Harrogate cycling star Lizzie Deignan preparing herself for 'bittersweet' farewell to Tour of Britain

The 36-year-old, who is from Otley but now resides in North Yorkshire, announced last year that the 2025 season will be her last competing as a professional rider.

A four-time Olympian, who won silver in the road race at the 2012 Games, Deignan has been there and done it during a glittering career which has spanned almost two decades and yielded 43 race victories.

Among her greatest achievements are her Tour of Britain Women triumphs in 2016 and 2019, thus she has many happy memories of the event, which this year gets underway just an hour up the road from her home, in Dalby Forest near Pickering.

“I’m always happy to race the Tour of Britain Women,” the Team Lidl-Trek rider said.

“I have such special memories from this race, and over my career I have had a lot of success here.

“It’s always a different feeling racing in front of home crowds, so I hope we see lots of fans out cheering for the women’s peloton over all four days.

“This will be my final Tour of Britain so it will be bittersweet, but I am going to be surrounded by some incredible women as part of our Lidl-Trek team, so I’m confident we can make it a good week and we will be motivated to achieve some nice results together.”

This year’s women’s tour gets underway in North Yorkshire on Thursday June 5 and heads to Redcar, with stage two seeing riders race from Hartlepool to Saltburn.

Stage three takes in the Scottish Borders, before the Lloyds Bank-sponsored event finishes in Glasgow on Sunday June 8.

Deignan will be competing against fellow British stars Anna Henderson, Cat Ferguson, Imogen Wolff and Elynor and Zoe Backstedt, and also up against the likes of European champion Lorena Wiebes and double Olympic gold-medallist Kristen Faulkner.

And, while she remains one of the names to look out for, it has been a while since the Yorkshire ace headed into such competitions among the favourites to take pole position.

Now operating as a mentor and domestique (a cyclist who competes for the benefit of their team rather than to try and win races themselves) rather than a team leader, mother-of-two Deignan admits that this slight drop-off has contributed to her decision to retire.

“On occasion, there have been some big results [recently] that almost could have happened, but I suppose there's no interest for me in coming top five or top 10 in a race that I've already won,” she explained to Rouleur.

“And next year will be my 18th season as a professional. It’s a long time to dedicate your life to being an athlete. I'm ready to live in my comfort zone.

“I would like to go for a bike ride and not worry about suffering. That is the reality of being a professional athlete, which I think, unless you've been one, it's hard to put that across to people.

“Sometimes, people would say ‘Why on earth would you retire? It's such an amazing way to make a living’. And it absolutely is, but it's not coffee rides. It is relentless. It is suffering every day.”

Deignan, nee Armitstead, has spent much of her career at the vanguard of women’s cycling.

Three years after taking silver in the 2012 Olympics in London, she completed arguably her most special success of all when she bagged the world title at the UCI Road World Championships in Richmond, Virginia.

Beyond that there were wins closer to home like at the Women’s Tour de Yorkshire, and also in some of the biggest races around the world; Tour of Flanders, La Course, Strade Bianchi, Liege Bastogne Liege and Paris-Roubaix.

Indeed, she remains the only rider ever to have won the only rider to have won all three Monuments (Flanders, Liege Bastogne Liege and Paris Roubaix) in women's cycling.

But now, she is starting to look towards a future beyond competing.

“I feel really fortunate that I’m stepping away still very much in love with the sport,” she told the Yorkshire Post.

"I love cycling and all the things it’s given me and I won’t be one of those people who never looks at a bike again, I really want to stay involved.

“Women’s cycling is on an upward trajectory and I’ve been a part of that. I feel I have some expertise in that area and I’d be crazy not to try and share that with the next generation.”