“I’ve reached saturation point,” Høj told sporten.tv2.dk. “My legs have been through a lot, so it will be nice to be able to ride my bike without it necessarily having to hurt.”
2010 was Høj’s 16th season as a professional, making the 37-year-old one of the longest-serving riders in the peloton. His biggest wins came in 1998, when he took the Danish national championship and Veenendaal-Veenendaal.
Thereafter, Høj was a consistently strong performer in the cobbled classics in a career that saw him ride for Palmans, US Postal, Française des Jeux, Team Coast, Gerolsteiner and Cofidis, along with two stints competing for Bjarne Riis’ teams. He also took top 10 finishes in the road race at both the Sydney and Athens Olympic Games, while his last victory came at the Circuit Franco-Belge in 2005.
Høj refused to be drawn on his precise plans for his retirement, only that his future would lie outside of cycling. “I’m going to start off again from zero with a new career that has nothing to do with cycling,” Høj explained. “It’s going to be a big change, because I’ve been a professional rider for 16 years.
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Barry Ryan was Head of Features at Cyclingnews. He has covered professional cycling since 2010, reporting from the Tour de France, Giro d’Italia and events from Argentina to Japan. His writing has appeared in The Independent, Procycling and Cycling Plus. He is the author of The Ascent: Sean Kelly, Stephen Roche and the Rise of Irish Cycling’s Golden Generation, published by Gill Books.
