Mattie Dodd journal: a season that hurt, humbled and healed

Mattie Dodd has been keeping us company all season with his sharp, self-effacing reflections from life in the bunch. In his latest piece, the Rayner Foundation-supported rider turns his attention to the tail end of 2025 — a run that takes him from Austria’s picture-perfect time trials to Italian heartbreaks and a return to form at Chrono des Nations. It’s trademark Dodd: dry humour, quiet resilience, and a healthy dose of self-deprecation as he looks back on a season that began in doubt and ended in hard-won satisfaction.

I’ve found that trying to describe the British TT scene to non-Brits is a completely futile endeavour. The idea that one of the foundations of this country’s success in the sport on a global stage stems from riding up and down busy dual carriageways during the early hours of the morning, in an attempt to cover a distance measured using the comparatively nonsensical imperial measurement system, seems bizarre to them. On the flip side, though, a completely closed-roads time trial around one of the most beautiful lakes in Austria seems a feat of logistical brilliance from my club 10 point of view.

The idea that one of the foundations of this country’s success in the sport stems from riding up and down busy dual carriageways during the early hours of the morning, seems bizarre

The King of the Lake TT wasn’t a race that would have a huge bearing on my career, given its lack of notoriety outside Austria. Though an hour-long time trial did serve as a pretty perfect practice outing before Chrono des Nations a month or so later. While finishing second was a nice bonus, I was more focused on simply executing a decent ride to get a bearing on where my TT legs were at before the aforementioned Chrono des Nations-specific block.

Those TT legs may have been good in the race, but they seemed to lose all function once I stepped off the bike. Turns out doing an hour-long TT a few days after back-to-back stage races, with minimal time spent on a TT bike beforehand, is a pretty good recipe for DOMS – just without the D bit. I can’t say that limping my way to the podium was the coolest look, so I feel I should explain myself given my possible outward appearance of having lost control of my bowels. Add in the fact that they really embrace the whole king thing, and the podium takes place with riders in regal capes, it all made for a fairly odd experience.

Back home, I started going down the usual VeloViewer rabbit hole before the last two road races of the year – Ruota d’Oro and Il Lombardia (the U23 version; there’s no small Slovenian bloke embarrassing everyone in this one). Ruota d’Oro was a race I was really looking forward to. I’d done it before and knew it suited me well. I could give you a blow-by-blow account of the race, but that would be a waste of both our time. All previous events up until the exact point when the race blew to pieces were overruled by a puncture in said decisive moment.

I rolled along on the rim, seeing the entire race pass me by and just waiting for my team car to pop into view. Well, it never did

Just as I took a deep breath and thought about reaching for a gel, that dreaded hiss from the back of the bike changed my immediate priorities. I don’t think I could have picked a worse moment for a flat. On a narrow, twisty road, with the team cars behind the last riders and not yet having had time to pass them, I rolled along on the rim, seeing the entire race pass me by and just waiting for my team car to pop into view. Well, it never did. Turned out it had taken a shortcut and was behind a teammate in the early break. In the dark about that, I’d turned down a neutral service wheel, thinking the car was just behind. No wheel for me then, as my race came to a rather unceremonious end – drifting from the front split to behind the broom wagon over the course of several minutes, spouting plenty of language that I won’t be repeating here.

Lombardia was then the final road race outing of the year. Unlike the big-boy version, our race does the exact same route every year: 100km flat followed by the Madonna di Ghisallo and two slightly shorter, lesser-known climbs. My orders from on high (my DS, not divine instruction) were to get in the break. I went deep on a few moves early on – which I paid for later – before finally making the eventual break of the day. I spent the final 40km going backwards but rolled in somewhere inside the top 20.

On a positive note, I did come away with some fairly strong French beer. A trade for that, in exchange for a spare skinsuit with a French spectator (while in Italy), was just me doing my bit to keep up business relations with the EU.

My season then came to a close at Chrono des Nations. It’s a fairly unique event for those unfamiliar. As the only one-day UCI time trial outside championship races, it has a bit of a different vibe to your normal road race. Usually, it has smaller fields, given riders will only come if they feel they have a chance at a result, and there’s bike tech on display that looks like it’s straight out of a science-fiction film.

There’s not much to say about my race – I rode from point A to point B as fast as I could. Seven riders covered that distance faster than me.

That’s what I love about TTs – they’re that simple. Obviously, there’s a lot more that goes into covering that set course faster, but the core of it being one rider going from A to B without being affected by anyone else is something I love. I find it requires a different mindset to road races – one that channels a different part of my personality – but that difference is just another element that makes them unique.

If you’d told me a year ago that you could offer me five UCI top 10s in the space of two months, I’d have bitten your hand off

So that was my 2025 season, then. What started as looking like it could possibly be my worst, with a long and slow recovery from post-viral syndrome, ended as one of my best so far. If you’d told me a year ago that you could offer me five UCI top 10s in the space of two months, I’d have bitten your hand off, given the state I was in from a physical standpoint back then. Those results are far from career-defining, and there are certainly plenty of Brits who’ve had better outings in that time frame, but I can say with total honesty – and hopefully without hubris – that I’m proud of the last 12 months, even if only the last two were what looked good on paper. There were certainly things I didn’t manage to do that were targets at the start of the year – getting my hands in the air being one of them (town signs don’t count) – but they all remain targets for next year, going into a winter with renewed trust and belief in my own ability at riding bicycles quickly.

Anyway, thanks for following along this year. Hopefully, a few of my articles have been something mildly entertaining to lose a few minutes on. If not, well, I guess thanks for boosting readership numbers anyway? Ciao for now.