Cyclist
9 New Year’s resolutions for the pro cycling peloton in 2025
Happy New Year one and all. As we enter 2025, now’s the perfect time to reflect on the past twelve months and look for little ways to improve ourselves for the new year.
In pro cycling, 2024 was a year of dominance in the men’s sport and calamitous team dynamics on the women’s side. Tadej Pogačar did the unthinkable and won two Grand Tours, two Monuments and the rainbow jersey. A crash at Itzulia Basque Country scarred the men’s calendar, ruling out Remco Evenepoel and Jonas Vingegaard for much of the 2024 season. Elsewhere, Demi Vollering suffered a season of real ups and downs after battling with internal squabbles at SD Worx. On the other hand, Kasia Niewiadoma and Kristen Faulkner pulled off some of the biggest coups of the cycling year with wins at the Tour de France Femmes and the Paris 2024 Olympics.
2024 aside, there’s plenty to be excited about in 2025. Stars of the women’s peloton have been shared around while the likes of Vingegaard and Primož Roglič consider a bid at Giro glory to counteract another year of bookended dominance by the Slovenian world champion.
Whether you’re trying to get in better shape, read more or reduce your alcohol intake in 2025, it’s humbling to know that pro riders will be likewise trying to forge a healthy habit for the new year. We dug through the big book of New Year clichés and took the liberty of creating some New Year’s resolutions for some of the pro peloton’s biggest characters.
Lotte Kopecky: ‘Reconnect with someone you’ve lost touch with’
The Christmas and New Year period is often a time for reflection. For some, the New Year offers a chance to mend past relationships and reconnect with those you might have drifted away from.
For Lotte Kopecky, the end of last year became quite messy thanks to some rather public interviews surrounding her and former teammate Vollering’s fallout during the 2024 season. That wasn’t exactly secret, something seemed strange during races, but this was soon compounded with the 2023 Tour de France Femmes champion’s comments saying that Kopecky ‘avoided her’ during 2024.
Maybe they’ll reach out to each other this year, work it all out and patch things up. They did, after all, score victories side by side at some of the world’s biggest races over the past four seasons alongside one another at Team SD Worx. We don’t want to see this friendship remain in troubled water for 2025.
Perhaps they’ll start a podcast, go for a cathartic cafe ride or even rekindle their friendship as they put time into their mutual rivals at the Tour de France Femmes. Let’s hope these two can get on again in 2025 despite their different team jerseys.
Wout van Aert: ‘Stop letting others affect your self-worth’
Wout van Aert turned 30 in the autumn of 2024. While he has won plenty of Tour de France stages, a green jersey and a Milan-San Remo, he’s often overlooked in favour of his phenomenal competitors. As the clock ticks, more expectations weigh on his shoulders with plenty of commentators wondering whether he’ll be able to win a major race in the near future.
His perennial Classics rival Mathieu van der Poel has won six Monuments and a host of world titles in cyclocross since 2020, while Van Aert’s own teammate Vingegaard has stolen the limelight at Visma-Lease a Bike as the squad’s number one gun. Van Aert, unlike any other rider in the peloton, is victim to endless comparisons, questions and criticism even though his competitors stand up as once-in-a-generation talents.
For 2025, we need to stop comparing Wout to others and allow him to boost his self-worth. It’s not fair to hold him to Van der Poel’s level all the time, he’s his own being and that’s OK. If we stop pegging him next to his colleagues, then maybe he’ll finally win another Monument.
Primož Roglič: ‘Become less clumsy’
Now, I might be hoping for a miracle when I say that I want Primož Roglič to be less clumsy in 2025. Over the past couple of seasons, the Slovenian has been victim to a number of race-ending crashes. These have come at races big and small and Roglič has now failed to make the finish of the Tour de France on three occasions since 2021 as a result of his clumsiness.
In 2025, he needs to try and fight gravity and stay upright. Not only does he need to do this for his own sake and physical well-being, but his team are relying on him to rake in big results in 2025 with the Tour de France remaining a big goal. Overcoming that Grande Boucle curse will be a big ask but I have full belief that Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe are cooking up a ground-breaking plan at their state-of-the-art Athlete Performance Centre to counteract this bad habit.
