5 Of The Biggest Things That Happened On FloBikes In 2024
5 Of The Biggest Things That Happened On FloBikes In 2024
Before the calendar turns to a new year and brings on another cycling season, let’s look back at some of the top moments we saw unfold on FloBikes in 2024.
Every generation of cycling has its heroes, rivalries, records and unforgettable moments. Each year is just a sliver of the same, and 2024 was no different.
But before the things that made the year so special to the sport’s rich history are moved aside to make room for the hopes and goals of a new campaign, let’s look back at the some of the moments that shaped the 2024 season on FloBikes.
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As the calendar inches closer to 2025, the top two names on the UCI World Rankings are Tadej Pogacar and Remco Evenepoel, and they alone could generate a sizeable list of storylines and highlights from the last 12 months.
And the list goes on, each name with a story to tell or a profound moment to remember.
Unfortunately, we’ve only got room for five of the MOST memorable things that happened live on FloBikes this year, and here they are (in no particular order):
Tadej Pogacar Wins Cycling Triple Crown In 2024
Tadej Pogacar already has proven to be a generational talent in the cycling world, and the 26-year-old Slovenian had a 2024 that may never be matched.
So much talk this year surrounded his quest to become the first cyclist since 1998 to win the Giro d’Italia and Tour de France in the same year, and he was not fazed by the attention or the pressure.
But perhaps the biggest reason it had been so long since anyone won both races was because actually competing in both is the ultimate challenge, physically and mentally, as they’re only a few weeks apart. Obviously, they’re not considered Grand Tour events because they’re easy.
Pogacar won the Giro in May by nearly 10 minutes, winning six of the 21 stages along the way.
Again, the quick turnaround did not slow Pogacar, who also was looking to become the ninth person in history to win the Tour de France three times. He won in 2020 and 2021. Oh, and he was the runner-up to Jonas Vingegaard in 2022 and 2023.
Pogacar also couldn’t be stopped by COVID-19, which he dealt with in the weeks leading up to the TDF.
Will some potentially suggest that the results in France could’ve been different had Vingegaard been completely healthy? Maybe. But even though he hadn’t raced since April due to suffering multiple fractures in a fall, Vingegaard kept the pressure on Pogacar and still managed to finish second.
There probably wasn’t going to be anything stopping Pogacar, though.
He won six stages in the 2024 Tour de France, including the last three, with the final day being a time trial – a deviation from the usual TDF finish due to preparations for the upcoming Olympics in Paris.
Pogacar finished the Tour de France more than six minutes ahead of Vingegaard.
After winning the Tour de France in July, Pogacar had the opportunity to keep the momentum going in France for the 2024 Olympics, but he decided not to compete, citing “tiredness.”
Was Pogacar going to let someone else keep the spotlight? Absolutely not.
He finished his season with another monumental feat. He became the first cyclist since 1987 to win the Giro, TDF and a world championship in the same season.
It was the one thing missing from Pogacar’s resume, and now, he’s got it – a coveted rainbow jersey to add to his closet full of yellow, pink and white.
He earned the victory on a 274-kilometer course in Zurich that featured almost 4,500 meters of climbing, and the win allowed him to match Ireland’s Stephen Roche (1987) and Belgian legend Eddy Merckx, who did it in 1974. In 2022, Dutch cyclist Annemiek van Vleuten won the women’s triple crown.
Pogacar ended 2024 by locking in one of the most lucrative contracts in cycling history that will keep him with UAE Team Emirates for six years and earn him a base salary of €8 million per year.
Learn more about Pogacar’s new contract:
The Tour de France 2024 offered many memorable moments, and Biniam Girmay of Eritrea, a small country in eastern Africa, wasted no time adding his name to the record book at the storied event.
Read more about Girmay’s Stage 3 win here.
Girmay wasn’t done there, however, as he added wins in Stage 8 and Stage 12 and went on to take the green jersey, earned by the winner of the points classification, typically a sprint specialist.
