For Hannah Barnes, a future British national champion, the 2014 La Course was her first time visiting Paris. What’s her lasting memory? “Just yellow everywhere,” she tells Cycling Weekly, “and polka dots.”
Riding for American outfit UnitedHealthcare Pro Cycling, the then 21-year-old was the highest placed British rider, finishing in the first bunch on the road, in 21st place. The experience, she explains, was nothing like she’d had at any race before. “We had the whole media fleet,” Barnes says. “Just doing TV interviews after the race or before the race, as well, that was completely new to us.
“The Tour de France is one of the races that, growing up, you’d always have on the telly. That’s all that you’d seen, so we had this whole buzz around it.…
