Speaking to Rouleur earlier this season, Cat Ferguson couldn’t quite believe that the Giro was part of her race calendar: 

“I’m super excited. Top say the words ‘the Giro is one of my main goals this season;’ – it’s crazy that a race like that is something I can target now.” 

The British phenom was ecstatic, and deservedly so, having worked hard in her first season with Movistar to prove herself as a rider to be taken seriously at senior level. That she did in bucketloads. After her first WorldTour professional podium at Trofeo Alfredo Binda, more results followed, including second at the Tour of Britain and a late season win at Vuelta Ciclista Andalucia . The same year, Ferguson had her first Grand Tour experience at the Vuelta. 

With those experiences came learnings abound, and the Giro, was sure to provide plenty more. Unfortunately for Ferguson, it was to be that sport can be cruel and unforgiving, even for the most talented of riders. She was forced to abandon the race after crashing on the hectic stage to Ravenna. 

It’s a heartbreaking lesson in perseverance for 20-year-old Ferguson, and one that is not unfamiliar to her older teammates, including the vastly experienced Liane Lippert. As they compared notes on life inside the women’s peloton, she offered her teammate and friend her best advice: 

“You are still so young, you have so many races ahead of you. That’s a really cool thing.”

***

August 2019, Stockton-on-Tees. Cat Ferguson perches on a dry-stone wall near her house, waiting. It’s been two hours since she claimed this spot, a superior vantage point above the small crowd beginning to form on the crest of the hill. Courtesy of late summer in North Yorkshire, it’s raining. But the 12-year-old’s excitement remains intact.

She hears the race before she sees it: the clicks of gears, the whirring of drivetrains. Suddenly riders are hurtling past within touching distance, close enough to see the veins bulging at their temples and the mud streaking their jerseys. And just like that, they’re up the road.

Seven years on, Ferguson recalls the mayhem and magic of watching the 2019 edition of the Tour de Yorkshire.

“There’s photos of me on that climb. Now that I’m doing some of those races, it’s really special,” she says, calling from a hotel room in Belgium ahead of Opening Weekend. At just 19, she is about to embark on her second WorldTour season with Movistar.

Beside Ferguson in a matching team sweatshirt sits her Movistar elder, Liane Lippert, 28, who also remembers that day in the soggy surrounds of Stockton well.

“It was the first time I had a leadership role. The stats show I loved the finish climb!” says Lippert, who began her professional career racing for Team Sunweb before joining Movistar in 2023. “It was when we realised I actually had a lot of talent. I really love racing there, those punchy climbs. And if it’s raining, it’s more than okay for me!”

Now teammates, the Yorkshire-born youngster and the Grand Tour veteran let Rouleur in on life in Spain, pre-race dance moves, and all that has changed in the years that separate their respective debuts.

Rouleur: What were your first impressions of each other?

Ferguson: I didn’t really know what to expect! I’d seen Liane Lippert on television. Sometimes you always expect that the top riders are going to be too cool to speak to you. They’re winning races, why would they bother with the new girl? You were not like that at all. You were just super welcoming.

For me, it was just incredible to see these people I'd seen racing on the TV and looked up to, and then they were asking me in the morning, “how did you sleep?”, that sort of thing. You just realise they're humans as well.

Lippert: Cat doesn't know how good she is. You were already a double world champion when you came in at 18 years-old last year! I personally had a lot of respect for your performance and everything. You’re really easy going. It immediately felt like you were one of us.

R: How would you describe each other as riders?

Ferguson: We like to describe Liane on the team as ‘the atomic bomb’. When she attacks, you’re like, “oh shit, she’s gone!” She’s the one who can make the race explode, and it's super exciting to watch. I’m probably the one that will wait more and just suffer until potentially a sprint.

Lippert: It’s really cool to see Cat winning at her age. I think I know my qualities after all these years, but when you’re early in your career, you might think you're a sprinter, but also not a pure sprinter. You’ll find other qualities. Maybe it’s also really punchy hills.

I’m sure the older you get, you’ll improve in other areas too.

Initially, I thought I could be a GC rider, or that I liked long climbs. But now the full focus is on explosive efforts.

R: You’re being very nice to each other now… do tempers ever fray during races?

Lippert: I think I’m pretty calm, and of course in the hectic moments it can get stressful, but I think I’m pretty good!

Ferguson: I would say if it ever gets aggressive in a race, then something has gone very wrong. When we go to the bus afterwards, no one is going to be happy with you if you’ve been shouting. So I would say that actually doesn’t happen.

R: With Movistar being a Spanish team, how is your command of the language?

Ferguson: Liane is much better! She’s fluent.

