In the quiet car of express train Lidl-Trek, Geoghegan Hart warns that his oh-so-dangerous legs are almost back

Geoghegan Hart hasn’t really been successful yet in Lidl-Trek colors, so most people still remember him in the jersey of INEOS Grenadiers. He entered the WorldTour peloton with that team in 2017. In his early years as a very young climber, he pulled at the front for his Team Sky leaders, making his debut in a Grand Tour at the 2018 Vuelta a España. From 2019 onward, the Brit gradually started getting more chances of his own.

Geoghegan Hart took his first pro wins with two stages at the Tour of the Alps, completed two Grand Tours (the Giro and the Vuelta), and was particularly noteworthy in Spain. The next step was supposed to follow in 2020, but the arrival of COVID-19 seemed to ruin everything. Until the UCI eventually put together a shortened race calendar and Geoghegan Hart stunned the world at the Giro in October. With two stage wins and incredible legs in freezing conditions, he promptly won the Giro d’Italia.

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With a brand-new status as a Grand Tour winner, INEOS Grenadiers and Geoghegan Hart aimed to build on that success in the following years, but after everything had gone his way, 2021 brought a lot of misfortune. Illness, crashes, COVID-19... The climber's progress stalled in 2022 as well, while riders like Carlos Rodriguez and Richard Carapaz seized power within INEOS. Meanwhile, the British million-dollar squad was struggling with an identity crisis, which didn’t help either.

Enter the wait for another era when everything would fall into place again... which finally happened in 2023. Geoghegan Hart had a good winter, won a stage in Valencia, looked sharp in the Ruta del Sol and Tirreno, and then dominated the Tour of the Alps with two stage wins. Together with Geraint Thomas, Geoghegan Hart arrived at the Giro in top form, aiming to confirm his 2020 overall win. With Thomas in the pink jersey and Geoghegan Hart just five seconds behind in third place, they started stage 11... and that’s where it ended.

A heavy crash on a wet descent during that 2023 Giro caused Geoghegan Hart to break his femur. Nobody knew then that he had already signed with Lidl-Trek before the race, set to ride for the American team starting in 2024. And that Giro crash badly disrupted his move. Lidl-Trek had signed Geoghegan Hart as a big new leader, but the ambition to immediately target the Tour de France general classification in 2024 never materialized. After a somewhat promising build-up, the intended team leader crashed in the Critérium du Dauphiné and then contracted COVID-19, causing him to miss the Tour.

Although Geoghegan Hart did still ride the Vuelta in 2024, his focus shifted to 2025. This season, he wants to show his true capabilities again. "I'm completely back to 100 percent, yes. I have no lingering issues from my Giro crash," the redheaded rider told IDLProCycling.com on day 2 of the Tour of the Alps. "I'm here to get back into race rhythm because I haven't raced for weeks. It was unfortunate that I got sick just before Catalunya — although I did try, it wasn’t possible to continue."

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A stomach virus in Catalunya was a small setback in what otherwise has been a flawless preparation for the summer. "I still wanted to start because I hadn’t raced in three weeks, and the winter and spring had gone really well. But on the first day, I couldn't even keep food down, and if you start one of the hardest week-long stage races at 80 percent, it only goes downhill from there. So that was very unfortunate."

Still, that setback hasn’t dented Geoghegan Hart’s morale. Now that he’s truly back to 100 percent, nearly two years after his Giro crash, he wants to ride the express train that is Lidl-Trek. "The team is riding super strongly, with a focus on multiple goals. We’re going to the Giro with an incredibly strong team, and that’s exactly what we want as a squad. Step by step, we’re making progress, and that's positive. I really want to be part of that success."

The fact that he was riding for the general classification of Giro leader Giulio Ciccone at the Tour of the Alps is something that was planned. "I can also enjoy Cicco’s success. He won for the first time in a long while, and I hope to win one for myself again in the rest of this season." That would have to happen at the Tour of Romandie, the Critérium du Dauphiné, the Tour de France — or afterward. "We have a lot of options within the team, with a long Tour shortlist and a big focus on the sprint. A large part of the Tour squad will be built around the sprints, so it’ll be a matter of finding the right balance."