British Neo-Pros Settle Into Worldtour Life

‘Riding with Nibali is surreal,’ Stevie Williams tells Vern Pitt.

There are two Brits set to make their debuts in the WorldTour in 2019: Stevie Williams with Bahrain-Merida and Harry Tanfield with Katusha-Alpecin. Both appear already accustomed to racing alongside some of the superstars of the sport next year.

Tanfield, who was riding alongside Marcel Kittel at the team’s winter training camp in December, told CW: “It’s weird because it’s a bit like that [being starstruck] but after two or three days you just realise everyone is no different really; it’s just the lads.”

The Yorkshireman added: “I got to know Ian [Boswell] really well, we were rooming together, and I got to know Alex [Dowsett] a lot more, which is pretty handy really as we’ll probably be flying to a lot of races together. He keeps me right.”

But he appeared buoyed by the experience: “We did quite a bit of 20-minute through and off — doing that with a full WorldTour squad is fun.”