2018-2020: Caja Rural-Seguros RGA
The slope towards success
MADRID BACK IN THE ELITE. There’s been plenty of famous Madrilians in cycling, but it may well be Gonzalo Serrano, who makes his WorldTour debut with the Movistar Team in 2021, the man living closest to the ‘Km 0’ of Spanish roads from everyone in the pro peloton in recent years. Based in the famous Malasaña neighborhood, the 26-year old allrounder, with good skills for all terrains and some nice finishing speed, aspires -that’s his approach to the first season in the WT- to do well at one-day events. “I feel attracted to the classics and I’d like to learn as part of this opportunity and hopefully excel one day,” explained, when announced as a Blue rider, the only rider with no trip back home from all who crossed the last finish line in the 2020 La Vuelta.
STEP BY STEP. The Caja Rural – Seguros RGA outfit supported Gonzalo through his first three years in the UCI ProTeam category, the Spaniard following a fine, solid line of progression. A consistent 2018 season led to his first good results in 2019 -8th overall in the Tour of Turkey; 6th at the tough Castillo finish in the Vuelta a Burgos- and, ultimately, his first pro win in 2020. He claimed stage two of the Vuelta a Andalucía by beating all fast finishers at a difficult slope in Iznájar, with a late attack he had already tried two weeks before at the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana. That same year, he got a cap with the Spanish national team for the pro Euro Champs and also featured well at another uphill finish in La Vuelta -9th in Ourense-.
BREAKTHROUGH AND TRIBUTE. With the UC San Sebastián de los Reyes, Gonzalo got his first big wins as a junior; at the Froiz team, he cut his teeth during his early amateur stage, a leap always difficult to take; and at the Escuela Ciclista Alcalá de Henares, led by the late Jesús Rodríguez Magro, he took the decisive steps to earn a spot at the pro peloton. He dominated most of the amateur calendar in his last two seasons, with several stagerace victories in 2016 and the overall win in the Spanish Racing Series in 2017, ahead of current team-mate Sergio Samitier. That was the decisive ticket to the pro peloton, a way to pay back the gamble Magro, a former member of the Abarca organisation, made for Gonzalo, and also to Sebastián, Serrano’s grandfather, the man who got him into bikes at age 6, who died just few weeks before the news of this Caja Rural signing were known.
