Fifth in the national time trial on caffeine alone, then two laps of bluff and counter-bluff in Aberystwyth that settled the under-23 title — Mattie Dodd on a Nationals he can barely remember, and a stand-off he could not win.
A first UCI win on stage 4 of the Ronde de l’Isard, a week of donkey work in the Alps and eight summits’ worth of climbing points at the Giro d’Italia Next Gen — Mattie Dodd on the best month of his season, and the prize he has since mislaid.
A week at the Tour de Bretagne leaves Mattie Dodd feeling the strongest he has all season, if without the result to show for it — before fighter jets, First World War mines and his new team’s first road race win enliven a run through the Ardennes and Flanders.
George Stephen is the latest contributor to The British Continental’s 2026 journal series. The BCC Race Team rider and Nottingham student writes about a Movember ride that came to mean more than he expected, the crash in France that changed everything, and the diagnosis that arrived just as he had got back to racing.