Hugh Carthy: Riding GC is stressful, boring, but special

PERPIGNAN FRANCE MARCH 22 Hugh Carthy of United Kingdom and EF Education Easypost competes during the 101st Volta Ciclista a Catalunya 2022 Stage 2 a 2024km stage from LEscala to Perpignan VoltaCatalunya101 WorldTour on March 22 2022 in Perpignan France Photo by David RamosGetty Images
Hugh Carthy (EF Education-EasyPost) (Image credit: Getty Images Sport)

Ask any Grand Tour contender about what the day-to-day of battling for a top position in Paris or Madrid or Milan feels like and they'll likely highlight the pressure and the tension, the teamwork and the training, the dreams of success and the frustrations of failure.

But pointing out that a lot of the racing for GC can be crushingly dull – that doesn't happen so often.

Alasdair Fotheringham

Alasdair Fotheringham has been reporting on cycling since 1991. He has covered every Tour de France since 1992 bar one, as well as numerous other bike races of all shapes and sizes, ranging from the Olympic Games in 2008 to the now sadly defunct Subida a Urkiola hill climb in Spain. As well as working for Cyclingnews, he has also written for The IndependentThe GuardianProCycling, The Express and Reuters.