Cometh The Hour

Cometh the man? It looks like that’ll be the case in 2017 – Movistar’s Alex Dowsett tells Cyclist in an exclusive interview why he’s planning another crack at the Hour Record.

- Andy Sherwood

English time trialist Alex Dowsett is sitting with Cyclist at the Westin Dubai Mina Seyahi, thinking about what could have been. The hotel is just yards away from the starting point of the Dubai Tour, a race that concluded a day before our exclusive interview. But whereas his regrets about his career are usually related to injuries and missed opportunities in 2015 and 2016, his rueful smile today is because he’s in a happy place, thanks to a newfound level of fitness and form. He’s feeling so strong, he thinks he had a chance at finishing in the top three in Dubai and received the ultimate compliment as a result – being targeted by rival teams desperate to stop him.

‘I was lying in seventh place on the general classification on the last day and Quick-Step Floors and Trek-Segafredo saw me as a threat,’ he says. ‘Their riders were saying, “We’re not letting you go in the breakaway so stop trying, because we’ll be going at this all day.” I was consciously trying to get in the break, because if I’d got in and collected two bonus seconds I could have finished third overall. So I had to try, but obviously they knew that as well – they have a list of riders who they don’t want in the break and when one of us moves, they’re on us straight away. Bob Jungels of Quick-Step Floors said, “It’s not going to happen, you’re too high up on the overall standings.” You end up stopping trying because it’s one man against 16 riders.’