In advance of his and Sam Bennett’s first race of the season next weekend in Argentina, stickybottle speaks to key lead-out train rider Ryan Mullen about their racing programme and his commitment to backing one of the best sprinters in the world. Speaking to Shane Stokes, Mullen also discusses his highlights from last season, his expectations for the year ahead, including the very first races. He also sets out why his move to Bora-hansgrohe with Bennett has added significant new direction to his career and how pressure can be used as motivation
One of the most artistic documentaries made about professional cyclists is Stars and Watercarriers by the Danish filmmaker Jørgen Leth. Although the film is almost 50 years old the title describes the peloton perfectly; there are the stars, the headline acts, and the watercarriers, or domestiques.
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Ryan Mullen is a very talented rider in his own right but has embraced the latter role fully as a professional, dedicating himself last year to friend and fellow Irishman Sam Bennett. A strong rider who finished just half a second off gold in the under 23 world time trial championships in 2014, Mullen has a key role in Bennett’s lead-out train, and was an important part of his two wins in last year’s Vuelta a España.
Following a training camp in Gran Canaria, he will travel to Argentina in the coming days and hopes that he, the team and Bennett himself, will be right back into the grove again.
“Everyone is training away,” he told stickybottle recently. “We know what we’re doing. Barring any major mishaps, we should just pick up where we left off at the end of the season. I’ve done some tests and I’m ahead of where I was last year. I have got my race programme and I am really happy with that.”
By Mullen’s own reckoning, his and Bennett’s programmes are "99 percent identical". They will start with the Vuelta a San Juan on January 22nd, a seven-stage race which offers several opportunities for the sprinters. They will then line out in the UAE Tour on February 20th, a race where Bennett has three career stage wins, with Paris-Nice to follow in early May.
Bennett is also scheduled to compete in Milan-San Remo, with Mullen currently down as a reserve but feeling positive about his chances of taking part. The race has long been a big goal for Bennett and if he is in strong early season form, he will try to remain with the contenders over the Poggio and fight for victory on the Via Roma.
Beyond that, the duo are listed to compete in the Classic Brugge-De Panne and Gent-Wevelgem the same month, with Mullen potentially riding other major classics too. And, all going well, a debut Tour de France could be on the horizon.
Mullen has a straightforward goal whenever the two riders are together: put Bennett in the best possible position to win. He may be a talented rider in his own right, but embraces his new role and welcomes what he does.
“I remember the first race I did with Bora was Saudi Tour. And that was a bit of a highlight because it was the first time I actually felt I was riding around thinking ‘I’ve actually got a job to do today.’ Just that feeling of having a role, having a responsibility, taking on a slight road captaincy role.
“I’m not always road captain, but from time to time I am given the role in some races. In the Vuelta there were a few days when I was road captain…well, for half of it, really, I was road captain. And UAE the same.”
The biggest kick was, of course, seeing Bennett triumph in one of the top races in pro cycling.
“When he won that first stage of the Vuelta, I had such an overwhelming sense of satisfaction. ‘I just helped someone win a Grand Tour stage.’ I was like, ‘f*ck yeah'. I’d never done it before so it felt really special. And obviously too because it meant so much to the team and the lead-out group and to Sam.”
"If it's not broken, don't fix it"
Mullen has been a professional now for eight years. He spent two years at Cannondale, then had four years with Trek-Segafredo. Bennett reached out to him in 2021, asking him if he’d consider moving with him to Bora-hansgrohe. Mullen said it was ‘a huge honour’ to be asked, and that he was determined not to let Bennett down.
He certainly achieved that goal. Resplendent in the white jersey of Irish champion for the first half of the year, Mullen was highly visible in the bunch, dragging the peloton along in pursuit of breakaways, guiding Bennett into the best positions in the build-up to the sprint and also riding aggressively himself in certain events.
