After leaving the disbanding Euskaltel Euskadi set up at the end of 2013, Pello Bilbao moved on to pastures new at Caja Rural, where in 2014 and, in particular, 2015, he has proved to be one of the best riders in Spanish stage races, and a top quality stage hunter.

Over the last two years, he has won the Klasika Primavera, stages in the Tour of Turkey and the Vuelta a Casilla y Leon, as well as taking seventh overall in the 2014 Tour of Norway, third in Circuito de Getxo and sixth in Vuelta a Burgos and this year he was seventh in Tour du Gevaudan and fourth in Castilla y Leon, as well as finishing second on a Vuelta a Espana stage. 2015 has only served as confirmation that Bilbao’s 2014 was no fluke, as he told CyclingQuotes in a recent interview just before the Tour du Gevaudan.

“I look back and I see this season as the confirmation year. I’ve had good results, I could demonstrate to myself that my first victory last year was no fluke and I’ve seen that I’m able to win. I continued growing as professional cyclist, which is important in my situation, taken into a count that I still have work to do and many aspects for improvement.”

Bilbao explained why he thinks he has shown more of his true ability and potential at Caja Rural these last two years than he did in his time as a WorldTour rider with Euskaltel.

“I think that at Caja Rural I evolved faster than at Euskaltel. There are lots of reasons to explain my quicker growth. One of the most important is the experience, the role I have in the team, with more personal opportunities, the racing calendar is more adjusted to my characteristics and exclusive dedication to cycling, since I’ve finished my studies in 2014.”

One opportunity Bilbao received this year was to go and race with Caja Rural across the Atlantic at the Tour du Beauce. America and Canada is a big market for Fuji, who supply the team’s bikes, so they wanted a result, with teammates Carlos Barbero and Amets Txurruka winning stages and Bilbao won the final general classification. He told us about his experience across the pond:

“It was an amazing experience for me. We had the opportunity to race in a very different race, to know lovely places and people, we also meet the Fuji family in Philadelphia and the results in all the races we did on the American continent were unexpected and excellent for us. I have really great memories of that trip and I would like to repeat it.”

Caja Rural have had an amazing season, taking big wins in Spain, France and Italy. But at one point, they were winless quite a way into the season. It was Bilbao who ended the drought in Castilla y Leon. He also took a big win at the Tour of Turkey, a race Caja Rural were desperate to succeed in. We asked the 25 year old which was his favourite.

“Nowadays results are becoming more important, because the team expects victories from me. We are growing as a team, we have increased our ambition and we need to show that through victories. Castilla y Leon had been the first victory of the team, that one gave us a great tranquility and was the beginning of an incredible run of results. However, the victory in Turkey is my favourite one, it’s a great race, I wanted to go there since the beginning of the season and I knew that the end of the Selcuk stage was appropriate for my characteristics. I was really convinced to make a good race, the team did an impressive work and I could culminate the job winning the race.”

Bilbao also took a big result when he was second on stage ten of the Vuelta a Espana in the small group sprint, where only Trek’s Jasper Stuyven could beat him. Despite this proving he could win WorldTour races, Bilbao was very disappointed to come so close to a big win for his team, who haven’t won a stage in their home Grand Tour since 2012.

“I was really disappointed with the second place, I think that the victory in that stage could be a great reward for all the work and effort that the team had done. But the work we did in that stage I think it was brilliant, Jose Gonçalves and Omar Fraile did impressive work, I was in a perfect position to win but Stuyven was faster than me so we couldn’t do anything. Now I look back and I think that the second place gives me confidence to fight for a stage in a big race.”

Once we were done talking about his great year, we moved on to 2016, where he will once more seek to add more wins and strong performances to his palmares.

“My goals for next year are to continue growing and also help the team grow. We have a great group and we can do well in big races. I think I’m still quite young and I need to continue enhancing my skills.”

Bilbao’s results show he can go well in stage races where there is no TT, or at least a short one, as well as in hilly one-day races and he can also target particular stages of races. We asked him which route he wanted to go down in his career, given his wide set of skills.

“I prefer stage hunting and I think nowadays I’m working more in that aspect. Maybe while I grow as a cyclist I’ll put more energy and work to improve in GCs but in this moment I think that one day races and stages are the best way to show what I have.”