Is Julian Alaphilippe Using a New Training Method for the 2023 Tour de France?
Watch Loulou dabble in dad watts on a training ride with his family.
julian alaphilippe
Bas Czerwinski//Getty Images
Yesterday I rode all over our town on a variety of errands. In tow, quite literally, was my twenty-month-old daughter. I often pull her behind me in a bright green two-seater trailer.
Sometimes the trailer is filled with her toys. Other times, her older brother, our five-year-old, joins us. And no matter what kind of cycling shape I’m in, it often feels as though I’ve never ridden a bike before.
Any parent who considers themselves a cyclist knows the grind well. No matter how well you ride alone or how finely tuned your bike and trailer are, no matter if you’re riding flats or, in my case, ceaseless rollers, you are essentially pulling an anchor around. To quote a local joke I hate, “They don’t call it Chapel Flat.”
And so, when cycling team Soudal Quick-Step tweeted a video of their French superstar Julian Alaphilippe towing his two-year-old son Nino, I, like so many other dads and moms, felt his pain.
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The video shows Alaphilippe grinding up a mild grade that, riding alone, the former World Champion would certainly fly up with ease. Instead, he’s pounding hard with each pedal revolution, his torso bobbing from side to side, appearing almost as if he were in the late kilometers of Mont Ventoux.
Maybe there was a bit of mugging for the camera. Maybe Alaphilippe was playing up his struggles just a bit as his partner, Nino’s mom Marion Rousse, zoomed past with ease to get a shot of his face. After all, he is one of the strongest and fastest bike riders on Earth.
But maybe, as it is for so many of us, the struggle is real. Maybe, like so many other moms and dads who love towing their kids around, the weight of his own adorable anchor is like a giant spike thrown in the pavement behind him, making his wheels feel like they’re slogging through a foot of fresh mud.
Maybe Alaphilippe, per the tweet’s caption, is tapping into another training method before the Tour de France, where he’s hoping to finally and fully bounce back after his horrible crash at 2021’s Liége-Bastogne-Liège and his injury-marred 2022 campaign.
Because towing kids is hard, hard work.
And whenever I’m towing my daughter (and especially when her five-year-old brother hops in the trailer as well), I like to convince myself that I’m getting stronger. I imagine myself flying up whatever hill I’m currently on, without the weight of one or both of my children.
I remember the workouts in high school when my track coach would tie a small parachute around my waist and make me run gassers across the football fields. I remember how much lighter and faster and invincible I felt after he removed the parachute.
Alas, whatever happens to me physically as I tow my kids, one thing is certain: my bike is performing one of its best functions. That is, bringing me
closer to the people I love.
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