Riders To Watch For 2025

Ten riders to watch in 2025. Some are picked as tips for their raw talent, others to see what paths they will go down.

Juan Ayuso sits a gilded cage. Enjoying a long contract on generous terms, his problem is being let out to race for himself on a team that’s stacked with stage-racing talent. With Tadej Pogačar chasing the Tour-Vuelta double that means only the Giro is spare for grand tour ambitions and at the age of 22 he’ll be co-leader. This means muchos pressure as if the wheels come off in May there won’t be many chances to make amends so it’s the maglia rosa or bust. Is he minded to move teams? If so a win in the Giro helps, if not a win in the Giro helps as he can pick his moment and thrive. Move? We’ve seen Staune-Mittet leave Visma-LAB in order to get more opportunities and the gossip mill has been spinning. Ayuso is not alone, wunderkind Jan Christen is in similar situation at UAE but a year or two earlier.

Tom Pidcock met up with his Q36.5 new team mates for the first time earlier this month. A detail but notable because many teams had training camps late last year but Q36.5 being a smaller operation they got together in January only. He’s now free to race as he wants, or is he? For starters he can’t chose his calendar as the team are dependent on invites although he’ll open doors and teams pay sometimes too. It’s also about how the team handles him, Doug Ryder’s last big British signing was Mark Cavendish and the Dimension Data era was not harmonious. The team have some promising support with Damien Howson, Harm Vanhoucke, Milan Vader and more but they all signed before they knew who joined. In short what can Pidcock win this season and how much is he reliant on team mates?

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Is Arnaud De Lie a sprinter? Sure he’s very quick in a bunch sprint but he’s paid the price for tangling with others and so the team wants to spare him from this high-risk zone at times. So what to target instead? There’s a paradox for the classics where he’ll win more if he’s also got strong team mates, if Alec Segaert and Milan Menten can be in the kopgroep then he can play off them; and if he was on a stronger team then he could win even more. De Lie is also one of many who will have an eye on the first week of the Tour de France, the uphill finishes at Boulogne, Rouen, Vire and Mûr-de-Bretagne are all within his range, does he avoid the bunch sprints to better go for these days? With Lotto seemingly set for World Tour promotion they don’t need him to score as much and we’ll see if he can shift towards quality. Plus we’ll see if he can still keep his feet on the ground, the farming boy is set to become a millionaire.

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Marc Hirschi has left UAE for Tudor. He had a superb finish to the season last year in part because that was what was available to him, no grand tours but picking off one day races. All change now he’s Tudor’s central rider with a pick of their calendar so there’s the risk he loses focus. The big test is delivering results beyond 200km. He can do it, see San Sebastian but regularly and against deeper opposition. There’s also the cohabitation with Julian Alaphilippe to observe, the Frenchman has been a loyal team mate at times but reciprocity has to be there. Tudor have signed the pair to go up a level and expectations rise with this for the whole team which on paper looks superior to several World Tour squads.

Can Olav Kooij turn into a dragon? Students of Chinese folklore and Pokémon collectors alike may know the story of the humble koi carp that after years of patiently swimming in a pool below a waterfall decided to swim up the waterfall and it became a dragon. Being the house sprinter on a team focussed on stage racing is a tough gig as opportunities don’t arise all the time and second place isn’t useful for points or a sign of promise. He’s shown the speed and skills to beat the best in sprints but can he keep it up. Also he’s no flat-track bully, so the question is how he does in the classics with Milan-Sanremo a target but coveted by a hundred others.

