We might have left Australia (sadly) but we are still keeping tabs on our  two young neo-pros, #youngdudes Ruben Guerreiro (Trek-Segafredo) and Lennard Hofstede (Sunweb), albeit from afar. Ruben has been in action on home turf in Portugal while last week Lennard has been enjoying the sand dunes of the UAE in the Tour of Abu Dhabi. 

Ruben Guerreiro

Poor old Ruben has been in the wars again. This time at the Volta ao Algarve, his home race where he’d no doubt be hoping to sparkle, or at least shine. He’d been taking antibiotics to help battle the symptoms of impacted wisdom teeth, had not felt well on the bike for the past few days and was forced to abandon on stage four. The wisdom teeth have since come out …

I don’t know whether that was by local (preferable) or general anaesthetic but he’s sure to be feeling a bit low. We wish him a speedy recovery. We were looking forward to catching up with him at Paris-Nice but, I suspect, he may well be ruled out on account of his wisdom teeth removal. Meanwhile, for all Portuguese speakers out there, here’s a short video about him discussing his move to Trek-Segafredo.

Lennard Hofstede

Lennard’s has been back in action this past week after a training camp in Calpe. In a Where’s Waldo kind of way, can you spot him in these pictures?

This last week, Lennard’s been taking part in the Tour of Abu Dhabi. Phil Bauhaus was their designated sprinter but sadly he was taken out by the crash on stage 1, and after a top five placing was ruled out of the final stage due to tummy troubles. However, all was not lost, Tom Dumoulin finished third on the critical Saturday stage and on Sunday’s rain-lashed stage managed to maintain his position on the final podium.

I’ve no doubt that judging from Lennard’s finishing positions (his final position was 104th) that he’s been on duty protecting Dumoulin, a job he’s done well. Next up for him is Nokere Koerse.

In case you haven’t seen this, Sunweb have been doing a series of short films to introduce their riders this season, so here’s Lennard!

We’ll be keeping tabs on Ruben and Lennard’s progress during the season. Keep a look out for our race updates and follow their progress on Twitter #youngdudes.