For Alison Jackson of EF Education-Oatly 🐲the 2025 season starts with the UAE Tour, and the Canadian rider is raring to go for her third year with the US-based team.ไ 

"I always say if I can pull off one big win in the year, then we'll have a good season," Jackson told Cyclingnews.

"So we try a🌜gain for a big win in the classics, that's a main focus, and we also want to win a stage in one of♛ the Grand Tours. We really want to win bike races as a team."

Jackson is visibly excited for the race to start, and we ask how the season looks♏ from here - with the UAE Tour being her second o🐈uting after the Challenge Mallorca.

"Oh, good! A happy heart and a happy h🍃ead make🤡 for really good legs," she said. 

"I think the team has a good environment for that. I also have a balanced life of the serious focu𓆉s you need for bike racing, but also a lot of fun in my other off-the-bike stuff. 

"I think that keeps me ⛄alive and I can really get excited about the tough stuff that's bike racing."

For Jackson,♛ the beauty of cycling is all about blending.   🥃;

"I've been doing💦 a lot of bikepacking, and just last week I went for a gravel ride, slept in a tree house, and then came back," she said. 

"I 📖think you can blend really good performance training when you still get a good sleep but while also doing something unconveꦿntional, so I love that. 

"I also love hosting my friends for dinner parties [which] then turn i🔴nto dance parties, of course.

"I've also been skateboarding, I can do two or three tricks, and some that are, well, I don't know if 💫you'd call them a trick!" 

I point out her pink glittery stud earrin𒉰gs which match the EF kit. 

"At ꦰParis-Roubaix last year, a Canadian couple came, and the lady said I have this gift to give you that I made in collaboration with a jewellery company in Canada, and she gave me these earrings," said Jackson. 

"I hadn't worn them yet, and then later in the year, at a random gravel race event I saw her husband there. He asked if I remembered the earrings, 𒉰and I said let me say thank you to your wife. That's when ✃he told me she had passed away.

"He said one of biggest joys of the yea🥀r was getting to meet me, so today I'm wearing them in honour of her.

"It's what I find so beautiful about✨ cycling, I love meeting and intera꧙cting with the fans as they are so positive.

"Every human's got a great story, and to🎶 get to blend lives together, because of this sport I do and being a public person, is awesome."