TOUR·KINETIC

Caja Rural · 2026 Tour de France
Climber-domestique and time-trial engine, Tour debutant
Abel Balderstone

The Catalan with the English surname is the flagship product of Caja Rural's own academy and the reigning-until-June Spanish time trial champion.

Abel Balderstone paper-collage portrait in the 2026 Caja Rural kit

The Catalan with the English surname is the flagship product of Caja Rural's own academy and the reigning-until-June Spanish time trial champion. Fourth at O Gran Camiño this spring, he brings both climbing legs and TT horsepower to the opening team time trial in Barcelona — held virtually on his home roads, a short ride from his village of Ullastrell.

Palmarès

  • Spanish national time trial champion (2025)
  • Clásica Terres de l'Ebre winner (2024)
  • 4th overall O Gran Camiño (2026)
  • Vuelta a España finisher on Grand Tour debut (2023)
  • 10th overall Tour de Hongrie (2023)
Cut-out factHe turns 26 on 7 July, mid-first-week of the Tour — and his father is an English ex-cyclist who moved to Spain for work, hence the very un-Spanish surname.

The squad

Riding the 2026 Tour with Fernando Gaviria, Sebastian Berwick, Alex Molenaar, Joel Nicolau, Stefano Oldani, Jakub Otruba, José Félix Parra — see the full Caja Rural team page.

Portrait: AI paper-collage render (gpt-image-2) after a reference photograph — source: Wikimedia Commons, author: Foveon producciones, license: CC BY-SA 4.0. A fan project — not affiliated with the Tour de France or A.S.O.