Oier Lazkano's star keeps on rising. The tall Basque rider is a rarity among riders hailing from the Iberian Peninsula, excelling in the harsh cobbled and gravel roads of the spring rather than the sharp mountains that pepper his country and the route of its national tour.
Having risen to prominence last March with a bruising, day-long, ride from the breakaway to take second at Dwars door Vlaanderen, he's back in Belgium this spring to take on the Flemish cobbles once more.