“I was really happy with the way the season went,” he said. “In my last season with Trek I struggled for form. I changed coaches a few times and it wasn’t really flowing. I mean, in the moment, you don’t realise that…you are just doing as you’re told, but then when I look back, I was thinking, ‘wow, it wasn’t working'."
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Things clicked towards the end of 2021 when he resumed working alongside the coach Sebastien Weber. Speaking to stickybottle after the national championships, he credited Weber with turning things around and helping him to achieve a rare time trial and road race double.
Going to Bora-hansgrohe meant having to change coach again, something he said he was nervous about. However he said he has clicked fully with the trainer Sylwester Szmyd, a former professional and, on the evidence of last season, is going better than ever.
“We have a good relationship and I really like his coaching,” he said. “He brought me up a level, that’s for sure. Although it’s hard to see it and hard to say it yourself, everyone told me I was on another level this year.”
His approach with Szmyd this season is to embrace more of the same.
“I said to him I don’t want to change anything. Whatever we were doing was working. If it’s not broke, don’t fix it. That’s the kind of mentality I have, just keep doing what we’re doing. I’ll keep putting the work in, and you just keep telling me what to do and when.”
However while Bennett has been a major beneficiary of that hard work, Mullen remains a strong rider in his own right. If he can build on last season, he looks poised for a breakthrough performance.
He gave a glimpse of what he can do with an aggressive ride in one of the big spring races. Tenth in Scheldeprijs was impressive, but doesn’t quite reflect how strong he was in the event. He fired off several attacks and helped set things up for teammate Danny van Poppel to take second.
“I was pretty proud of my ride in Scheldeprijs,” he said. “I really enjoyed that. I always knew I had that in me…I always knew I was the kind of rider who could attack in the final of a classic. Okay, Scheldeprijs isn’t really a classic, it is a crosswind Belgian race, but it is still relatively prestigious. We just took the race on. We split the race, and it just worked out really well.
“That was probably the personal highlight (of 2022). After seven years pro, finally having the opportunity to show what I can actually do in big races is nice. Because usually I’m always in a working role. I’m normally the guy pulling the group back because we have missed it, or whatever. It was just different, just different circumstances. So that was that was probably the highlight, to be fair. Obviously my son being born, that was great, but in terms of racing I’d say Scheldeprijs was nice.”
Pressure as motivation
So what’s in store for 2023? Bennett was projecting quiet confidence during online interviews in December. He seemed in a much better place than 12 months earlier. With his knee injury fully resolved, with two stage wins in the Vuelta to his credit and a strong post-Covid third place in the season-closing Paris-Tours, he is in a good place.
The Vuelta a San Juan will give the first insight into how successful his 2023 season could be. It’s not crucial to win there, with the UAE Tour likely a bigger target. But Bennett thrives on confidence and will be aiming to rack up early success.
Mullen is relishing the thoughts of what might be.
“I am really looking forward to it. Every season when it rolls around you are like, ‘oh, here we go again', but this year I am genuinely excited of what is potentially in store for us as a team, as a train, as a group.
“I think if everything goes smoothly, no one gets any injuries or like any bad sicknesses, we should just pick up where we left off. Hopefully Sam’s in great shape.”
Providing Bennett is going well, a key determinant of how successful his year will be comes down to how well his Bora-hansgrohe train works together. Mullen feels the responsibility of his role, but also thrives on it. Their experiences at the Vuelta exemplify how the team works and is seen.
“Obviously there was a fair bit of pressure on us after he won the first stage and when we were setting up the second stage,” he said. “I feel like a lot of trains were looking at us and watching us and watching what we were doing. It was going that way all year, to be honest. A lot of trains were using us as the benchmark. People were allowing us to do what we wanted and then they were just trying to piggyback on us.
“We weren’t getting it wrong, we were just allowed to form the train. It got to the stage where there a bit of a sense of pressure. Because we very rarely f*cked it up, touch wood. In that sense, there’s a bit of pressure. But obviously you can use pressure as motivation to try and stay at the top of the game.”
