Zoe Backstedt hopes a season of road racing at WorldTour level with EF Education-TIBCO-SVB will help improve her as a cyclo-cross rider, with the talented teenager aiming to combine the two disciplines in the years ahead.
The 18-year-old won the road race, time trial and cyclo-cross world titles a junior but has now made the step up into the under-23 ranks. Despite crashing heavily in the early stages of Sunday’ under-23 European cyclo-cross championships, Backstedt fought back to finish fifth, 1:53 behind clear winner Puck Pieterse.
After signing with EF Education-TIBCO-SVB for two year the teenager hopes that her first full season as a professional road rider will also help improve her cyclo-cross form.
“I’d like to (combine cyclo-cross and road),” said Backstedt.
“I really enjoy cyclo-cross and it’s really good for my technical skills and you can see that when I race on the road.”
“When I race on the road you can see the difference in the endurance when you go back into cyclo-cross. When you go into the longer cyclo-cross races of one hour you’ve got the endurance to do that extra 10 minutes full-gas.
“It doesn’t sound too much of a difference, but it can be.”
Backstedt hopes to ‘find herself’ during her first year with EF Education and has one eye on the Spring Classics following in the footsteps of her father Magnus Backstedt who won Paris Roubaix 18 years ago.
“My aim is Just to help the team and try and get some results,” Backstedt explained.
“Also developing myself as a rider. I don’t see myself going for wins quite yet. It’s going to be quite a big step from junior into the WorldTour ranks.
“Just finding myself and trying to complete the 140, 160-kilometre days. I can be myself, I can ride to how I like and how the team needs help. I don’t see myself being the best on the mountain days but stick me in Roubaix or Tour of Flanders, that’s where in my head I think I’ll do the best.
“Anything can happen in the road season and I just have to take it one race at a time.”
Backstedt finished second in the Coupe de France cyclo-cross event at Nommay last month, only beaten by team-mate Clara Honsinger. She hopes to soon break into the top-10 at an elite World Cup round and is set to battle Anna Kay for British national cyclo-cross title in January.
“I just want to try and move up the field and get a couple of top 10s in the World Cups or something like that,” added Backstedt.
“It…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at CyclingNews RSS Feed…