Last year the promising young ARA-Skip Capital rider from Melbourne, Lucinda Stewart, was sitting on the sidelines with a broken collarbone as the all-important summer of cycling began to unfold.
All her hard work in preparation seemed for nought as key goals like the AusCycling Road National Championships and Tour Down Under slipped through her fingers. However, it was still a season to remember because, as frustrating as that start to the year may have been, Stewart was spurred on rather than deflated.
“It was a bit of a hurdle to overcome,” Stewart told Cyclingnews in Melbourne of her early season-ruining training crash in 2024. “I really had to refocus my goals.
I spent a month on the ergo and although I missed out on the Australian summer cycling, I think it really just lit a fire inside me and just made me want to work even harder.”
The hard work paid off and the season that started with disaster soon proved a pivotal career building block for the 20-year-old who is now signed to the Liv AlUla Jayco Continental development team, with her fortunes quickly taking a turn once her injury hiatus was over.
Stewart came back to racing in 2024 at the most gruelling of events, the 160km Lochard Energy Warrnambool Women's Cycling Classic, and she did it with form that did far more than just get her through the longest women’s event on the domestic national road series calendar but helped manoeuvre her to the very top step of the podium at the prestigious event.
“To get the win in the Warrny, especially being such a long race, it was that bit of confidence that I needed going into the season,” Stewart said on the sidelines of the launch of the 2025 event in December. “I was heading over to Europe knowing that all the hard work had fallen into place.”
The European races flowed from April through to August of 2024, and Stewart quickly added an international podium to her results tally with a third place at the lumpy 1.2 ranked Région Pays de la Loire Tour Féminin.
“I was really happy with that,” said Stewart, who also went on to secure a spot in the top of the overall 20 overall and fourth in the youth classification at her first Women’s WorldTour level European race, the RideLondon Classique.
“I sort of wasn't even expecting results and that wasn't even really the focus going into it –
I just wanted to build on the previous season and focus on the process. The results were just the extra reward.”
Importantly the progress, and the visible signs of it, also helped Stewart secure her next step on the pathway toward the ultimate goal, a place in the Women’s WorldTour. That means the Melbourne cyclist is now setting off into this new season with the Liv AlUla Jayco Continental development focussed team after signing a two-year contract with the squad.
“I'm still in the under 23 category and that's really what I need – a really supportive environment without that immense pressure of a big WorldTour team,” said Stewart. “I’m really excited for new opportunities, new racing and I feel like I've heaps to learn.”
Stewart will be making the move to Europe this month and getting settled in Girona so while she’ll once again miss much of the early season Australian racing, including a defence of her Warrnambool Women's Cycling Classic title in February. Still, it's for the right reasons this time and there will at least be time to squeeze in the AusCycling Road National Championships before she leaves.
There had, however, been a moment which sparked concern it may be another tough start to the season and that was when she crashed at the Tour of Bright late November but fortunately it was not enough to derail her early season plans once again. Stewart was able to rebound quickly after the stage 1 fall which left her nursing some bruised and fractured ribs.
“I had, sort of a week off and then I was able to get on an ergo and now I'm out training on the road,” said Stewart in mid-December, adding with a laugh that there was nothing like “a bit of forced rest”. “But yeah, all systems go for the Road Nationals in January.”
After racing the criterium on Friday and combined U23/Elite women's road race on Sunday Stewart will be heading straight to Europe for a January training camp with her new team. It is then a European racing start in Spain in February for the rider who leans toward the Classics but is quick to emphasise that she is still in the process of discovering exactly where she fits.
“If I come away from the season having made another step in the right direction, feeling happy with the team and with the environment then I think that’s a big win for me,” said Stewart.
