Table of contents for December 4, 2025 in Cycling Weekly

Every year during the week after the UCI Road World Championships, the editorial team here at CW sits down and begins one of the most heated discussions of the year. It’s in this meeting that we decide who should win our Rider of the Year awards. Thankfully, some categories are essentially decided for us. If a rider crowns a successful season with a world title, they’re a shoo-in for the win, as was the case with our Female Rider winner, Zoe Bäckstedt. Other categories, however, require a more nuanced discussion; our Male Rider of the Year group is a good example. This year, it was the category that took the longest to decide. In this group we have a Grand Tour winner, Grand Tour challengers, a world champion, and a…

Tom Pidcock will have a British GC team-mate with the same first name at Q36.5 next season – and the new Tom is determined to follow Pidcock’s tracks and turn flashes of brilliance into consistent brilliance. For the past three years Thomas Gloag has been riding for Visma-Lease a Bike, and the Londonder made an immediate impression with sixth place on GC in his debut race, the 2023 Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana. He then went on to ride and complete the Giro d’Italia as an eleventh hour call-up A training ride crash in August 2023, however, shattered his right kneecap, and he didn’t return to competition until 11 months later. When he did, he won a stage of the Czech Tour just three days into his return, but then…

Girmay joins NSN Cycling Biniam Girmay will ride for NSN Cycling next season, it was revealed this week. The Eritrean sprinter and Classics specialist joins the team formerly known as Israel-Premier Tech on a three-year deal after leaving Intermarché-Wanty. Tony Martin on Instagram Former time trial world champion Tony Martin is back racing… 7 The number of times Wout van Aert rode the Paris-Roubaix sector of Camphinen-Pévèle last week, on a training run. The reconnaissance visit came as part of Visma-Lease a Bike’s equipment testing for next season. Bahrain-Victorious confirms Merida exit After nine years together, Bahrain Victorious and Merida bikes have ended their partnership. The WorldTour squad has raced on Merida equipment since its formation in 2017 as Bahrain Merida, but is now expected to ride Bianchi bikes from…

Dusk is setting in when I connect with Zoe Bäckstedt over video call. She is in Belgium, where it’s early evening and turning gloomy outside; she sits down to talk to me under bright artificial light. Fresh from the photoshoot for this piece, she has a Red Bull cap pulled tight over her blonde waves, and gives off a sparky energy as we begin chatting. Just out of shot, her wrist is in plaster – a training crash at the end of October left her with two small fractures, delaying the start of her cyclo-cross season. Until this very recent spot of bad luck, 2025 had been a year of interdisciplinary dominance for the young Welshwoman. From a double victory at January’s UCI Cyclo-cross World Championships, rainbow jerseys collected in…

Oscar Onley In just his second appearance at the Tour de France, Onley placed an impressive fourth, equalling Scotland’s best-ever finish achieved by Philippa York in 1984. “He can climb with the best guys in the world,” his Picnic PostNL DS Matt Winston said at the time. Onley also scored top-five finishes at the Tour Down Under, UAE Tour, Tour de Suisse and Tour of Britain. Simon Yates The Giro d’Italia looked to be a two-horse race between Isaac del Toro and Richard Carapaz, until Yates overhauled everything on stage 20’s Colle delle Finestre, the site of his Giro collapse in 2018. It brought pink-jersey redemption for Yates, and a first Grand Tour victory for Great Britain since Tao Geoghegan Hart won the Giro in 2020. Tom Pidcock Leaving Ineos…

Trying to stop the two gold medals around her neck from clinking together, Erin Boothman holds them to her chest as she walks through the Manchester Velodrome. “Some riders transport theirs in socks, you know,” a member of staff advises the 18-year-old. He pauses, looks her in the eyes, and nods to her achievements: “You’re doing really well.” The medals the teenager is wearing for her photoshoot this morning were prised out of a frame in her bedroom. She has three – “massive, thick frames” – one for her Junior Track World Championships golds, one for her Junior European Track Championships golds, and another for her 2023 European Youth Olympics silver. How many medals are in the first two? “Three in the Euros one, and four in the Worlds one,”…

