Lewis Askey (Groupama-FDJ) had never raced the Australian summer calendar before but has gone all in, enjoying the weather and the intense racing, and fought the pain of a crash.
The Brit headed out of the UK winter and into the heat and disparate time zone before Christmas, with hopes that the early adjustment and training in good weather would set set him up for this block of racing but also the 2025 season.
His results have been mixed but he and Groupama-FDJ have one final chance at the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race.
“Sunday’s race, and actually even in the Tour Down Under, a lot of the days were suited quite well to my type of rider,” Askey told Cyclingnews in Geelong.
“So it means that if I can come here in good form, get a good big block of training in nice weather before I head back to Europe, that hopefully should put me in really good stead for the Classics and, well, I hope to already come out with something from Sunday.”
The form part of the equation seemed well in hand, with Askey saying in terms of race numbers “I've been probably near my best level, of my life, I'd say, up to this point.”
That condition translated into a strong lead-out on stage 1 of the Tour Down Under, with Askey delivering teammate Matthew Walls onto the right wheel so he could take a podium result.
However, the other sprints didn’t go to plan and worst of all the last one on stage 6 ended with Askey and Rémy Rochas crashing just when they had looked ideally positioned to lead out Walls heading toward the last kilometre.
“I honestly don't even know what happened, because for me we weren't going too fast around the corner. Maybe it was the mixture of the speed bump and the white line at the same time. It really did take me by surprise as I wasn't anywhere near the limits of the tyres. Because it took me by such surprise I actually crashed really quite hard.”
A busted helmet, skin off and a hard hit to the knee on his bike frame wasn’t exactly the ideal run into the final races.
“I'm really hoping to be back on 100% form for Sunday," said Askey.
“Physically, form-wise, I'm actually going really quite well at the moment so if we put me on a parcours that really suits my abilities, then there's a chance to do something quite nice.”
Askey raced Thursday's Surf Coast Classic in Lorne and despite it being a brutally fast race with attacks and splits that just kept coming, he didn’t seem to suffer with his injuries. He finished in the lead bunch of 45 and the team added in a statement that Sunday’s crash had left no after-effects.
“Honestly, the biggest thing for me coming to Sunday will be how sore I'm feeling and how almost fragile I'm feeling – as in how much I don't want to crash again,” said Askey.
“Sometimes when you've had a crash, it kind of makes you a little bit more wary in the peloton and that's actually the worst thing to do, because if you start braking a little bit early, it means you slide down the pack a little bit more, and that's where it's even more dangerous.”
“I'm hoping if I'm on the start line, it's because I think I've got a chance of doing something. I mean a bike race is a bike race, everything can always happen.”
