Mattie Dodd journal: finding my feet at INEOS

In his latest journal entry, Rayner Foundation-supported rider Mattie Dodd charts the leap into the INEOS Grenadiers Racing Academy, where idolisation gives way to routine and twelve strangers begin to feel like a team.

Without trying to sound like a TfL announcer, it’s been “all change” on my end in the past month or so. That change was spearheaded by a move to the INEOS Grenadiers Racing Academy for 2026.

It all happened quite quickly in the end. As is often the way in the world of business, at least so I’m told, there were a lot of conversations, emails and general back and forth over the period of a few months, before a flurry of activity where documents were signed, flights booked and plans put in place over the period of a week or two. The culmination of it all being the team’s December camp, when the Academy team first shuffled into a small conference room, calculating looks being exchanged between all parties before those first formal greetings.

The first few days were surreal – I think that’s a word which is one of many thrown around too easily, but I’m not sure how else to describe eating porridge next to a Tour de France winner

Along with seemingly every man and his dog involved in the world of cycling, the INEOS Grenadiers December camp was held on the Costa Blanca, more specifically near Dénia. The first few days were surreal – I think that’s a word which is one of many thrown around too easily, but I’m not sure how else to describe eating porridge next to a Tour de France winner, having just queued up for it behind a former World Champion, as a Grand Tour stage winner asked me how I slept. The team management were very keen for there to be limited separation, as far as is practical, between the Academy and WorldTour teams. So while those first few days were bizarre for the cycling fan in me, it very quickly became fairly normal as I realised that the riders I’d idolised for years were, in fact, just normal people.

The scale of it all is beyond what I’ve experienced previously. For a start, the combined value of all the bikes, having just done a rough calculation, is frankly scary. The vehicles used to carry them are probably numerous enough to conduct a small- to medium-sized military operation. Then there’s the staff. At Tirol, the staff were very good at their jobs, and extremely passionate about their field of expertise. It’s no different at INEOS; there are just five times as many mechanics, soigneurs, doctors, just to name some of the multitude of job titles.

Then there’s the people you don’t even realise have a role within a cycling team. Namely those likely to be the first to read this, and who probably now have a vendetta against me – the marketing and comms department. Seeing the work they do gives a real insight into the workings of a modern cycling team – winning bike races is great, but unless you’re teammates with a certain Slovenian, it happens in the minority of races you start in. The way a team works behind the scenes to fulfil the obligations of sponsors in a whole host of other ways is something I think many don’t appreciate, yet it is unwittingly the currency used to justify an income stream.

What can look like a big, faceless organisation from the outside is filled with people smiling, asking you how you are

That scale is something that seemed pretty daunting at first. Tirol had become a second family, so moving on to a much bigger organisation did have a sense of having to “start over again”. The same theme came up with the staff as with the riders, though – everyone was incredibly friendly. What can look like a big, faceless organisation from the outside is filled with people smiling, asking you how you are, and really making an effort to bring you into the team on a personal level, not just nominally.

One thing that hasn’t changed, and has somehow become a theme of whichever team I go to, is a pretty bold kit design. The Tirol kit was designed to mimic the colour of the houses on the north bank of the Inn River, meaning we were racing in white, yellow, orange, green, blue, pink and a sort of beigey colour. As is well known by now, the INEOS kit certainly doesn’t give drivers the excuse to say they haven’t seen us. I’ve also managed to end up with matching hair colour, which was a show of commitment to team uniformity on my part, nothing to do with genetics.

Trying to get twelve people who’ve largely never met before to bond with each other in the space of two weeks was something that was always going to come with the possibility of going either way. That was something that was clearly a focus of the camp, with the actual training being somewhat more of a secondary priority.

I certainly got the feeling that the twelve strangers exchanging nervous glances had developed into a group which, come race day, is ready to charge into the metaphorical battle together

Over those two weeks, I certainly got the feeling that the twelve strangers exchanging nervous glances had developed into a group which, come race day, is ready to charge into the metaphorical battle together (in reality, it’s shoulder-barging a Belgian bloke who’s trying to put you into a wall, but “battle” sounds more Hollywood). Our final-night Christmas party played no role in that whatsoever, as we all had three glasses of sparkling water and were in bed by nine. Any other version of events is purely fictional, and couldn’t be further from the truth.

I’m now back in the UK until mid-January, when I move back out to “Europe” (the vague term given for anywhere on the continental landmass across the English Channel, as opposed to the Europe in which London can be found). Another team camp in late January is then penned in the diary before eyes once again turn to another season of this mad sport of bike racing.