To borrow from one enduring marketing campaign, if Carlsberg did cycling clubs, they might well be looking to a certain Berkshire market town for some pointers. Newbury Velo’s entry for this year’s Cycling Weekly Club of the Year award was so comprehensive, so saturated with innovative, inclusive and wide-ranging membership offerings, it was clear right away that they were going to be hard to beat. Newbury is located about 20 miles west of Reading. The town’s Velo club is a relatively new fixture on the roads, having formed in 2020, but already has nearly 400 members – who are difficult to miss in their bright pink and dark blue jerseys. Newbury Velo offers something for all members, with a time trial series and a summer cyclo-cross series too, plus open…

Pas Normal is making a name for itself at the premium end of cycling clothing, and while its items can be hellishly expensive, it has cornered a particular aesthetic, and its collections often catch our eye here at Cycling Weekly. It has just launched its Autumn/Winter 2025 T.K.O. collection. T.K.O is the designation it gives to its creative collections, a ‘skunkworks’ in design terms – hence the new all-over pattern. The garments themselves include updates to their Mechanism Thermal Jacket, a premium deep-winter layer which gains an all-over seasonal print. The jacket is a race fit, made with three-layer ‘Windtex Pro’ fabric, and welded seams. It has a high level of breathability (7m²Pa/W - ISO 11092), and is water-column tested to 10,000mm. The jacket also features a premium YKK Vislon…

I rode down a hill a few weeks ago. I live in Cambridge, so this is quite a landmark event. However, this wasn’t the motorway flyover where I usually perfect my aero tuck. This was a sweet, flowing series of switchbacks in Alicante. There are few sensations in cycling more viscerally pleasurable than rounding a perfectly radiused hairpin, with a road that cambers just-so and sightlines clear enough to let you sweep in, clip an apex, and feel the bike accelerate below you onto the next straight. In the sorts of places where they have this sort of hairpin, they often string three or four of them together in a way that makes you feel like a god. Then, of course, they chuck in a bend that’s like the wonky trip-step…

With winter starting to take a firm hold, thoughts turn to how to make the British weather more bearable. The turbo starts to look appealing, but this year I found myself drawn back to racing on the track. Nothing serious, just a bit of the Manchester Regional Track League. Now this should be a simple transition. I have a track bike, albeit a very basic one, but having done some stealth reconnaissance watching riders I coach, it seemed the level of kit required had changed since I last raced two or three years ago. Under the bright lights of the velodrome all the shiny kit looked appealing, so my solution was obviously I need to buy a new bike! So, with an improved track set-up, I headed to the track.…

Anna Henderson The Olympic time trial silver medallist secured her first Grand Tour stage win and a stint in the pink jersey at the Giro d’Italia, and closed her year with victory at China’s Tour of Guangxi. “It’s really nice to finish the season like this,” she said after the race. “My first year with Lidl-Trek ending in a win – it’s been really good.” Cat Ferguson In her first full year as a pro, the Movistar rider earned a maiden WorldTour win at the Tour of Britain in June, finishing second overall. She also scored a podium at the Trofeo Alfredo Binda, a string of top-10s, and was part of the victorious GB mixed relay team at the UCI Cyclo-cross World Championships in January. Anna Morris Morris successfully defended…

Everyone knew that Pauline Ferrand-Prévot – a world champion in four different disciplines – was an exceptional bike rider. As such, very few doubted that her return to the road scene in 2025 after a six-year hiatus would be a success. But no one could have foreseen the glory that the French superstar enjoyed this year. It was meant to be a season of finding her legs in the road peloton once again, and working towards achieving her ultimate ambition of winning the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift. An end date of 2027 was put on that target. Yet the Visma-Lease a Bike rider, 33, made a barnstorming return, reminding everyone of her unique talent as soon as the spring got underway. Podium finishes at Strade Bianche and the…

These days most British bike racing fans can easily reel off handfuls of world-beating home nation luminaries. So much so, it’s becoming hard to remember when British cycling had practically zero presence on the Continent. But that’s how it was: in the 1980s, you could count on one hand all the UK riders you might spot at the Tour de France. One rider you most certainly would have included in that tally was Philippa York – known then as Robert Millar. Glasgow-born York became the most successful British pro in years, with Tour de France stage wins and a historic fourth on GC, plus the mountains classification win in 1984 elevating her to superstar status among British fans. At the same time, York was enduring a personal struggle with body…

