Lola's week

At the beginning of the week we caught up with Lola Stewart racing for Limited Edition Cycling. Lola is one of our youngest racers racing in category one and has come over from London to join us in Assen. As this was Lola’s European Junior Cycling Tour Assen so we were keen to find out how her week had gone and whether it had lived up to her expectations, as well as the important question of will you be coming back in 2026?

Lola wasn’t a massive fan of yesterday’s time trial in Emmen as she told me ‘I don’t like long straights’ which is understandable given the nature of the TT course for category one. However the rest of the week had more than lived up to her expectations for her first international stage race.

Today’s criterium was a different story to yesterday’s less enjoyable TT with Lola describing it with no hesitation as ‘fun’ whilst having a huge grin on her face! It was very clear that the youngster had very much enjoyed the Assenbos omloop!

The fast start into the early green jersey sprint had really played to Lola’s strengths allowing her to get at the front end of the bunch early on. This also meant she was safely out of trouble when they entered the woods in the heavy rain. Lola said: ‘The weather was really switchy which makes it harder. I like bad weather as otherwise it’s not really a challenge’. It was very clear that Lola is no fair weather rider as category one arguably had the hardest conditions of the day.

When asked if she would like to come back next year when she steps up to category 2 Lola replied: ‘I would like to but it depends on mum and dad’. Her eyes are firmly on her parents now to make sure they are online and ready when entries open on 2 February 2026 for the 59th edition of the European Junior Cycling Tour Assen.

A huge thank you to our star interviewee Lola for letting us follow her around all week!