Adne van Engelen

Super fast start of the race. Tried many times to get away, but didn’t happen in the end. Long dat again, so time to rest and give it another try tomorrow!

Tried to have an easy day, so that I can try to be in a breakaway on one of the next stages. The scenery was again fantastic, and the pace pretty high. Rolled in nice and easy with the grupetto. Hope to have good legs tomorrow!

Hard and long day on the bike. Luckily the weather was great today and the scenery fantastic. Can’t really say that I had plenty of time to enjoy it, but it was beautiful.

Hopefully another dry day tomorrow!

Wet and cold first stage of the race today. Bit of a change to the system after a week of summer weather.

The race was quite fast and after a small breakaway had finally formed, I started to ride in the front for a bunch sprint (and to stay warm). Pierre did a great job and finished third in the end.

Hopefully no rain for tomorrow. With 225km that will be one of the longest stages of the tour this year.

Spicy session with 3x 10x 10/20s and 2x 20min sweet spot. The sensations were actually pretty good today. The altitude was not as crazy as yesterday (basically as low as you can train here on a climb) and that was pleasant.

Two easy days now before the race starts on Saturday.

First time over 3,000m this year.. The feeling of riding on this altitude is so strange. You hardly push any power, but your muscles feel tired and it is so easy to get out of breath.

I am very thankful to be here, though. The weather is fantastic these days, and the views are amazing. I really enjoy the riding, despite feeling like a snail 🐌

On tour with the Malaysian national champions. It is a bit difficult to figure out which roads are good to ride on here, as there is no Google streetview, and no large Strava community, but every now and then I manage to find one.

Another easy day on the bike, but this time with a few climbs. Rode some of my favorite roads here, and explored a new road that wasn’t on Strava or Google Maps.

The weather was great, and the scenery amazing. Already start to feel a little bit better with the altitude, but I will never become a specialist😂

Very easy ride to give the body time to slowly adapt to the altitude. Not the most amazing roads to ride, but still some pretty good views along the way.

First day on altitude. Had a rough night trying to sleep on the airplanes, but the flights were so short that it didn’t work out well.

Was lucky enough to be able to check in at the hotel before 10am, got some breakfast, a shower, and 2 hours of sleep in a bed.

Built up my bike, and after a bit of stretching I couldn’t resist going out for a little spin. Felt pretty average in the beginning and each acceleration from a traffic light made my heart bounce crazy.

When I made it to the bike path, I knew why I went out. So quiet, so many nice flowers, and stunning views over the city and the mountains! The body feels a lot better now.

Time to get some dinner and hopefully a good night’s sleep 🙏

Last ride in Chiang Mai before traveling to the Qinghai province in China. Fantastic weather today, and great views over the city from the mountain. Unfortunately too much sweat and suffering to capture it on camera 😜

3 sets of 40/20s and 31 minutes over over/unders with 10s accelerations. Enough to be smoked within 3 hours!

Pretty hard session. Started with a thermo jacket and rain jacket over the top, but I don't really understand what goes wrong with the readings of the Core sensor when you do that. Obviously the heart rate and perceived exertion are getting sky high rapidly, but the Core sensor would only show an increase in skin temperature, and not in core body temperature. A very strange phenomenon.. Took off the jackets 25-30 minutes into the session, and then the readings became more plausible (a lot higher).

Some days you expect to be riding in the rain for 4 hours, but you only get drizzle for a few minutes... Nothing to complain about!