The win made Girmay the first Black African rider in history to win the green jersey.
Girmay’s success at the TDF earned him much attention and, ultimately, a contract extension with Intermarche-Wanty through 2028. He joined the team in 2021.
The Tour de France 2024 wasn’t Girmay’s first time in the spotlight, though.
In his Grand Tour debut in 2022, he won Stage 10 of the Giro d’Italia to become the first Black rider to win a stage at any Grand Tour event.
Unfortunately, during the ensuing podium celebration, Girmay was hit in the eye with a champagne cork and forced to drop out of the 21-stage competition.
Learn more about Girmay and his meteoric rise in the world of cycling:
Mark Cavendish Becomes Winningest Rider In Tour de France History
Two days after Girmay made history at the Tour de France 2024, Great Britain’s Mark Cavendish raised the bar for all current and future sprinters at the event by winning a record-setting 35th stage at the prestigious race.
The 39-year-old previously was tied with cycling legend Eddy Merckx, a five-time Tour de France champion, and won the fifth stage of the 2024 race to stand alone in the record book. Cavendish tied the record during the 2021 TDF.
Cavendish competed in the Tour de France 15 times, and his journey included winning the green jersey twice – 2011 and 2021. He also owns 17 stage wins at the Giro d’Italia and three at the Vuelta a España.
Following his big moment in France over the summer, speculation swirled about how much longer Cavendish intended to compete at an elite level.
The cycling world got that answer in November, when Cavendish announced that the 2024 Tour de France Singapore Criterium would be the final race of his professional career.
As perhaps only a Hollywood screenwriter could script, he won the 25-lap race with in a sprint finish, for the 166th victory of his career.
Check out Cavendish’s record-setting win at the Tour de France 2024:
Katarzyna Niewiadoma Wins Tour de France Femmes 2024 By Four Seconds
After being held in a variety of formats and under different names for decades, the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift officially debuted in 2022 as the women’s version of the famed Tour de France.
Though the TDF Femmes only features eight stages, it hasn’t been short of drama and excitement, especially in the 2024 edition, where Katarzyna Niewiadoma of Poland won by just four seconds.
The first two editions of the race were held immediately after the Tour de France in July, but due to the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, this year's race was delayed until mid-August.
Despite not winning a single stage, the 29-year-old (at the time) Niewiadoma took the coveted yellow jersey after Stage 4 and was able handle the event’s final grueling climb well enough to hold off defending champion Demi Vollering of the Netherlands, who won two stages and wore the yellow jersey during Stage 3 and Stage 4.
Pauliena Rooijakkers, also from the Netherlands, finished just behind Vollering on the final stage (Niewiadoma was fourth) and ended up third overall, 10 seconds behind Niewiadoma and six seconds behind Vollering.
Had Vollering not been caught up in a crash six kilometers from the finish of Stage 5, things could’ve ended differently, but that’s racing.
Watch The Incredible Final Moments Of The Tour de France Femmes 2024
The win for Niewiadoma served as a bit of redemption after a disappointing showing at the Olympics that saw her finish eighth in the women’s road race.
Niewiadoma finished third at the Tour de France Femmes in 2023, more than three minutes behind Vollering and also was third in 2022, finishing more than six and a half minutes behind champion Annemiek van Vleuten of the Netherlands. Vollering was the runner-up in 2022, almost four minutes behind Van Vleuten.
Though she didn’t win the overall TDF Femmes title in 2023, Niewiadoma was able to claim the mountains classification. And, in her final major event of the year, she picked up a win at the 2023 UCI Gravel World Championships.
Niewiadoma now has 20 professional wins in her career, including a pair of Polish national championships in 2016 (road race and time trial).
Overall, 2024 was a career year for Niewiadoma, who won the 2024 Flèche Wallonne Féminine in April for her first UCI Women’s World Tour win since 2019.
