ALWAYS EVATING

AFTER STEADY PROGRESS OVER THE LAST FIVE YEARS BRITISH CLIMBER HUGH CARTHY SCORED HIS FIRST GRAND TOUR PODIUM AT THE 2020 VUELTA A ESPANA. VERN PITT FINDS OUT HOW THE 26 - YEAR - OLD GOT THERE, CONQUERED THE FEARSOME ALTO DEL ’ ANGLIRU AND WHY THIN BAR TAPE IS A MUST

Hugh Carthy is giving a sermon on pastry. “Sometimes people try and compensate for the filling of a pie by just putting more pastry in. It’s like a Yorkshire pudding on a Sunday dinner, they’re putting in pastry to make up for what they lack in everything else,” he tells CW. Having previously heard Carthy wax lyrical about butter pies, the potato and pastry delicacy of his hometown Preston, we’ve idly asked him if he has a strong view on whether a pie needs to be contained within pastry or if a puff top on a hotpot-style filling will do? It is self-evidently a daft question but Carthy is giving it some serious thought. “Just a pie with the topping is good enough for me,” he says. Then a pause. “With a pork pie though, having the pastry underneath is helpful so you can pick it up with your hands. But I wouldn’t get my knickers in a twist about it.”

It’s highly entertaining watching the gears of his brain tick over this topic, as they will do on many other things in the course of our conversation, working out in real-time where he stands on this crucial baked-good conundrum, tongue firmly in his cheek at all times.

Eventually, CW interjects: “I do probably need to ask you some questions about cycling, Hugh.”

“I think I’d rather to talk about pies to be honest,” he deadpans.

We’d not quite been primed to expect this from the 26-year-old Vuelta podium finisher. Carthy has a reputation as a tough person to get talking. Witness one of his post-stage TV interviews and you’ll see a young man who appears completely uninterested in the process. Carthy’s former team boss at JLT-Condor, John Herety, warmly describes his curt on-camera grunts as “like a teenager”.