Tadej Pogačar ends his season as he 'needs rest', but still puts in 128km training ride

Tadej Pogačar has apparently called time on his season as he needs to rest, but the Tour de France champion is still churning out 100km -plus training rides. 

According to his UAE Team Emirates squad, the 22-year-old will end his season with his third-place finish at Liège-Bastogne-Liège last weekend as he needs a rest after an intense few months of racing. 

But despite the need to recover, Pogačar isn’t taking time off the bike as he recently put in a 128km ride from Monaco, which featured 2,600 metres of altitude gain. 

A spokesperson for UAE Team Emirates told Dutch broadcaster Sporza on Tuesday: “After a busy few weeks, he’ll now take a rest period.”

“Tadej has had a busy period since the Tour, with the World Championships and the Ardennes Classics, and so his season is over.” 

But on Wednesday (September 7) the Slovenian was back on the bike for a five-hour training ride, starting from Monaco and heading out to the mountains of southern France. 

Pogačar set off just after midday and rode to the Col de Turini, which featured in the 2020 Tour de France on stage two from Nice to Nice, won by Julian Alaphilippe (Deceuninck - Quick-Step).

While he didn’t set any leaderboard-topping times on the climb, Pogačar averaged 24.7km/h and burnt an estimated 3,609 calories - not exactly a recovery ride. 

Pogačar has been one of the star riders of 2020, winning consistently in the early season before he reached a new level at the Tour de France.  

After riding strongly throughout the first two weeks of the Tour, taking two stage wins in the process, Pogačar then put in one of the all-time great rides on the stage 20 time trial to La Planche des Belles Filles, taking the win from Primož Roglič (Jumbo-Visma) at the very last opportunity. 

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Since the Tour, Pogačar rode aggressively in the world championship road race to finish 33rd, but then came back strong with a ninth-place finish in Flèche Wallonne and third place in Liège.