Cycling: Racing into the Headwind

By securing a victory with a decisive lead in the final race before the Grand Tour season, Adrià and Huang Chong had successfully concluded the first half of their season.

Although the team’s performance in stage races had been a complete mess, their consecutive breakthroughs in one-day races meant their season couldn’t be considered a failure.

"Thanks, Huang. This victory really should have been yours!"

Adrià knew full well that even though he had intentionally lowered his power output about 15km from the finish to help Huang Chong catch up, if Huang had been a lead rider from another team in full pursuit, there was no way he could have escaped.

And in a flat sprint to the finish, while he had some explosive power, he would have found it very difficult to beat Huang Chong.

Besides, he hadn’t even intended to take first place at the finish. It was Huang Chong who had suddenly tapped his brakes, kindly letting him have the victory.

Huang Chong didn’t mind. Adding another champion title from a minor race like this to his record held little practical value.

It was only a matter of 50 fewer UCI points.

Although he crossed the line in second place for a total of 250 points—not the most auspicious number—the 50-point difference was negligible, equivalent to a single watt of power. It wouldn’t make any real difference at all.

But letting his support rider take the victory was a great way to foster good team relations and showcase his own charisma as a leader.

In the future, the support riders would only admire his character more and give their all for him in races.

This was actually a very positive dynamic.

Some lead riders are extremely greedy for victory and prefer to run their teams like a dictatorship.

In reality, Professional Cyclists are only human. Although team orders dictate that a support rider must prioritize their leader...

...if a support rider is unhappy with their leader, they can subtly sabotage them during a race without anyone noticing. There was simply no need for that kind of behavior.

"Don’t mention it, Adrià. You deserve this victory."

"Honestly, even if I hadn’t broken away on that final steep climb, you had a minute-and-a-half lead on the main peloton. They never would have caught you."

"You were the rightful winner of this race!"

Huang Chong’s emotionally intelligent response left Adrià deeply impressed.

Although he was a few years older than Huang Chong, both had just transferred to the Bora Team this year, and Adrià had originally been the team’s star rider.

But after racing alongside Huang Chong a few times, he realized his skills were truly no match for his teammate’s and slowly came to accept the fact that he was now a support rider.

In road cycling, strength is everything!

There was no arguing that.

Between riders of the same type, whoever is stronger and more consistent naturally becomes the leader.

It was just that Huang Chong possessed a humility that most lead riders lacked.

Adrià smiled and nodded, not wanting to dwell on it any further, and simply gave Huang Chong a friendly hug.

Afterward, once the race was over, he and Huang Chong went to the podium together to receive their trophies and flowers before rejoining the team at headquarters to celebrate the victory.

「Four days after the race in Frankfurt came the first Grand Tour of the year: the Giro d’Italia.」

But for this three-week race, Aldag had scheduled the Bora Team’s core lineup—including Vlasov, Sindel, Adrià, and Huang Chong—to rest.

Firstly, they needed to save their energy for the more important Tour de France. Secondly, with Pogačar competing, there was no need to send their top riders to be pointlessly worn out.

In this, they were not alone; other teams were making the same choice.

Only the Ineos Grenadiers Team and the Decathlon Team sent their respective leaders, Thomas and O’Connor, to compete in the Giro d’Italia.

Overall, the main point of interest in this season’s Giro d’Italia was undoubtedly watching Pogačar dominate the field and seeing just how many stage victories he could rack up.

Huang Chong had a very vivid memory of Pogačar’s victorious run in his one and only appearance at the Giro d’Italia.

The guy had lost the sprint finish of the first stage to Narváez of the Ineos Grenadiers Team, but from the second stage onward, he wore the pink jersey—symbol of the overall Giro d’Italia leader—all the way to the end of the race.

And throughout the entire Giro, he managed to secure a whopping seven stage wins.

His dominance was truly terrifying!

So with Pogačar competing in the Giro d’Italia, having other team leaders sit it out was indeed the best choice. Otherwise, they would just be completely outclassed by the "Mars Person."

And the most incredible part about the UAE Team was that Narváez—the one rider who snatched the pink jersey from Pogačar for a day in the S1 Stage of the Giro—was bought by them directly from Ineos for the 2025 season to serve as Pogačar’s support rider in the Tour de France—

Of course, while no team had illusions about winning the overall Giro d’Italia title, a top-ten finish in the general classification was still something to fight for.

Thus, the lineup the Bora Team sent to the Giro d’Italia was by no means weak. The specific roster was as follows:

Lead Rider: Martínez

Support Riders: Giovanni Aleotti, Jonas Koch, Florian Lipowitz, Ryan Mullen, Maximilian Schachmann, Danny van Boppel, and Patrick Gamper.

As for star riders from other teams, there were quite a few as well, such as Geraint Thomas, Thymen Arensman, and Filippo Ganna from the Ineos Grenadiers Team; Alexey Lutsenko from the Astana Team; Ben O’Connor from the Decathlon Team; Biniam Girmay from the Wanty Team; Jonathan Milan from the Trek Team; Nairo Jintana from the Movistar Team; Julian Alaphilippe and Tim Merlier from the Quick Step Team; Romain Bardet and Fabio Jakobsen from Team DSM; Christophe Laporte and Olav Kooij from the Visma Team; and Antonio Tiberi and Phil Bauhaus from the Bahrain Team, among others.

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