MTB world champion Alan Hatherly promises to "be soon on equal terms" with Olympic champion Tom Pidcock also on road
Cycling
Alan Hatherly had a lesser Vuelta a Andalucia where he subsequently withdrew after three stages. But it doesn't take away anything from his phenomenal debut at AlUla Tour where only his old MTB nemesis Tom Pidcock was stronger uphill. With first big road races in the legs, he can now take a stock of his start as a road professional.
"I prepared very well for this choice," Hatherly told Bici.pro about the adjustments to his preparation for road. "I rested less than other years at the end of the season, precisely because with the team we had decided to be in the race right away. And I wanted to start off on the right foot, to put myself to the test right away."
Tom Pidcock
At mountain bikes, the South African is often on par with Olympic champion Tom Pidcock. After AlUla tour where Hatherly saw Pidcock triumph ahead of him with a difference of class, what is missing for Hatherly to challenge the Brit on road as well?
"It couldn't be the same, for me the road is still very new. I think I still have to pay my dues on the road to someone like him, learn the basics. There the difference was seen. But I think that time is on my side, soon we will also be on equal terms there. Already in the next races I want to be closer."
Goals
Which will be prioritized in 2025? Road or Mountain Bike? Hatherly is confident he can combine both without problems:
"My main goal for this year is to already be at a good level in road racing. I really want to get good results before I get back to mountain biking, which will be with me from May onwards to race in the World Cup and focus on confirming my mountain bike world title in Kansas at the end of the summer."
"On the road I would like to get a top 10 in a major race, then dreams have no limits… I think maybe with a bit more experience I will be able to do it, but you never know. I learn quite quickly. So I am looking forward to this challenge." 6th overall at AlUla Tour was clearly not enough to satisfy his hunger.
Seeing as Hatherly immediately performed as a long-time pro in his road debut in Saudi Arabia, doesn't he regret not making the switch to road sooner? "No." Hatherly explains: "It was very difficult to get an opportunity. Most teams already saw me as too old , add to that the fact that I had no international experience, they simply weren't willing to take the risk. My victories opened doors for me, now I want to repay that trust."
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- Great commentCaralladas05-04-2025
- i’m such a sucker for those group-hug, happy ending moments between competitors, largely because it’s so WASN’T that way in my younger, stronger days. (on that note, i have this hope that somewhere down the road, maybe fifteen or twenty years, a middle aged wout and mathieu will go for a pleasure ride together in flanders, and reminisce about the days when they were the young, strong monsters that stalked the cobbles.)OCexile05-04-2025
- Just like Dwars door Vlaanderen, the Ronde van Vlaanderen was/is NOT on MAX. Get your facts straight.Ben04-04-2025
- You might bounce more for the same power, but not the same speed. Sending 20 kgs over a jump at 20 kph will fly just as far as 10 kgs at the same speed. Again, Galileo demonstrated this.acem8204-04-2025
- So, you're saying that doing a bunch of small hops on a bike is easier if you're heavier? Why do people buy lighter bikes, then? Why do they generally feel better and faster? An appeal to "rhythm" is not helpful either, as the right "rhythm" might be on the lighter or heavier side of things, and as it varies, it's likely a wash either way. Then we are left with the physics truth that it takes less power to lift lighter things than heavier things.acem8204-04-2025
- No, weight doesn't affect the ability to go into the wind at all. It's all CdA vs power at that point. For example, it's "obvious" that a heavier object falls faster than a lighter one. But, absent wind resistance, it's not true (Galileo demonstrated this). An appeal to "obviousness" doesn't matter when the physics is clear. And yes, you have to be able to hold everything else constant, or you can't determine anything! So, imagine a 300 watt rider at 80 kgs with a CdA of 2.0, then imagine that same rider at 70 kgs with a CdA of 2.0. (Assume ideal tire pressure for both, same bike.) Which one can ride over a bumpy road fastest? The lighter one, as he doesn't have to lift as much. That's also why when they test bikes on 5 star cobbled sectors, the MTB goes faster than even a cobble-build road bike. Even though rolling resistance is higher on a flat road, and the CdA is junk, it smooths out the cobbles, allowing the person to not lift as much as they otherwise would.acem8204-04-2025
- I disagree. If you have lower weight, you will bounce more at the same speed, meaning that you will spend more time in the air and shorter time on the ground, as a consequence, when you are on the ground you have to produce more force for the same speedvappaxbipmv04-04-2025
- That’s not quite true, even steep climbs and sudden gradient changes can be considered as remaining tangential to the wheel whereas the occasional dip between cobbles a wheel drops into cannot, as such riding over cobbles can become like a permanent surmounting of small obstacles that hit back into your wheel slowing you drastically if you don’t have the right rhythm to “fly” on the mounds, here again the greater the momentum the less these obstacles reduce your speed. But, it is but one factor, you cannot decide on this alone. Like with natural surface ripple formation on desert tracks used by vehicles, there is an optimal speed range to efficiently pass over such surfaces, too fast or slow and your car gets shaken to pieces from the “harmonics” in the vibrations caused. Pretty sure the same applies to riding on cobbles.Mistermaumau04-04-2025
- I am saying I have an open mind at the moment for your cobbles theory but cannot agree with your wind statement (and by extrapolation sprinting since that implies speeds where wind is by far the limiting factor). Had you argued all things not being equal I could have agreed with you but if we thus assume 2 objets of the same size and speed but with differing weights, it is completely obvious that the lighter one will suffer faster in the wind. Extrapolate to the extreme, drop stuff off cliffs or just remember your momentum equations to verify. Now, obviously in real life we have to assume riders of different weights won’t have the same wind hitting surface but you cannot generalise at all then as you can have very unaerodynamic light riders and very aerodynamic heavy ones because it isn’t weight that defines CdA, Teslas have an incredible CdA and are ridiculously heavy, and someone like Harry Levreyssen is a Tesla in cycling.Mistermaumau04-04-2025
- When Roglic beat Geraint Thomas on the last day's TT at the Giro, I remember just how unbelievably emotional his team was. One guy, I forget who, German rider I think, was interviewed and was nearly speechless with a really drawn out "fuuuuuuuuuck it's incredible" comment. And then something even more amazing happened. Geraint Thomas came through the ranks of the Jumbo Visma riders and congratulated them all. True, honest, sincere, sportsmanlike, and celebratory of what had been achieved. Here he was, getting second, and he meant it. And cycling these days is like that, as you say - the way Pogacar hugged Matthews in Quebec, the way Matthews congratulated Pogacar in Montreal, on and on they honor and respect each other. It's pretty great.RidesHills04-04-2025