Tao Geoghegan Hart has progressed a long way, including vital degrees of knee flexion, since breaking his hip at the 2023 Giro d'Italia.
Fast-forward six months and he is now gearing up for the 2024 season and a "new chapter" of his career after signing with Lidl-Trek. He had to work tirelessly to first just bend his leg, but is now focused on returning to his best and challenging at the 2024 Tour de France.
The 28-year-old British rider was announced as one of Lidl-Trek's leaders for next year’s Tour de France alongside Mads Pedersen, who will target stage victories.
Geoghegan Hart has been intensifying his training in the past few months and is now in Spain for the Lidl-Trek training camp, relishing the opportunity to build up his level after a challenging but mentally refreshing period of rehabilitation away from cycling.
The Netherlands was a temporary home for Geoghegan Hart as he worked with specialists at Fysiomed Amsterdam in the summer to regain balance and strength in his left leg, but he’s now returned to the life of a cycling pro at his new team.
With that came the “sad” reality of changing teams in the sport mid-injury, allowing little time to acknowledge and celebrate the myriad of relationships built up over seven years of service at Ineos Grenadiers/Team Sky that saw him join the WorldTour and take his first victories and win the Giro d’Italia in 2020.
"This [move] was more strange, because I felt really away from cycling, so I didn't really feel like I was changing to be honest," said Geoghegan Hart to Cyclingnews and other reporters at the Lidl-Trek training camp in Calpe.
"I was also sad because I didn't have a chance to say goodbye to a lot of people and thank you. It was 2014 the first time I did training camp with a lot of that staff and riders. It's a long time, my whole adult life."
Geoghegan Hart took to social media just a few hours later to do exactly that. To thank those who had overseen his journey into the professional ranks and take a moment to pause and reflect on the time at the team he called home for many years.
"There are no perfect goodbyes in cycling," said Geoghegan Hart on Twitter and Instagram.
"Often there are no goodbyes at all. Most of the Ineos Grenadiers riders and staff I haven't seen since March or April. In professional cycling we aren't afforded a moment to say thank you or to look back on what we've done.
"That's just the sport, and perhaps a good metaphor for life. People come and go. They are taken from us unexpectedly every day. We picture a perfect way to say goodbye, but it rarely goes quite as we expect.
"A rider's time in a team seems to almost fizzle out in the winter months, overshadowed by news of new adventures and the future. The world keeps moving forward. In cycling there isn't a clear moment to step from the past to the future, it's a gradual and mostly unseen change, that has been a new experience for me.
"Midnight on New Year's Eve, when our contracts change, is hardly the moment to think about starting a new job. I'm jealous of the way in which other professional athletes can say goodbye to their teams and sponsors before they move on to their next chapter.
"And so since no perfect time exists, it's time today to say goodbye to the team that's been my home since 2016. It's a goodbye with a heart full of amazing memories, knowledge and rich experiences. Having had the chance to work with so many great people has been a privilege."
From not being able to walk to returning to training
Ineos were very supportive during Geoghegan Hart’s road to recovery after his horrific crash at the Giro in May but Lidl-Trek that will now oversee his return to racing with a current 2024 debut scheduled at the Volta ao Algarve in February.
Geoghegan Hart is gradually returning to the disciplined life of a WorldTour rider.
“The training for me is second nature. I love that, I love being on my bike. It's more the other stuff like still now I need to get the mindset back a bit more on nutrition,” laughed Geoghegan Hart with a portion of tiramisu by his side.
“That's a big adaptation but there is also a bit of time for that. I'm not too far from where I was at this time last year. Everything has gone so smoothly these last six weeks.”
Geoghegan Hart will continue this initial Lidl-Trek December camp before heading to a more specific training-focused camp in Tenerife ahead of his racing block in Portugal.
He credited his time at the specialist facility in the Netherlands to his great progress which has allowed him to transition back into being a cyclist and build the foundations to his 2024 season.
“Last week I did four times more than five and a half hours. You expect some flare-up, something, I've had nothing,” he said.
“That speaks a lot for the work I did to be honest in Amsterdam, more than anything to be really ready. Also, the good timing that I had in October to slowly transition back into the life of a cyclist.
“I’m super happy to be here in the camp not afraid to go in a ride or do anything whatever that was. If you told me I got to be able to do that in July and August I would have bit your hand off for that.
“I couldn't bend my knee more than that [gestures to a near-straight leg] for multiple months and you're literally living day to day by measuring how many degrees you can bend your leg," he continued.
"When you can't walk, it's impossible to imagine now that I jumped on the bike easy for four hours with Toms [Skuijns] and rode 250 watts all day because I couldn't even pedal. It wasn’t possible for me to even make one rotation with the leg.”
Geoghegan Hart was one of the big-name signings made by Lidl-Trek in the summer after the American team saw an increase in their budget with the arrival of supermarket chain Lidl.
It's likely form-dependent, but Geoghegan Hart is pencilled in for a leadership role at the Tour, with Giulio Ciccone taking the GC reigns at the Giro d'Italia in May.
