Feature: Jake Stewart (Groupama-FDJ)

Currently training on the Cote d’Azur, VeloUK caught up with Jake Stewart on January 19 when like a lot of British pros, he was at home in Coventry unable to join his team for the training camp but still putting in the hard yards to be ready for some racing this weekend at GP la Marseillaise followed by Etoile de Bessèges.

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Feature: Jake Stewart (Groupama-FDJ)

Currently training on the Cote d’Azur, VeloUK caught up with Jake Stewart on January 19 when like a lot of British pros, he was at home in Coventry unable to join his team for the training camp but still putting in the hard yards to be ready for some racing this weekend at GP la Marseillaise followed by Etoile de Bessèges.

Jake’s team training camp started on January 15 and he was hoping to fly out a week before that but the restrictions from Spain on UK citizens flying into their country stopped Jake from riding his team’s training camp.

“I explained to the team my predicament and they sent me an employment certificate and when I got to check-in at the airport, they asked do I have a residency card and I had to say no so I was unable to travel”. That was another stress put onto riders trying to do their jobs during a challenging time in our history and Jake had to return home to Coventry and carry on his training solo.

Another example of how everything is on the edge was when Jake went to see the team before Xmas in France and was due to fly back through the Netherlands only to find they were closing borders so Jake had to rebook his ticket on a direct flight to Gatwick. On arrival in the UK, he then learned that France was closing their borders with the UK, an example of how no-one was and still can’t predict potentially very stressful situations of being stuck in countries with no way of travelling home as Governments make spur of the moment decisions.

Jake has though managed to get back out to France for some training there before he starts what he says is a full gas race programme through to May beginning at the end of January with GP la Marseillaise.

With his next race on Sunday and his last race of 2020 in the middle of October, Jake says racing has come around very quickly. “The calendar I have at the moment is pretty full gas all the way until May. I know my early season races such as GP la Marseillaise followed by Etoile de Bessèges and normally, they would be fairly low key French races with some WorldTour French teams and Conti teams where as this year with no Tour Down Under and other events being cancelled, there will be a strong field and a lot of the classics boys will be there finding their legs before the classics kick off so it’s going to be an exciting start”.

Asked how the winter has been for him weather wise, Jake replied, “where I am in Coventry, I haven’t really been affected by the weather. It’s been pretty decent with no snow and I was just saying to my parents it has been one of the best winters we’ve had. I haven’t had to change any training sessions or jump on the turbo because the weather has been too bad. I have had a couple of wet rides but the majority have been dry and cold. If I am starting the classics and so on, at the end of the day it is probably better to be training in similar conditions to what they will be held in than it is to be training in the heat.”

Back in the day in pro racing, riders used to race themselves fit but Jake knows there is a different mentality nowadays in a rider’s approach to the first races. “The guys now go into the season with good form and try and hold it. So team training camps are usually intense blocks of training pre season with 30 odd hour weeks with efforts and testing.”

“Here in the UK, you’re not able to do as many hours as you would on a training camp but I have still been doing 20 hour plus weeks (600 km weeks), up to 25 hours, so I will still go into the season with decent enough form. I just may be lacking a few ks I’d get on a training camp”.

Talking about the numbers training at home versus on the training camp, Jake says “that is interesting as I have noticed a difference when you compare peak power numbers from training in the heat and the cold. I was doing some standing starting starts and sprints the other week when it was really cold, minus one or two, and then did the same when it was five degrees this week doing the same session and the difference between my power numbers was fairly significant”.

“So when you go from 5 or 6 degree days here the UK to 15 or 16 degrees in Spain which is optimal conditions for the body to be working hard, the difference in the numbers especially in sprints is significant. I have noticed though with longer efforts, the differences are not as obvious”.

Last year and the year before, Jake was racing for the FDJ continental team (development) so I asked him was there a difference in his training now to what he did when with the Continental team? “The training philosophy the Continental team uses and the WorldTour team uses is basically the same” he explained. They follow the same training model so my training is similar with the kind of efforts you do.”

“The biggest change in training I’ve seen from my days with the conti team to the world tour team is the number of hours on the bike you do per week. Last year on the conti team, I was probably averaging 16/17 hours a week where as it would be 20/21 at the moment. Between 20 and a 24 hour week is fairly standard where as a 24 hour week on the conti team would have been a big week. That is the biggest difference. All the type of efforts are similar with more time on the bike as you’re racing more kms.

Even though Jake wasn’t at the team’s training camp, he’s able to go back to racing with his team with a positive outlook on the form. “I know I have put in a decent block of training at home and done the work I need to do so I can be confident. At the end of the day, you can’t change the fact I couldn’t go out to Spain so you have to suck it up, get stuck in at home and take the positives from it.”

We wish Jake well as he prepares for this first race of 2021. Fingers crossed Jake has a brilliant stand out season…

— Last VeloUK Interview:

— Team Interview with Jake:
— GP la Marseillaise Startlist:

 

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