What was Kévin Vauquelin‘s most impressive result last year? Everyone remembers the Tour stage win, solo in Bologna after attacking on the legendary Basilica San Luca, rightly so. He could have won the Flèche Wallonne too. But he was also sixth in the Tour’s Burgundy time trial stage, only Campenaerts, Vingegaard, Roglič, Pogačar and Evenepoel beat him which alone is a reference, now imagine the resources and knowledge at their disposal compared to him, and it’s even more impressive for a 23 year old on a modest squad. There’s a touch of Geraint Thomas here as a rider with a track background who is probably naturally a couple of kilos too heavy to be a grand tour contender, does he go for more reachable goals or shed weight? It’s probably not a question to answer this year but with his contract expiring other teams are interested and grand tour ambitions can boost the contract value, albeit especially if underpinned by results. He’s on a team trying to avoid relegation but hopefully he is spared trying to score points in smaller races and given a clear run at bigger goals but easier said than done.

Pelayo Sánchez was a surprise Giro stage winner, outsprinting Julian Alaphilippe in the uphill finish in Rapolano. Alaphilippe’s performance said plenty about him, once invincible in this kind of finish he mimicked Philippe Gilbert’s mutation into a turbo diesel to win the stage to Fano. But Sanchez didn’t just win because of Alapahilippe’s fade, he beat Luke Plapp too and had other results in the year too. Still, what sort of rider can he become, a punchy hustler for results here and there or the makings of a stalwart leader for Movistar?

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Arguably the most interesting thing about Ineos’s signings is not who they signed but who they lost and if Pidcock has gone, Ethan Hayter jumped before too. A versatile rider capable of winning small bunch sprints and time trials alike he was caught out by this at Ineos, as he told Sporza he was neither a grand tour leader nor a domestique and so his plans would get changed all the time. Normally Soudal-Quickstep would be the ideal team, the “wolfpack” hunting for wins here and there has seen many riders join and win plenty. Only the guy who coined the term is now saying out loud that they’re not the squad of old. The flat hierarchy that suited opportunistic wins is more vertical with the team lined up in support of Remco Evenepoel. It makes sense as long as they retain Evenepoel. But so we’ll see where Hayter finds opportunities, that opening week of the Tour suits too but could the team spare riders for this? There should be wins but like a wolf joining a new pack he’ll have to impose himself to get opportunities too.

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Lenny Martinez wants to win a grand tour. Don’t we all? But he’s signed with Bahrain with the promise of leadership and riches. How to make a 52kg rider into a three week stage racer? It’s not quite alchemy but it is a challenging project. Former team mate David Gaudu has beefed up with this in mind and it’s got him to fourth in the Tour de France. Martinez is different though, a higher win rate already and the red jersey in the Vuelta too, the big test is to see whether he can handle long climbs and efforts. There are promising signs, he was often in the top-20 in time trials. He made a point of this, going for it when others might have opted for an active rest day and that shows the ambition. Because he was leaving he didn’t have the calendar of races he wanted so now with more focus and planning we’ll see what he can do in the mountains and at worst he’s just a very promising rider for the mountains where the polka dot jersey awaits if the GC bid folds.

Remember Cian Uijtdebroeks? The hype has gone down and down, from the “new Evenepoel” to, well a discreet 2024. Just over a year ago he broke his contract to move to Visma-LAB but 2024 didn’t pan out as planned if viewed from the outside. On the inside he probably put a zero on his salary and started the Giro as a leader but he was undone by all sorts of things we can’t see, a catalogue of injury and illness. Part of this was a back problem initially thought to be an arterial problem but the diagnosis turned out to be nervous, think sciatica. Neither suit a 21 year old. We’ll see if he can get his stage racing ability back on track and where he might have leadership on a crowded team. Look to the week long stage races like Tirreno and Romandie because if he can get back on track then he’s a real prospect for the future.

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Picking 10 means leaving out hundreds. Javier Romo was part of the original top-10 when drafting this list but he’s spoilt things by winning, his stage of the Tour Down Under settles the question of whether he can make the front group in a hilly race and win from it. Uno-X need more wins and Magnus Cort is probably where expectations fall. If De Lie is cited already for the first week of the Tour de France, then what about Thibau Nys who is suited to these uphill finishes too but where Jonathan Milan is going to be Lidl-Trek’s sprinter and Mads Pedersen is bumped to the Giro, where does the Belgian fit in?

