Sam Bury (Team BikeExchange) has postponed his 2021 season due to a long-standing injury sustained in a crash at last fall's Tour de France. The New Zealand native retired from the race after breaking his left wrist on stage 10 of the Tour. The pain from the crash lasted until December, forcing the 33-year-old to undergo surgery. At the Team Bike Exchange training camp in Spain, Bury, still in a cast on his left arm, told Cycling News that due to surgery and recovery, his 2021 race debut will likely be in March. He hopes to make the Giro d'Italia team.

"I had surgery at the beginning of December. It was a basic, simple fracture, and I didn't need surgery at the time, so I didn't have it done, but eventually it didn't work out and I had to have it reconstructed," Bury told Cycling News.

"I was still in pain at the end of the season and it wasn't getting better, so I had several tests. They put a bone graft from my hip into my wrist, fixed the fracture and re-set it, and now I'm waiting for the bone graft to become part of my wrist.

"I've been off the bike for a while. The surgery was seven weeks ago, and up until then I hadn't been riding much because of the pain. I was running a little but by the time I got back it had been about 3 months. I'm working out on the trainer, hiking, running, and doing whatever I can to get in some weekday time."

Bury's first race back is likely to be in late March, with the Italian stage race Settimana Internazionale Coppi e Bartali scheduled for March 27. After that, his schedule is unknown, but he hopes to be on the eight-race roster for the Giro d'Italia in May.

"I should be able to return to the road at some point in February and return for six weeks for the Coppi Bartali at the end of March. We're going to do a high altitude camp somewhere like Andorra or the Sierra Nevada. That is 100% realistic."

"It's too early to say, but I want to make it to the Giro if possible. That's my goal, to stay in the selection process. I want to train hard and train at altitude and do as many races as possible between March and May."

The off-season has been challenging for the Europe-based professional. He admits that he tries to make the most of opportunities to get into new hobbies in order to maintain his fitness and purpose during the winter months.

"It's been an interesting off-season, trying to do different things to stay fit. I still put in hours every week, but there's only so much time I can do on my home trainer before I go crazy. I know it sounds weird, but I enjoy doing different things and I think it's healthy to do so. It will be interesting to see how far I can take my fitness level when I get back on the road and race in March. From there I will have a better idea of where I am chasing and what my long-term plans are."

If Bury needs something to add as an off-season activity, he could return to the popular cooking videos he posted on social media during the shutdown last spring. At a time when most professionals were forced to stay indoors during a pandemic, the post provided an element of humor, and Bury created a series of videos for his followers.

"I actually haven't done it in a while. It's pretty difficult when you have one arm in a cast.

"Looking back now, some of the pictures are kind of chilling, but I ended up being alone the whole time I was locked up, and I think I got the idea after a couple of beers. I was actually doing it for my buddies, and someone suggested I put it up on the Internet. People enjoyed it and laughed at me. It was fun to make other people laugh. I was thinking about how I could make my next piece funnier, what clothes to wear, what food to cook, how I could basically be an idiot. That was fun."