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.
As the road season fades, London Academy rider Iona Mitchell continues her season-long journal, tracing the rivalries, rituals and razor-thin margins that define life on and off the bike.
After a year that began with illness and uncertainty, Mattie Dodd closes out his 2025 campaign with a wry, honest reflection on the road back to form. From the surreal pageantry of Austria’s King of the Lake to the heartbreak of a mistimed puncture in Italy, his latest journal captures the strange poetry of a rider rebuilding — one time trial, one near miss, and one hard-won dose of belief at a time.
Mattie Dodd’s latest journal takes us inside a stint of stage racing that stretched from the Czech Republic to Romania, via Slovenia and Italy. It’s classic Mattie: sharp-eyed, self-deprecating, equal parts grit and gallows humour.