Olympic mountain bike champion Pauline Ferrand-Prévot says she feels like she’s at the end of her career yet at the beginning, after making the switch back to the road from mountain biking.
The French 32-year-old will ride for Visma-Lease a Bike next season, having moved from Ineos Grenadiers, where she focused successfully on MTB, winning the Olympic Games XC and numerous World Cup rounds.
“It was nice to get to know everyone,” she said of her first meeting with her Visma-Lease a Bike team-mates. “I also realised that I’m one of the oldest, and it’s very interesting to feel like I’m at the end of my career and at the beginning. So it’s a strange feeling.”
Road world champion a decade ago, Ferrand-Prévot’s last full road season was in 2018, when she was seventh in Liège-Bastogne-Liège and ninth overall in the Women’s Tour while riding for Canyon-SRAM. Since then she has only ridden National Championships, with the exception of the recent Zurich World Championships.
Road return
She had decided as long ago as last winter that she was done with MTB, she said, and that she would return to the tarmac.
“Last winter I was already thinking of after [the Olympics]. Because in my head, to perform, I needed to know what was going on after the Olympics,” she said.
“I said, ‘I don’t want to do it’… I don’t want to do this again, the same races, training. But I’m still not tired of cycling, and I still want to race my bike. So I think it was a good moment for me to switch to road cycling also have a new chapter in my career.”
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She switched to the Dutch team because Ineos Grenadiers do not have a women’s team and Visma would support her despite her age, because, she conceded, “I do not have many years in front of me and I want to perform at the highest level.”
Ferrand-Prévot’s partner is Dylan van Baarle who also rides for Visma-Lease a Bike. Although, she insists, it was not he who bagged her the place. The pair don’t train together (“I need my space, he needs his space,” she said) but they do both use the same nutrition app, at least.
Winning the Paris Olympic MTB XC
(Image credit: Getty Images)
The numbers have it
Ferrand-Prévot’s numbers left her with no doubt she could compete at the highest level – all she needs is to get used to racing the road again.
“When we see my power data, I know I’m able to be good, to be a good road rider,” she said, “so it’s just a matter of spending time in training, with my team-mates, and also racing in the bunch.”
Talking of which, the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift was the only race she was able to confirm she would ride next year. It was a route well suited to her, she said.
“It’s a good parcours for me with a mix of short climbs and long climbs,” she said. “So yeah, I’m curious to see during our recons what I can do and what I have to work at to be the best.”
One thing she was pleased not to see in the route was a time trial.
“I was happy that there was not a TT stage, because I think it’s good to take it step by step. You know, first come back on the road and to find a nice aero position on the road bike. And then to work more on the TT set-up a bit later.”
On the Oude Kwaremont, Tour of Flanders 2018
(Image credit: Getty Images)
All change please
Having switched both teams and disciplines, it’s no surprise that Ferrand-Prévot has a new coach now, and the training she’s doing is a whole new ball game.
“It’s totally different from what I was doing before,” she says. “I can’t say if it’s harder or easier, but it’s not the same. So I have to get used to that.”
One thing she also anticipates is how racing has changed in the past six or seven years. Race distances, for example, stood out to her as having gotten longer.
October’s Zurich World Championships offered a harsh baptism back into road racing. After an hour, she said, her “legs were broken”, and she DNF’d.
“There’s a lot of things. The races are longer, so I have to get used to longer races. And compared to before there’s much more teamwork in women’s cycling, so it’s not only about me, it was also be about my team-mates.”
She also singled out nutrition as something that had moved on.
“Before, you didn’t really eat on the bike. I’m speaking like I’m 60 years old,” she joked, but added, “but now we can see nutrition is super important. So I have to be on top of everything.”
One thing that had not really changed, she said, was that there were still around 10 riders who could win. Whether or not Ferrand-Prévot will be among those in 2025, we wait to find out.