Primoz Roglic Keeps Fighting
Now that he’s in his mid-30s, there are going to be questions about how much longer Slovenian superstar Primoz Roglic can compete at cycling’s highest level.
The former ski jumper has been plagued by crashes and injuries, including two significant ones in 2024, but he continues to persevere and managed to land himself among the year’s most memorable moments with wins at the 2024 Critérium du Dauphiné and Vuelta a España 2024.
He also found himself with a new team this year – Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe – after being with Jumbo-Visma since 2016, but they got off to a rough start.
A massive crash during Stage 4 of the 2024 Tour of the Basque Country in early April, the second big UCI event on the calendar, affected many top riders. Roglic escaped with cuts and bruises, while two-time defending Tour de France champion Jonas Vingegaard and rival Remco Evenepoel both suffered multiple fractures.
Roglic and Evenepoel made their returns at the Critérium du Dauphiné in early June, an event that traditionally is used as a warm-up for the Tour de France.
Roglic was caught up in another mass crash during the Dauphiné, but he did not suffer any significant injuries. Instead, he went on to win the eight-stage race for the second time in his career and proved he was ready for the Tour de France 2024, which was set to begin about three weeks later.
From the highest high to another low, Roglic lasted just 12 stages in the Tour de France, as two falls in two days forced him to withdraw ahead of Stage 13 with a fracture in his lower back.
It wasn’t the first time in recent years he’d suffered multiple crashes, injuries and disappointments, as falls in 2022 forced him out of the Tour de France and then the Vuelta a España, where he was the three-time defending champion.
Whether it’s bad luck or just grit and determination, Roglic always seems to bounce back, and he certainly did that in September when he put the finishing touches on his record-tying fourth career win at the 21-stage Vuelta a España, taking Stage 4, Stage 8 and Stage 19 along the way.
He joined Spain’s Roberto Heras as the event’s only four-time champions (2000, 2003, 2004, 2005) and made it a clean sweep for Slovenia in the Grand Tours in 2024, with Pogacar winning the Giro and TDF.
Roglic’s rally at La Vuelta was as memorable as his season overall, as he found himself almost five minutes behind Australia’s Ben O’Connor after six stages. He chipped away at O’Connor’s advantage and finally reclaimed the red jersey with a victory in Stage 19. O’Connor finished the event as the runner-up.
Roglic’s fifth Grand Tour win (he also won the Giro d’Italia in 2023) was the final highlight of his 2024 campaign, and he announced in October that he would not be competing in Il Lombardia 2024, where he was considered one of the top favorites for victory.
Instead, he’d step away from racing and begin preparations for the upcoming 2025 season.
Check out this recent interview FloBikes’ Gregor Brown did with Roglic:
Bonus: Remco Evenepoel's 2024
Though the biggest triumphs of the year for Remco Evenepoel didn’t happen live on FloBikes, we’d be doing a disservice to the 24-year-old Belgian if we didn’t at least talk about his epic double-gold at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
The up-and-coming star spent much of the year in the shadow of the likes of Pogacar and Vingegaard, but he certainly wasn’t invisible, also picking up wins in Portugal and in the time trial at the World Championships in Zurich, while finishing second in Paris-Nice and third at the Tour de France.
Then, he shined when the whole world was watching and became a double Olympic champion – he won the road race and the time trial at the 2024 Olympics in Paris – making him the first man in history to accomplish the feat. He joined Dutch cyclist Leontien Zijlaard, who completed the women’s double at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney.
Along with the highest peak, Evenepoel’s 2024 also saw some of the lowest valleys.
He suffered a crash in April during the Tour of the Basque Country.
And, unfortunately, his year is ending on another low after he suffered a crash that resulted in multiple fractures and could keep him off a bicycle for at least eight weeks.
At this time, Evenepoel and his team are unsure of how long he’ll be out or how his latest injury will impact his plans for 2025.
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