Ben Healy is an all-or-nothing bike rider. Whether it leads him to question his racing tactics or brings him closer to tasting the most prestigious victories, the EF Education-EasyPost rider is always willing to risk it all in the pursuit of breakaway glory.
Healy spent 1281 kilometres of his 10093 in-race kilometres on the attack, in front of the peloton this past season. The Irishman bravely chanced his hand in the biggest races, the Tour de France, the Olympic road race and the World Championships.
Healy broke through in 2023 thanks to daring risk at the Giro d'Italia when he attacked 50km from the Fossombrone finish and rode solo to win. He has since made numerous other strategic attacks but he is considered a danger, a potential winner and so has a target on his back.
"Generational talents" often chased him down, rival teams marked him and Healy only managed to win once, at the Tour of Slovenia. Yet he is not at all disheartened, his ambitions and talents remain.
Healy knows the breakaway artists' game and the negatives that come with it – the near-wins, the disappointment.
"I think it definitely puts a bit more of a target on your back. Especially for my style, that definitely makes it a bit difficult," Healy tells Cyclingnews.
"But I don't think it really changes my approach too much. I still just go out there and race my bike."
He also knows his limits and is keeping faith that the big wins aren't far away.
"My Ardennes obviously wasn't as good as last year, which was a bit disappointing but being the sort of rider I am, I put it all on the line and it either pays off or it doesn't," says Healy of his singular win 2024 season.
"My performances were, the same, if not better than last year but the results just don't show, which is frustrating. It's not been an awful season but it's also just lacking that prize, I guess. But that's bike racing.
"I did a prep for the Tour, which is obviously new for me and that went amazing. I think I had days in there where I could have won a couple of stages if it had gone another way and I'm really proud of that. Again the performances were there but maybe not the result."
Getting into a Tour de France breakaway in the era of an all-dominant and all-hungry Tadej Pogačar-led UAE Team Emirates is no easy feat, let alone winning from one. Healy was in five breakaways at the Tour de France, his best result a fifth place on the gravel stage around Troyes.
"The break fights were really pretty insane and like no other race. Everyone wants to be in there and everyone was fighting until no one else can fight any longer," says Healy of the breathless stage starts on the Tour.
"That's kind of the point that it was going to – when everyone was just that fucked and they couldn't go anymore."
On the gravel stage and stage 14 to Pla d'Adet in particular, Healy survived the brutal opening salvoes and found himself where he wanted to be - in the day's break. The next step, however, was one he couldn't complete, perhaps falling short due to his legs or his tactics.
Either way, Healy has few regrets knowing he should get another crack in 2025.
"It's really hard [to win], you've got to keep cool and try and race smartly, which is not my strong point sometimes," admits Healy honestly.
"But everything's on the line and, for me, a first Tour stage win is on the line as well - which would be massive - so it's a stressful situation. You're just hoping you've got the legs and you find the right move.
"I think, tactics-wise I was doing something every single day and I really paid for that in the third week. Maybe we can be a bit more tactical with the way we pick the stages and actually, UAE have shown time and time again that in the first couple of weeks, if they can win, they go for it. That's something that we need to think about for the future as well."
Exploring his GC potential
Adam Yates and Tour de France winner Pogačar reeled in Healy up the Pla d’Adet on stage 14 of the Tour, with 4.4km remaining to the summit of the Pyrenean climb.
While, of course, Healy was disappointed, he proved to himself he could compete for a Tour stage win and losing to one of the best riders of all time puts him into a club that few could avoid joining this past year.
"In some ways, it was kind of cool. I was at the final of a Tour de France stage and really competing for the win and obviously, I'm disappointed, but I can't have any other feelings about guys being stronger than me at the end of the day," says Healy.
"I think if anyone was as strong as Tadej [Pogačar], they'd always do the same thing as well. If you can win the stage, you go for the stage. It's annoying but it was just cool to be a part of it all the same."
