He's only one week into the season, but Julian Arredondo thinks everything is going to be all right. The Colombian rode his way inconspicuously through the Vuelta a San Juan last week, his first race back at the Nippo-Vini Fantini team, but just making it to the end was a sign that his career might be back on track.
The last two years were rough, especially off the back of what came before. In his first year as a full professional, in 2014, Arredondo announced himself as one of the most promising talents in the sport, winning two stages at the Tour de San Luis, finishing fifth at Tirreno-Adriatico, and then winning a stage and the mountains classification at the Giro d'Italia. He was part of the 'new wave' of Colombian climbers, but the likes of Nairo Quintana and Esteban Chaves have since left him behind.
The Trek WorldTour team quickly signed him up for another two years, but 2015 was beset by physical problems, with constant pain in his pelvis and lower back that no one could seem to get to the bottom of. Results were anonymous, but it would go from bad to worse in 2016 as he completed just 37 race days and racked up no fewer than eight DNFs.
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"I was thinking seriously about retiring,” Arredondo tells Cyclingnews at the Vuelta a San Juan in Argentina. “It was just problems, problems, problems – always problems.
"For two years we didn't understand why the back was hurting, why there was so much instability in the pelvis. It was an ordeal just finishing races. At the start I went to see someone and they'd say it was linked to my jaw, then someone else said it was I used my heels too much when pedalling. Wherever I went they said something different."
Trek began to lose hope and long before the transfer window rolled round in August, it was clear they wouldn't be putting a fresh contract on the table.
Arredondo says he wouldn't have signed it even if they had, and it becomes clear he feels unhappy about the way he was treated at the American team.
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