Irina Krupovich

Irina Krupovich did not come to cycling late. She came back to it. As a teenager she rode constantly, mostly on gravel, and spent her first student salary on a proper gravel bike. Then she moved to France in 2017, and Paris — where keeping and riding a bike is a project in itself — quietly ended it. The bike returned when she moved south to Cannes. This time it was a road bike.

Two seasons on, the Alpes-Maritimes are a training ground rather than a holiday. Col de la Bonette is the home climb: close enough to return to often, and topping out at the Cime de la Bonette on one of the highest paved roads in Europe.

2026 was the season that tested it. She opened in February at a camp in Calpe, raced GFNY Cannes in April over 120 km and 2,500 m — her first race on a SWI — and spent June in the French Alps with Peak & Coast Cycling Camps, riding the Galibier, the Croix de Fer and the Col de Sarenne. Between the camps came the Agnel, the Izoard and the Bonette again, alone.

In July she rode L'Étape du Tour de France Hommes: the men's route, roughly 170 km and more than 5,000 m of climbing. She rode L'Étape du Tour de France Femmes soon afterwards, finishing on Mont Ventoux. Later in the summer she crossed the Mont Blanc massif by road bike in three days — France, Switzerland and Italy, around 340 km and 8,200 m.

What she is after, she says, is not a number. It is mountains, and the particular satisfaction of arriving at a pass on nothing but your own legs. Which is a fair account of the rider this frame gets laid up for.