Lippert: This is only the beginning, you will improve! Because Arlenis Sierra is here and she only speaks Spanish, we just have conversations in Spanish around the table now. I think that’s what is so cool about the team culture. I never imagined I’d ever speak Spanish!

R: How are you both feeling about the Giro?

Ferguson: I’m super excited. To say the words “the Giro is one of my main goals this season” – it’s crazy that a race like that is something I target now.

It also means that if other things go well, and if I get to the last day and I’m not really fatigued, then maybe the Tour [de France] is a possibility as well.

Lippert: The Giro is the perfect Grand Tour to start. I think at a young age I would prefer to start there than the Tour. I mean, it’d also be great if you can do both this year, but the Giro feels more calm. And I really think you can have high hopes there and really go for it. And if not, you have so many ahead of you. You can make mistakes – that’s so nice actually, like that’s a really cool thing.

R: Almost a decade lies between the start of each of your professional careers. What’s changed in that time?

Lippert: When I started, it was impossible to live from the sport. I was still luckily in the army in Germany, because otherwise it would’ve been really difficult.

Back then, nothing was that professional. Now, the juniors are already doing everything with nutrition, with altitude. For me, that was impossible. I was just enjoying life riding, and it was a dream to really be there at the top.

I would never have imagined that we can live like this from cycling. It’s incredible. And not only that, but the attention that is getting bigger and bigger: people watching the Tour de France. I think that was really the game-changer, where I felt “okay, it’s really something big now”. It’s super cool to be part of it, but also to have experienced what it was before.

Ferguson: I feel really lucky to have joined the sport at this time. It’s definitely not something I take for granted. I think about it a lot, and we’ll talk about it a lot. Even today at lunch we were talking about it, weren’t we? When Liane was 20, and she was about to negotiate with her team at the time without an agent. And now I have an agent. I’ve had an agent since I was 16.

Lippert: Yes! I just said “yes, yes yes” to everything, and then signed the contract.

Ferguson: I've grown up watching the sport, so I have also seen the change myself. I haven't lived it, but I've arrived here, and I hear all the stories. It's crazy to me that it’s almost the same sport, because in my eyes, when I look around, everything is almost perfect.

R: What are your pre-race rituals?

Lippert: We have a huge music box in the bus, and we just get really hyped up. Before Cat’s stage win in Valencia, we really went for it! Full gas with the music.

Ferguson: There’s a song about Marlen Reusseur on Spotify. It has a German name, but the key line is “the power of now.” That’s the bit in English. So we always play that before our race!

R: Who inspires you?

Ferguson: Probably still Lizzie Deignan. I always looked up to her when I was younger. Everything about her. She’s also done so much for women’s cycling.

My dad, too. I’m an only child, so growing up he did everything with me. He took me to every training session, he was basically my coach. He just has such a passion for life, and has done so many things: he’s written a book, and he just went heliboarding with his friends! He puts the need to be happy first in his life, not just for him but also for me.

Lippert: I really didn’t watch cycling so much, so I never had an idol really. But I remember when I was a junior I started in a stage race back in Germany alongside Marianne Vos. That was really special for me.

R: Cat, if you could ask Liane one piece of advice, what would it be?

Ferguson: Have you always been so motivated? Do you ever have a moment where you’re like, “today I’m just not feeling it?”

Lippert: I started when I was eight, and I’ve never had a phase when I really wanted to quit.

Of course, there are days I hate it and don’t want to train, but I always know what I do it for. Especially when I think about the moments like the Tour de France, and it’s like “I really want to do that again.” That’s what keeps me motivated. Let’s see for how many more years!

R: And Liane, what would you ask Cat?

Lippert: When I was your age, I felt so stressed. I was afraid to make a mistake or get into trouble from teammates or from the sports director. Do you ever feel like that?

Ferguson: Yeah, definitely. But more when I’m working for someone else. That’s when I really feel more nervous and under pressure, because I know if I screw it up, then it’s affecting somebody else more than me.

Cycling feels different from the sport I did when I was 12 to when I was 18. Back then, I’d go and race, think about my plan, and do it myself. Now I’ve had to learn almost a whole new thing. I do this sport as a team now.

R: Describe each other in three words.

Ferguson: One of my words for Liane is a Spanish word: vividora. We don’t really have a word for it in English, but she’s like a ‘life-liver’. Then I would also say bubbly.

Lippert: What is ‘bubbly’!?

Ferguson: Like really happy, really smiley. It’s a good thing! And the last word would be ‘leader’.

Lippert: I think, Cat, you are classy. You just have class – on the bike, off the bike. And then I would also say mature. You’re really grown up for your age: how you think, how you manage your life. Living abroad for a long time – I respect that a lot, because normally lots of girls are scared to leave their families. And then the final word would also be vividora. You’re also a life-enjoyer now, in Spain. You’re doing the right things.