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Welcome to the The British Continental. In this episode, I’m pleased to bring you our latest catch-up with 19-year-old Lewis Askey, one of our under-23s to watch this season. 

 Lewis rides for the Groupama-FDJ development team and, as regular listeners of this podcast will know, we’re checking in with him throughout the season to see how his year progresses. 

This is our third chat with Lewis and it came after a block of racing that included self-supported mountain bike race, the Circuit de Wallonie in which his teammate Laurence Pithie finished third, the Tro Bro Leon, won by fellow Brit Connor Swift, and the Alpes Isère Tour, where Lewis picked up a top ten on stage 2 before having to abandon the race with food poisoning.  

In the interview, we talk about his self-supported mountain bike racing experiment and the extent to which it brings him closer to selection for the 2022 Commonwealth Games. We also discuss his latest road racing experiences, how the team decides which rider will be the designated leader on any given day, what it’s like to ride Tro Bro Leon, what happens to the pig awarded to the best Breton in Tro Bro Leon, his recovery from food poisoning, the lessons he learned from last year’s Baby Giro, what it’s like living at the team base in Besançon and ‘rooming’ with Joe Pidcock. 

This episode was also supposed to act as a preview of sorts for the Baby Giro. Unfortunately, after we recorded the interview, Lewis contracted Covid-19, which means he misses the race and is now taking an enforced break from racing. 

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