Antonio Tiberi keeps improving but doesn’t have a Giro route to suit his time trial experience and how to breakout from Bahrain’s collection of riders who can finish a respectable but discreet sixth in a grand tour? The cat-sniper story is a ball and chain that follows him but he’s also becoming an articulate rider for the Italian public.

Cofidis hire riders from markets where the sponsor is present but Alex Aranburu is more than Spanish coverage, he’s essential as a points hunter so half the challenge for the team is just hoping he stays healthy and uninjured. Florian Lipowitz was a revelation last year but repeating and building is a big challenge, especially for a German on a (partly) German team. Alex Baudin is an under-the-radar talent, he grew up close to Decathlon-Ag2r’s service course but no sentimentality these days as the team did not keep him – there was the still unexplained tramadol test – and he’s joined EF and has shown stage-racing promise but some riders vanish at this team; the same concern for Kasper Asgreen.

Tom Donnenwirth didn’t make the neo-pro list as that’s for riders under 25 and he’s now 27, and only got into road cycling a couple of years ago, said to be the proverbial “big engine” he was fourth in the tricky Tour de l’Ain and finished on the podium in the Tour of Britain, all as a stagiaire. Kevin Vermaerke keeps improving and is now knocking on the door of front groups and even a result. Caleb Ewan is a late pick here, it wasn’t that long ago that he looked like the most complete sprinter in the pack but results dried up. Finally a sentimental pick with Romain Bardet as he’s doing half a season to finish with the Giro and then the Dauphiné which will include a stage in Brioude where he was born, the locations are waiting but can he write the script for his exit?

28 thoughts on “Riders To Watch For 2025”

  1. Interested to see what Josh Tarling can do, and which races he goes to, this year – he looked good in Dwars Dor and RVV in 2024 but seemed to race quite a lot of stage races besides those.

    • Good pick, he seemed set to become the new Ganna but got beaten a few times when it counted but being so close to these wins was impressive. Does he stay as a TT specialist or also branch into more races like the classics, doing leadouts/chases etc?

      • I’d also be interested to see what Tarling can do. But just as interested to see what Ineos do with Tarling.

        Seems like they’ve mishandled their recent young talents, but perhaps Tarling is more in their traditional mold and they might gel better. A big engine who can be shaped to their way of racing. Something to think about as Kévin Vauquelin develops as well, perhaps…

  2. Nice to see a mention of Vermaerke; he has stayed pretty anonymous while still showing a lot of promise on smaller stages. He’s at a stage of his career where he will either step up or accept a place as a solid domestique.
    Tiberi is a fascinating case. It’s interesting to think about what the narrative would be if he never shot that cat. Although I find that act pretty awful, it remains to be seen whether it was a youthful mistake or a sign of something worse. If it’s the former, he has a chance to be a legitimate star in the very near future.

  3. Hayter’s move will be interesting. After two excellent seasons (21 & 22) with >1000 PCS points, he’s become anonymous. Soudal-QS used to have a winning culture which, if it’s still there, could rub off on Hayter. QS will be not just hoping for but expecting big things. There’s a difference.

  4. Froome: after eight seasons of excellence and six of mediocrity, could he manage a final flourish before his ‘well-earned’ retirement. I’d like to see it and even a 1.1 or 2.1 victory would do. Allez Chris!

      • Good point. Four seasons of not much despite Barloworld having access to good races (2009: La Flèche, LBL Giro…) The gains were more than marginal.

  5. The De Lie pick is a good one. Feel like he’s a fairly well known quantity, but what more could we expect to see. And comparing that to the Hayter situation…

    In the Remco era there’s been a Quickstep shaped hole in the Spring results. Sure, MvdP and Pog have taken advantage of that, but could Lotto too? And is Hayter the play to gain back some Belgian prestige for Quickstep. Hopefully we don’t have long to wait to find out. All eyes on the Omloop.