● Discover: Sessions where newcomers are introduced to competition and start their journey in the sport. Low cost and with relaxed rules, the focus will be on delivering a safe and welcoming environment. These will be coach led with learning and excitement at the core. Removing barriers to entry will make them accessible to more people and there will be no points, results or rankings. ● Engage: This is competition at grassroots level, typically club-led, with a local focus on fun races where riders can explore different aspects of the sport and improve their skills. ● Challenge: Regular competition for developing riders with opportunities for personal achievements and goals. These will be discipline-specific, require a higher level of skill and introduce riders to ranking systems. ● Advance: Aimed at experienced…

Despite achieving his first ever UCI Cyclo-Cross World Cup podium at Flamanville, France, on Sunday, Britain’s Cameron Mason was slightly disappointed post-race. The 25-year-old, who rides for Seven Racing, was forced to play catch-up after unclipping on the start line. The elite men’s race at the second round of the World Cup was won by Thibau Nys (Baloise Glowi Lions), with his team-mate Lars van der Haar in second. “I pulled my foot out of the pedal pretty quickly,” he told Sporza. “I moved back up again to where I was going to be anyway. I think I was 15th on the first lap, but that is really far. I actually felt rubbish all race, but I did find my rhythm a little bit and was bridging quite big gaps.”…

Utrecht is the world’s most bicycle-friendly city What most people don’t know is that the Dutch cycling policies evolved out of public safety concerns for the number of people-specifically children - who were killed while biking. Mothers took to the streets and demanded that the government address this issue. Pilot projects were initiated in several Dutch cities and the multi-layered approach to transport we see now evolved over time - and it continues to evolve as circumstances change. Michael Jahoda, via Facebook…

There’s a video that keeps popping up on Matthew Brennan’s Instagram feed. It opens with a shot down the Carretera de Girona, an unassuming residential road in Sant Feliu de Guíxols, Spain, onto which bursts the chaos of stage one’s finale of the Volta a Catalunya. “Here comes Brennan,” announces Carlton Kirby excitedly. And it’s at this point that the 20-year-old switches the video off. “I see the first three seconds, then I scroll past,” says the Visma-Lease a Bike rider. It’s not that he doesn’t like it – quite the opposite – but he just doesn’t need any help remembering his first WorldTour victory. His breakthrough on cycling’s biggest stage remains vivid in his mind. “It was a nice day,” he smiles. “It’s something quite special that will always…

Macclesfield Wheelers nominated Bowden for CW Local Hero with a long testament to his work, from which the below is a short excerpt: “Bhima runs the weekly hill-climb series in a way that I just don’t think can be topped. Before it starts, he works on photoshoots of every hill, writes compelling narratives about the climbs, and rallies a great team of volunteers. While cycling home, we receive individual messages with our time and placement, which then goes into his fancy website and series leaderboard – he truly celebrates everyone.”…

Robyn Clay had a lot of success in 2025. There were five race wins, both the National Road and National Circuit Series, and the inaugural Rapha Super-League too – all by a 21-year-old who had only started racing at elite level a couple of years previously. It was therefore not hard to select our domestic rider of the year. What meant most to Clay, though, was not one of the victories or titles. Intriguingly, it was her performance in the under-23 individual time trial at the British National Championships in June, where she finished second, 51 seconds behind the winner, Millie Couzens. “I felt I couldn’t have executed it any better,” Clay told Cycling Weekly last month. “I just timed it perfectly with my form coming after a couple of…

Talk of revolutions in professional cycling tends to conjure visions of cuttingedge tech or radical new training methods. But the latest shift isn’t futuristic at all – in fact, it’s almost comically ordinary. The supposed disruptor? Puffed rice. When I recently interviewed Picnic PostNL’s climbing specialist Max Poole, he divulged: “My go-to cereals are Coco Pops or Frosties.” Noticing my surprised expression, the 22-year-old added, “Yeah, when I was at school, I never thought that Coco Pops would be cycling fuel, but it’s gone full circle!” The phenomenon was confirmed when, separately, Fenix-Deceuninck’s Flora Perkins told me: “I’m trialling Coco Pops before races,” adding, “and I’ve ditched rice cakes for Rice Krispie marshmallow Squares.” While no one is claiming that chocolate-flavoured cereal is the secret weapon of the entire peloton,…