154. Harry Tanfield: Baptisms of fire, keeping the faith, and the Ribble Outliers

This week James and Will are joined by Harry Tanfield. Born and raised in Yorkshire, Harry started racing aged 10, and having caught teams' attention with strong performances at races like Junior Paris-Roubaix, he turned professional aged 20 with JLT Condor. ProConti racing turned WordTour after a landmark season in 2018 that saw a silver at the Commonwealth Games time-trial, a British National track title and World Cup wins on the track plus an all-important stage win at the Tour de Yorkshire, making him the first Yorkshireman to win a stage of the race. The following year Harry joined WorldTour Team Katusha-Alpecin on a two year contract, but by the end of the season the team had folded. A few more unsettled seasons followed with moves to AG2R in 2020 then Qhubeka for 2021, but by 2022 Harry was back racing ProConti with Ribble-Weldtite, TDT then Saint Piran. Then, in 2025, he reacquainted himself with Ribble as part of the Ribble Outliers gravel team, for whom he still rides.

In this chat, Harry talks about the good old days of elbows-out crit racing, mulls over the British race calendar’s seeming implosion, speaks candidly about his tumultuous time at the WorldTour and how he handled team collapse and personal tragedy, plus what the gravel scene offers to riders coming from the road.

Our chat begins at 6.19

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