The last time Michael Valgren pinned on a race number was in June of 2022, before horrible crash on stage 3 of La Route d'Occitanie left him with a fractured pelvis, ruptured ACL, MCL and meniscus in his knee.
He faced a long road back to full health, let along bike racing. However after ten months of recovery and rebuilding, the Danish rider is ready to race again and will line up at the Region Pays de la Loire Tour in France which starts on Tuesday.
Valgren is currently registered with the EF-Nippo-Development Team, a shift the WorldTour team said was designed to allow him to take his comeback at his own pace, but will be returning to the four-day 2.1 race with his former WorldTour teammates at EF Education-EasyPost. UCI rules allow teams to mix their line-ups between related teams.
“I am just looking forward to getting back in the bunch and having a good week and enjoying it. There won’t be any pressure. I will just ride into it and get used to it and the speed and being with my strong teammates," Valgren said.
"There are no big expectations from my side, but I want to be a part of the race. I don’t want to be a passenger … I want to contribute where I can. I don’t want to be riding at the back of the peloton for a four day holiday in western France.”
The racing in the north-west of France will start on Tuesday, April 4 with a flat 134.4 stage from Saint-Nazaire to Saint-Gilles-Croix-de-Vie, continuing with a 123km stage from Clisson to Le Lion-d'Angers, then on Thursday it is a climb heavy 152km stage from Baugé-en-Anjou to Mayenne before the race finishes on Friday with 130km from Sablé-sur-Sarthe to Le Mans.
Valgren will be racing alongside Ben Healy, James Shaw, Georg Steinhauser, Julius van den Berg and Marijn van den Berg.
“My numbers are really good,” said Valgren. “Obviously training and racing are very different, so having good numbers doesn’t mean that you are going to go fast in racing, but we made a really good plan, and I have been doing that to perfection."
The 31-year-old last took on the French-stage race in 2015, coming 25th, but it is hard to think of any better result for the 2018 Amstel Gold Race and Omloop Het Nieuwsblad winner than making it back to the start line.
"It feels really good to be a bike rider again," Valgren said.
"This sport is amazing. You sometimes take these things for granted. That is one of the good things about this injury of mine. I have been away for so long. I missed this."
