The point has been made before, but professional cycling is a relentless sort of exercise. After Brandon McNulty’s wheels slipped from under him on the descent of the Puerto de Lumeras on stage 13 of the Vuelta a España, he wound up sliding off the road, under the guardrail and deep into the bushes.
As soon as he stopped sliding, McNulty scrambled back up the grass bank, and as soon as he scrambled over the guardrail, he looked for his bike. There was scarcely time for UAE Team Emirates directeur sportif Manuele Mori to check on his rider before McNulty was on the move again, back in the race.
“I was scared to go off under the guardrail, but I could feel right away that I was fine, just road rash and cuts,” McNulty told Cyclingnews. “It was traumatic, but in all honesty, I’ve had worse injuries in a crash at a roundabout or something, so I was quite lucky.”
Despite the cuts to his arms and a bloodied face, McNulty’s physical injuries were, at least by the standards of such incidents, relatively minor. Often overlooked, however, is the psychological aspect of a crash like this. As McNulty swept down that descent at the head of the race, he was in perfect harmony with his machine. In the days that followed, rider and bike endured a more wary relationship as they negotiated a succession of rain-soaked and mist-shrouded descents in Asturias.
“That’s for sure the hardest thing,” McNulty said. “You get so used to leaning the bike over and being at one with the bike one day but then the next it’s like a foreign thing. It’s been tough to get the confidence back, but it’s coming.”
McNulty’s presence in the sizeable break on stage 18 in the Basque Country seemed to confirm as much, even if the American later opted to sit up when he felt a twinge in his right Achilles tendon. It may have been a delayed consequence of his crash on the Lumeras but he was hopeful it would be remedied for the closing act of this Vuelta in Madrid on Sunday.
“I started having some Achilles issues when I was in the break, and I’m sure it was something to do with the crash, maybe my cleat moved,” he said. “I was having some pain, so it was better to stop and take it easy. We fixed some things on Thursday night, so hopefully it feels better for the time trial.”
This year’s Vuelta is bookended by time trials and McNulty is firmly in contention to achieve the rare feat of winning both the first and final stages of the same Grand Tour. He scorched to the first red jersey of the race in Ourém on the first night of the Vuelta and he lines up among the obvious favourites for the flat 24.6km test in Madrid that brings the curtain down on the race on Sunday evening.
“I have good legs and so as long as my Achilles is ok, I should have a good run at it,” said McNulty, who is mindful that having some energy in reserve is nine-tenths of the law when it comes to winning a time trial on the final weekend of a Grand Tour.
“I haven’t seen it in person, but I have looked at the Veloviewer, and I’ve seen enough of it. And obviously, it’s stage 21, so it’s also about what you have left.”
World Championships
There is still some distance left to run in McNulty’s 2024 season, which will conclude with the CRO Race in early October. Before then, he will be in action at the World Championships in Zurich, with participation likely in the time trial, the mixed relay and the road race.
The time trial on September 22 will, of course, be McNulty’s principal target in Switzerland. At junior and under-23 level, he collected time trial medals at four Worlds, including a rainbow jersey in Doha in 2016. As an elite rider, McNulty has fallen just shy of the podium in global championships, placing 4th at last year’s Worlds in Glasgow and 5th at the recent Paris Olympics.
At 46km, the Zurich course is some 15km longer than the time trial at the Paris Olympics. A test of that length might have daunted McNulty earlier in his career, but he drew considerable confidence from his display on a circuit of equivalent distance in Glasgow a year ago.
“I didn’t really know how I’d go in long ones, but in Glasgow, it was nearly one-hour long and I think I was better actually,” McNulty said. “I think if I have legs, then it could be a good course for me. But it’s tough when you’re two weeks after a Grand Tour.”
When McNulty raced the Tour de France immediately before the Tokyo Olympics three years ago, for instance, the three-week race seemed to offer better preparation for the road, where he placed 6th, than the time trial, where he was a tired 24th.
“For me, it’s kind of completely random,” he said. “In 2021, I was super good in the Olympic road race the week after the Tour, but then my TT was bad. We’ve seen guys like Remco [Evenepoel] were good in the TT after riding the Tour this year, but he’s obviously a different rider to me. For me, it’s kind of a role of a dice.
“I’ll have three or four days of recovery after the Vuelta and then it’s just about getting the body going again, a few little sessions of intensity and you should be as good as you can be. I’ve been paying some attention to who will and won’t be racing Worlds, but ultimately, it’s up to me so it doesn’t really matter who’s there.”
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