Beñat Intxausti (Team Sky) has added cyclo-cross races to his winter schedule in a bid to build up his form ahead of the 2017 season. Intxausti endured a torrid year, racing just 15 days in 2016, and was keen to get back on the bike.
He posed the idea of racing cyclo-cross to Sky, who agreed, so long as it was merely a training exercise and not a full programme. After an urgent bike delivery, Intxausti set out to test his new steeds at the weekend.
“They set me up with two practically new bikes,” Intxausti said. “[The bikes] arrived on Friday at eight in the evening – the race was on Sunday. They had to be ridden, and on Saturday I went to try them in Amezaga: to fine-tune the bike, the measurements, the tubulars, one day before I was to compete with the new bikes."
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"I have always asked the teams if I could do a race as a form of training and preparation, and in this case I have had the fortune that the team have said yes. [It is] all about training, not to compete and have objectives, without thinking in the long-term.”
Intxausti rode cyclo-cross prior to turning professional in 2007, but it has since taken a back seat to his road ambitions. Intxausti lined up at the Trofeo San Andres in Amezaga de Zuia on Sunday. He didn’t finish, but the race and build-up gave him almost two hours riding.
"It was nice, it’s a return to the past and, the truth is, I enjoyed it a lot,” he said. “With the warm-up and the race, it was an hour and a half, almost two hours. Afterwards, I extended it with a ride home on my road bike to make it a bit longer and to simulate the efforts of the race. Now I will relax so that later in the week I will do some much longer training.”
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