I’m not quite sure how you can focus on avoiding crashes. Perhaps training on stabilisers, wearing kneepads or crash mat training could help. I know dancers have mastered the art of the choreographed fall. Perhaps that’s what he needs. Regardless, let’s keep our fingers crossed that Roglič steers clear of any spills in 2025.
Tom Pidcock: ‘Reduce stress and work on self-improvement’
2024 was a year to forget for Tom Pidcock. Last season left its mark on the British rider after a disappointing Tour de France, a bitter deselection from Il Lombardia and a stressful end-of-season move to Q36.5.
For 2025, Pidcock should, therefore, prioritise a programme focussed on reducing stress and hopefully spend the year on self-improvement with fewer eyes and lofty expectations placed upon him. However I suspect that he thrives on that kind of burden-ridden buzz.
The 2024 Amstel Gold Race winner is free to improve on himself as a rider now trusted to lead the team in all sorts of races. This laissez faire approach should allow him to better learn his strengths and weaknesses as a road rider.
Unshackled from Ineos’s strict no-off-road policy, Pidcock will also be able to chase his own aspirations in mountain biking and cyclocross without having to battle against team staff that were ardently against these hopes. I can only suspect that this will boost his morale going forward.
No longer attached to Ineos Grenadiers’ downturn in performance, Pidcock can write his own story in 2025. He can ride his debut season at Q36.5 with as much liberty as he pleases as the team forge a new pathway with the talented Brit as its figurehead.
Arkéa B&B Hotels, Cofidis and XDS-Astana: ‘Plan better for the future’
It’s always good to have an eye on the future. For some teams, this idea will ring true, especially given that 2025 will be the last year in the current UCI WorldTour relegation cycle.
Currently, it looks like three teams are in the race for relegation: Cofidis, Arkéa-B&B Hotels and XDS-Astana. Two of these three will be dropped down to the ProTeam level at the end of 2025. For the moment, all is still to play for.
In 2025, devising a points-scoring strategy will be paramount. These teams will need to try and outsmart the others and scoop up enough points to remain in the fight for a WorldTour licence in 2026. UCI points are a fairly new art, but team bosses will need to be crafty with their team selections and race programmes from January all the way to October when the season concludes. To enable this, forward planning will be important as the teams in danger will be forced to consider the long-term instead of getting complacent.
As for Arkéa-B&B Hotels, this complacency seems to have blighted the team already. A quiet transfer season and rumoured financial trouble has left them with few headline riders to help avoid relegation. When compared to the prepared XDS-Astana and Cofidis who have signed some talented riders capable of thrifty points-scoring, Arkéa have already started 2025 on the back foot.
Jonas Vingegaard: ‘Travel somewhere new’
Holidays are often at the forefront of our attention during the New Year. While we cope through the darkness of winter, airlines and travel operators alike are handing out generous discounts encouraging us to imagine a foreign land blessed by sunshine. This might be food for thought for a certain Grand Tour champion.
Jonas Vingegaard has followed the same schedule for the past couple of seasons, albeit with the exception of last year due to a crash in Itzulia Basque Country. The Danish Tour winner has visited O Gran Camiño, an early March stage race and Itzulia Basque Country before arriving at the Critérium du Dauphiné on the back of an altitude camp in Tignes. It’s a tale as old as time.
However, I think he needs to do some searching on the Ryanair seat sale because he deserves to treat himself and earn a few more air miles and stamps in his passport. This might be on the cards already. Vingegaard has been rumoured to be riding the Giro d’Italia this spring with a Grande Partenza scheduled to take place in Albania.
There’s also some talk of the Visma leader heading to Rwanda for the UCI World Championships in September. Although the African nation is a long way away and a one-day race is fairly alien to the Danish rider, a schedule of fresh races and unfamiliar objectives could be an exciting prospect for Vingegaard. Whether or not he wins the rainbow jersey, he should leave his comfort zone and do something a little out of character in 2025.