  6. Has any rider of Martinez’s weight ever won a grand tour? I’m pretty sure they haven’t won the TdF, but what about the others?
    Do our resident encyclopaedias know?

    • Recently Quintana and Simon Yates have been under 60kg but just. There’s a degree of variety for grand tour winners but with few exceptions the weight bracket is 60-68kg. Just so nobody picks up the wrong idea or replies “but height / Indurain” of course it’s not the prime factor, just useful for shorthand / a heuristic.

      • Time trials were more important in the past. And mountain-top finishes only really became a thing in the Tour in the 1960s. It used to be the case that a typical weight of a Tour winner was about 68kg, with a few winners over 70kg. Around 68kg was the weight of Bartali, Coppi, Anquetil, Zoetemelk, Fignon, Lemond. The EPO or drug era favoured even heavier riders, some of which were 75kg+; Pantani was the obvious exception. The reduction in time-trial kms and the increasing number of mountain-top finishes, and better gearing (meaning steeper slopes are climbed) have shifted the advantage to lighter riders in the last 15 years. The typical weight is around 62kg now, with the odd case under 60kg.

    • Hard to say, among extreme lightweight in more recent years I recall Rujano podiuming at the Giro.
      In the epic years, there’s the Trueba saga: Vicente became famous winning KOMs at the TDF (and a couple of top-10). He was actually the first winner of the final mountain jersey. Desgrange himself gave him the nickname of “the flea from Torrelavega”. The man was not much taller than 150 cm and weighed some 52 kgs.
      He’d have won the 1933 TDF wasn’t it because a sudden change in policy with the OTL. Desgrange used to be very rigid and had kicked out already several riders from the race but in a couple of stages later on the peloton would have been reduced to a handful of athletes, so the time limit was extended à la carte. Trueba had done several lone efforts to keep himself within the limit, so at the end he’d have been the winner had the rules been applied consistently. Alas, it didn’t work like that.
      The funny thing is that he had a younger… and smaller brother, Fermín, which at home was nicknamed “mini” (!) who enjoyed success on the Spanish national scene, including a Vuelta podium (lots of brothers, actually, like 7 or 8 I think, most of them cyclists…)

    • Bahamontes had often a race weight well below 60 kgs (57-58) but he was some 178 cm tall. As Pantani or Quintana, well above the Lenny Martínez reference.
      We need to go to the strongest climbers ever or so (Gaul had a morr compact, slightly heavier build).

    • Here we are. Writing about historical cycling in Spain, I have the obvious answer: El Tarangu Fuente, listed at 53 to 55 kg, indeed a different category from several 58 kgers named here (add Van Impe). Of course another candidate for the list of top climbers ever. He won two Vueltas and podiumed both at the Giro and the TDF. The Vuelta was not that different from the shortest stage races back then, but it works for the stats. He also won a Suisse which had been a 3rd GT of sort for years, but which was already declining when he won it.

  7. I’m most interested to see what Thibau Nys can do this year. I haven’t seen much of him on the road but he is very exciting to watch in cross races. He is facing a pretty stacked field in the ‘punchy reduced sprint’ category. He’d have the Vans to contend with, as well as Pedersen, Cort, Die Lie, Hayter… it might be a case of quality over quantity when it comes to wins.

  8. I am interested in how Axel Zingle will perform with his new Team. He is a huge talent IMO, and he had so many places on the podium over the years. Shouldn’t take too much to convert those into wins.

  9. Can’t help but think Ayuso would be perfect for INEOS – obvious GT talent (moreso than Rodriguez) and speaks perfect English (but will the team last), and Olav Kooj would be an obvious sprinter to hoover points for them in 2026 but is the ambition there?

  10. I know you mentioned Albert Withen Philipsen in another post, but he is a rider I am watching for this year. The white jersey in TDU and a 4th place on a stage for an 18 year old. That’s good stuff.

    Could he be one of the riders who will take over in the classics?

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