"Flirt with the limit where your legs explode" - Paul Seixas takes on crucial Tour de France test as he races his first professional TTT
Cycling
Paul Seixas is a rider with plenty talents on the bike, however some aspects of pro cycling can only be learnt with experience and time. At 19, he has never ridden a team time trial as an elite rider. Today's at the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes will be his first, and will be a crucial test ahead of the Tour de France.
Seixas' first TTT as a professional rider
The TTT is an effort that is highly specific. Coordination between the riders, proximity between each other, length and effort in the stints through the front of the group... There are many variables that are not at play in neither a traditional road race or individual time trial. And Seixas is yet to learn them in a World Tour peloton.
"That's why we're quite curious about what this will bring. It's something you can only learn in a race," Luke Rowe argued in an interview with Het Nieuwsblad. "You can practice, train and recon as much as you want, even on closed circuits, it's never comparable to a race itself. Just because of the speed. In modern cycling, from the start you have to flirt with the limit where your legs explode. You have to constantly feel that something could go wrong at any moment".
Furthermore today's 23-kilometer long route features two small climbs in its first half, making the effort quite harder, and the effort gauging to also be more complicated to manage. At the Tour de France the same will happen, with race organizers steering clear of the traditional flat courses. "You can't imitate that in training. There you might get the feeling that the team time trial is going well. If you have that feeling in a race, it simply means it's not going fast enough".
"It mustn't go smoothly. Plus, if you make a mistake during the recon or in training, there are no consequences. If you make a mistake during the race, you pay for it cash by definition. Either you crash, or you lose a lot of time. That feeling, that awareness, is what Paul needs to master".
Read also
Decathlon ready for a high-level team time trial
The French team do not hide that they have a day in which gathering experience and coordination is key, and that victory may not be on the cards. After the withdrawal of Matthew Riccitello on the first stage, the team is down one rider. Seixas will nevertheless have the support of great time trialists such as Stefan Bissegger and Daan Hoole to put the team in a strong position.
With Seixas also evolving greatly in the discipline, there is a good chance he will even be able to put time into some of his rivals. “Physically, it’s not an issue at all. And tactically, we worked a lot on this discipline this winter, including on closed circuits. It’s something we’ll do more of before the Tour as well.”
Rowe will be eager to see the results, as at the Tour, a strong performance in Barcelona could also put the team in the yellow jersey. “You don’t get many chances at a team time trial. This will be a perfect dress rehearsal.”
Rúben SilvaEditor-in-Chief
A founding contributor to CyclingUpToDate since its launch in January 2022, Ruben Silva has played a central role in shaping the site’s editorial direction and long-term growth. Before joining the project, he built his experience through independent blogging at Echelons Hub and by producing race previews for Ciclismo Internacional, developing a strong analytical voice rooted in daily engagement with professional cycling.
Beyond editorial work, he has been closely involved in the expansion and coordination of CyclingUpToDate’s wider network, helping establish and support sister platforms across multiple languages. This includes ongoing collaboration with CiclismoAlDia (Spanish), CiclismoAtual (Portuguese), WielrennenUpToDate (Dutch), and RadsportAktuell (German), contributing to a shared editorial vision and consistent international coverage.
He also helps oversee editorial governance across the network, setting standards for accuracy and consistency and coordinating updates or corrections when needed.
Originally from the Porto metropolitan area in Portugal, he holds a bachelor’s degree in Geography. His path into cycling journalism was shaped not through formal media training, but through independent reporting, community engagement, and sustained on-the-ground involvement in the sport.
Over the course of his career, he has conducted approximately 100 interviews across road cycling and cyclocross, ranging from one-to-one conversations and online formats to press conferences and on-site pre- and post-race coverage. His interviews include leading riders, team managers, and prominent figures within cycling media: Tadej Pogacar, Jonas Vingegaard, Mathieu van der Poel, Primoz Roglic, Wout van Aert, Joao Almeida and Tom Pidcock; managers like Patrick Lefevere and Joxean Matxin; and YouTube personality Bryan Kennedy (BKXC)...
Within 18 months of launch, he helped grow CyclingUpToDate’s English-language platform into one of the most-read cycling news websites, built entirely from the ground up. As both a professional journalist and lifelong cycling enthusiast, his focus remains on delivering accurate, timely, and well-contextualized coverage.
claps 0visitors 0
Just in
Popular news
Latest comments
- guillaume martin is wuite a surprise as a gc rider.Ketterechts02-11-2026
- Who cares what Bruyneel thinks. He and his best mate Lance, the biggest fraud in the history of sport, have no place commenting on anything but how to lie and cheat!whit2pet02-11-2026
- Eeesh!Lozza02-11-2026
- bravo! a rider likes jonas needs motivation and he needs to believe in being able to reach goals. he - like anybody else in the world - doesn't believe that he can win the tdf with pogi present. and what's it worth for when pogi is not there? second class victory only. he has checked all three grand tours, so what is left if not retire? the classics! go for it, jonas!Ketterechts02-11-2026
- i am sure that under the pretext of medical examination a lot worse has happened when they were under.abstractengineer02-11-2026
- dude, Lemond never even was in the same race as Armstrong. He throws all these aspersions on other American riders who might usurp his throne as the greatest ever American racer. He doesn't say a single thing about (foreign) dopers who he actually raced against. Biggest douchebag move ever. I used to revere that guy, now I despise him. His actions are so weird.fatsupermodel02-11-2026
- This is just stupid, You do what you are good at not what you are weak at. He has no results to speak of when he participated. Even Froome, Conatdor had very little. With Pogi there he wont win none of the classics. he is already 30+ with a few years left at the top. It takes years to get good at classics. Is that really worth the effort???abstractengineer02-11-2026
- Sure, little fella.awp02-11-2026
- You'll be the ongoing joke of 2027 with anything you post here!frieders302-11-2026
- Awwww your inside information must be from PogiFanGirl. You two daughters of different mothers?frieders302-11-2026
Loading
Write a comment