Who knows? Maybe a beach holiday in Albania or a gorilla expedition in the Rwandan mountains – with a bike race attached, of course – is needed for him to return to Tour glory.
David Lappartient: ‘Become a better listener’
The UCI is often the punching bag of all pro cycling criticism. As the sport’s governing body, the Swiss-based organisation is required to set rules, liaise with races and hand out punishments to badly behaved riders and staff.
2024 was filled with criticism of the UCI. A heavy crash at Itzulia Basque Country brought questions to the forefront surrounding rider safety, while torrential rain at Tre Valle Varesine and the Giro d’Italia forced the body to rewrite its extreme weather protocol. Worries also remain surrounding budget caps, the Saudi-backed One Cycling project and debates concerning safer course design. In response, the UCI made some notable changes, but it also implemented some reforms that quite frankly seemed farcical – namely its strict change in tune over jersey colours.
There are major improvements still to be made, particularly in the way of rider safety and communication. In his Christmas message, David Lappartient, the body’s chief, praised the 2024 UCI Road World Championships describing it as ‘a success’ despite the death of Muriel Furrer in the junior women’s race. Furrer’s teammates and competitors were unable to communicate her whereabouts given the UCI’s strict no-radio policy in place for the event.
Rider safety is not the only issue overlooked by the UCI. Future editions of its headline championships have been awarded to the UAE and Saudi Arabia, irrespective of their questionable human rights records. It is also yet to respond to concerns surrounding the rising costs for teams to attend these events.
To add, Lappartient has reached the seven-candidate shortlist for the role of International Olympic Committee president. Some have speculated that this might distance him from the UCI until that contest concludes in March. Let’s hope that whatever happens, the UCI listens to riders and teams better in 2025.
Ineos Grenadiers: ‘Embrace your flaws and explore new ways to boost self-confidence’
We could spend all year reflecting on how 2024 wasn’t exactly kind to Ineos Grenadiers. The British team, a former bastion of Tour de France triumph no less, struggled to score big victories in 2024. The result: their lowest UCI points score in years and their lowest WorldTour win tally in their 15-season-long history.
What’s missing here seems to be a sense of self-awareness. Ineos Grenadiers have seen some important staff members leave their stable in the past twelve months, key riders have jumped ship and there’s a lack of any introspection on how to transform their chances in 2025 – at least from what we’re seeing. Simply put, the squad need to look within themselves to resolve these woes.
They have to realise that they are no longer an outfit of superteam capabilities. They lack a realistic chance of Tour de France glory and the prospect of winning a Monument seems fleeting. Therefore they should start embracing their flaws and move into the role of a midtable team capable of breakaway victories and minor stage race podiums. Carlos Rodríguez, for instance, should really consider entering the Giro d’Italia with the goal of winning a stage and possibly the white jersey. Josh Tarling and Pippo Ganna, on the other hand, need to be utilised in both time-trials and the Classics to prove Ineos’s worth.
If they change their approach a little, I’m sure they’ll improve on 2024 and help foster a re-found confidence in themselves. Importantly, this could fend off the negative attention and burden of disappointment tagged to the team after a turbulent season.
Here’s a suggestion. Maybe they should start pinning their hopes on the fleet of youngsters they’ve signed up over the past several years. That seemed to work for UAE Team Emirates after all.
Demi Vollering: ‘Learn a new language’
Whether Demi Vollering and Lotte Kopecky decide to start a podcast or not, the Dutchwoman has a new project on her hands at FDJ-Suez. In swapping team colours over the winter, she has entered a fresh environment at her new French team with grand ambitions on the horizon.
French teams like FDJ-Suez are notorious for being very monolingual in their approach. Vollering by her own admission has said that she doesn’t speak French, so like many of us, she’ll need to hop on Duolingo this year to learn le français in time for the Tour de France Femmes.
She’s already learnt the French word for a climber – grimpeuse if you’re wondering – but there’s plenty more to work on if she wants to communicate clearly to her new teammates and staff. Perhaps this will help her feel more at home at FDJ-Suez, particularly on the back of her bitter divorce from SD Worx-ProTime last year.
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