This first taste of the Tour has also inspired Healy to explore the possibility of a GC bid. He's certainly got the abilities, both on the flat and when the road kicks uphill, and he has shown time trial capabilities that many others lack, having finished seventh in the 2024 Tour's first race against the clock in Gevrey-Chambertin.
He may be described as a break hunter for now but that could well change in future. The biggest thing he learned from his debut was that it showed him that he could "mix it up there in the Tour."
"It's kind of got me thinking about GC a bit, that's a big thing that I've learned. I think if I raced the first couple of weeks differently, I could have been in a really good GC position going into the third week as well," explains the 24-year-old.
"I think that's something we need to sit down in the off-season and talk about. I really want to do a repeat of this year [in 2025] and hopefully get some nicer results out of it, take what I've learned from this year and apply that to next year.
"But yeah, maybe, after the Grand Tour routes come out and I think there's opportunity there, then I think that's something that I definitely to maybe consider as well.
"It's only my third pro year at the end of the day and I think every race, every season, I learn so much more and I'm only becoming a better rider for it."
Chasing a medal at the Olympics
Two weeks after completing that first Tour and spending some downtime in Nice, Healy admits he was unaware any good form was left for his Olympic debut in Paris. Yet he would emerge as one of the early animators of the thrilling 272km race into France's capital city.
Healy was equipped with his aero helmet, skinsuit and, legally, turned-in brake levers as he's often opted for in races where a chance at the break is on. The Irish squad then decided to punch above their weight, with he and Ryan Mullen both finding themselves in the day's break with just under 100 kilometres left to race.
And while the superstars such as eventual winner Remco Evenepoel, Mathieu van der Poel and Wout van Aert all prepared to dazzle the 500,000-strong crown that had gathered in Paris' to watch cycling's best battle up Montmartre hill, it was Healy who the crowds welcomed first after he left Alexey Lutsenko behind.
"It was a goosebumps moment. Honestly, the first time up the cobbled climb, I've never experienced crowds like that," recalls Healy of the Paris road race.
"It was bursting my eardrums. Part of me wanted to stop because it was kind of painful, how loud it was, but it was also just incredible."
From not thinking he'd have any form left after "a few days on a beach club in Nice" and not riding his bike for several days, Healy "then somehow picked up the bike after maybe seven, eight days, and I had the best legs of my life."
But he thinks his eventual 10th in Paris wasn't the limit of his capabilities that day in Paris. Healy believes there was a possible medal left on the table, with a lack of race radios contributing to how he raced the finale.
"I was kind of gutted to be honest, because I knew I kind of cooked myself, but I couldn't really have done anything about it because, without the radios, I just had no idea what was going on behind me," explains Healy.
"I kept getting the odd 20-second time board from a motorbike but I didn't actually know who it was. With hindsight and with radios, I could have sat up and maybe stayed in that group of Madouas, Haller and Küng.
"When Remco [Evenepoel] bridged across to us, I'm pretty confident I would have had the legs to stay with Remco and Madouas when they went. So it's kind of bittersweet, because I had such good legs, and I really do believe I could have medalled if I had a radio that day.
"That kind of hurts when it's the only race of the year, along with Worlds, that doesn't have a radio. But I'm so super proud of my performance and it was a really amazing experience."
Again it was a superstar, a "generational talent" that ended up with victory - Evenepoel. History would repeat itself at Worlds, a month when a two-man chase with Toms Skujiņš behind Pogačar's outrageous 100km attack ended with a gritty seventh-place finish for the Irishman.
This current era of dominant solo wins from the sport's biggest name riders isn't playing into the hands of the plucky breakaway specialist. But Ben Healy is going to keep trying. He's finished in the top ten of the Olympics, the Worlds, stages of the Tour de France, and a Monument.
Being chased down by Pogačar and Evenepoel could be a discouraging reality but its one Healy has to overcome if he's to reach his winning potential.
"It's for sure, I'd say frustrating. But you can't be angry as someone for being better, you know? It just is what it is," concludes Healy.
"I mean, they're generational talents, aren't they? That's just the level of cycling right now, and if you want to win races, you've got to beat Pogačar and Evenepoel."
