skiing.

I may have been a bit lacking in the style department, especially by Cortina's high standards, but the folks seemed to let me off!

I do hope to go to that area with my bike, and will go through Cortina, plus nearby Passo Falzarego, a well-known climb in that area which was not covered in this year's Giro (but has been included in the past).


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Italian cycling tales from towns on the Giro d'Italia route - 2

Riding the Gran Fondo Pinarello

Bike riding motto inspired from the Starman

"I don't know where I am going from here, but I promise it won't be boring." David Bowie (Madison Square Garden, 1997)

I found this inspiring photo on the Bikeitalia website.

It's not clear how much cycling David Bowie ever did, but I think this quote from the great artist could very much apply when out riding.

For sure, I have been on cycling trips where I wasn't quite sure where I would be going until I set off, and it was a case of taking my map and "making it up as I go along!" That was particularly the case in Italy. There was usually something that would happen - whether it was unexpectedly ending up on an unsurfaced road littered with stones and having to climb off and walk; meeting a local rider who tow's me in their slipstream to some interesting nearby places to ride, or just stumbling across spectacular hidden haunts.

So yes, next time if I'm not sure where I am going I'll promise myself it won't be boring!



Dedicated to a guy who was never boring and one of the few who could look cool in white shoes!