The 40 Most Interesting Riders in Cycling, Year 2, Part 3

From A to...well, not Z, but V, which is pretty close

Photo Credit: Charly Lopez, ASO

In my day job, I get the week from Christmas to New Year’s off—you know, like a child—and I love it. The last week of the year should be a national festival of rest and relaxation, and near as I can tell, even those unfortunates who have to work this week generally turn it into a festival of sloth and goldbricking. As well they should.

From what I understand, the reason I have this week off is that nobody clicks on shit during the holidays. So why have everyone at work producing content nobody’s going to read anyway? Fair enough.

But as a consumer (read: Someone who’s addicted to the internet), having the blogging taps turned all the way to idle leaves me in a bind. What podcasts am I supposed to listen to while I cook dinner or drive around doing errands? What posts am I supposed to read on the toilet in the morning? What am I supposed to do—leave my house and talk to people? No, sir. President Kennedy left his house and look what happened to him. I’m not making the same mistake.

Heading into the second full year of this newsletter, there are going to be a few changes—more details there as I have them—but my promise to you is that no matter what the season, I will do my utmost to give you crap to read on your phone while you’re pretending to listen to your boss or your kids.

If you haven’t been reading this past week, here’s what I’m doing at the end of this year and the start of the next. And here are the first two installments out of…some number, I’m not exactly sure. Depends on how much I write before I get tired.

The 40 Most Interesting Riders in Cycling, Year 2, Part 1

The 40 Most Interesting Riders in Cycling, Year 2, Part 2

28. Chloé Dygert, 27, Canyon-SRAM, United States, Time Trialist

Over the past 13 months I’ve spilled just a humongous amount of ink about Dygert. When I started this newsletter, she was proooooobably the most prominent active American cyclist, so that made sense. More than that, she’s such a powerful, aggressive, analog rider. I don’t think “crude” has ever been used as a compliment, but I love that, in this age of Venturi effect helmets and microscopic course study, there’s someone who can win a world championship by just going out there and riding like hell until her legs give out.

There’s an alternate universe where it rained a little less in northern Italy in September 2020, Dygert doesn’t nearly amputate her leg above the knee, and we’re talking about her as one of the greatest time trialists who ever lived, and as a multiple Paris-Roubaix winner. But she’s still coming back—it was a horrendous injury, punctuated by all manner of setbacks¹ and illnesses. And four years on, and with Dygert once again competitive with the best riders in the world, I wonder if this is as back as she’s going to get.

2024 was about as good a season as you can have without winning a race. Dygert finished second in the Tour de France ITT after Demi Vollering went full Luke Skywalker on home turf. She got shut out in the classics and crashed in both the Olympic road race and time trial.

But her Canyon-SRAM² teammate, Kasia Niewiadoma, won an upset Tour de France GC victory over Vollering. Dygert’s crash in the Olympic road race gave her teammate Kristen Faulkner an opening to win the gold medal, and then Dygert came back to save Team USA’s bacon on the track when Faulkner gassed in the team pursuit final. And also, despite all the crashing she did, Dygert won two medals at worlds and another in the Olympic time trial. And her road race silver medal—her best result of the year—came on a parcours that I thought was going to spit her out the back on one of those hills.

There’s a scene in A Boy Named Charlie Brown where Charlie Brown’s about to get on the bus to go to the National Spelling Bee, and all the kids shout out together: “Return victorious, Charlie Brown!” And then Lucy, all by herself, follows up with “…or don’t come back at all!”

I don’t think there’s a rider out there³ who better embodies the ethos of “Return victorious, Charlie Brown! Or don’t come back at all!” And for that reason, Dygert will be on this list as long as I’m writing it.

27. Marianne Vos, 37, Visma-Lease a Bike, Netherlands, Classics Specialist

I hope Vos would appreciate being referred to as “the doyenne of cycling.” A year ago, I was wondering if the 37-year-old GOAT⁴ was starting to slip. Well, Vos isn’t quite as unbeatable as she was 10 years ago, but she won the points classification at both the Tour and the Vuelta, plus two stages at the latter. Plus a stage and GC at the Volta a Catalunya, Omloop, Dwars Door Vlaanderen, the gravel world championship, and a host of other top-five finishes, including a silver medal at the Olympic road race.

So I’m through wondering if she’s washed up. Clearly not. And we’ll see how much more hardware she can take home this year amidst the chaos that is the women’s World Tour transfer market.

26. Puck Pieterse, 22, Fenix-Deceuninck, Netherlands, Classics Specialist

Pieterse is one of the riders I have pegged as a potential monster cyclocross crossover star. She only spent 17 days on the road in 2024, which is not a lot, even on the women’s calendar. But she showed up for a lot of big races, after having only two days of professional road racing experience previously in her career.

Pieterse was in the fight throughout. She raced six World Tour-level classics races, and apart from a 13th place at Strade Bianche,⁵ she came no lower than eighth in any of them. Plus a fifth place in Dwars Door Vlaanderen, which is legit if not technically top-tier.

And then she came into her own at the Tour de France Femmes: She won Stage 4, and did well enough in the first two mountain stages to head into the final day in second place, just 27 seconds down on GC. The trip up Alpe d’Huez didn’t go great; she finished 17th, shipping eight minutes to eventual GC winner Niewiadoma and more than nine minutes to stage winner Vollering. But Pieterse finished 11th on GC, mere seconds out of the top eight, and took home the white jersey for best young rider.

My prediction is that at minimum Pieterse will expand her collection of top-10 finishes, hit a couple podiums, and set herself up for an even bigger breakout in 2026. I would not be surprised in the slightest if she wins a big race like Strade or the Tour of Flanders and starts putting pressure on Lotte Kopecky for the title of best all-around rider in the world.

25. Lennert van Eetvelt, 23, Lotto Dstny, Belgium, Climber

Here’s some statistical malpractice for you: In the 2020s, only four male riders have won multiple World Tour-level stage races in the same season: Tadej Pogačar, Jonas Vingegaard, Primož Roglič and van Eetvelt.

That phrasing is deliberate⁶ and treats the Tour of Guangxi and the UAE Tour as equivalent to the Tour de France and the Giro d’Italia. But it’s a hell of a fun fact.

And van Eetvelt is a great up-and-coming rider any way you look at it. He beat some real dudes in the UAE Tour, on Jabel Hafeet, which is a serious climb. And on one hand, his second-place finish on Stage 4 of the Vuelta is pretty embarrassing:

But van Eetvelt is neither the first rider to lose a stage by celebrating too early, nor the first rider to get bumrushed on a punchy finish by Roglič. I want to concentrate on how van Eetvelt was able to produce the sustained power and speed to counterattack over Mikel Landa in the first place. I’m not saying he’s bound for the Roglič-Pogačar-Remco Evenepoel level, but I think the next generation of great GC riders is going to resemble those three—hybrid climber-puncheur types—than pure traditional GC guys like Vingegaard.

Look out for van Eetvelt in the Tour de France his summer. His Lotto Dstny team has already qualified on points and announced that van Eetvelt is coming. He could be a GC/white jersey contender, or a monster stage hunter.

24. Jay Vine, 29, UAE Team Emirates, Australia, GC Specialist

Vine has a pretty wild story; he made it into elite cycling in his mid-20s through the Zwift Academy, living out every teenager’s dream of being so good at video games they let you become a professional athlete. There are some growing pains when transitioning from the living room to the road, however, so the transition isn’t easy. Vine is by no means the only success story from this program, but he’s the biggest one.

Vine won two stages of the Vuelta in 2022 racing for Alpecin-Deceuninck, and since he moved to UAE the following season, my read on him is that he’s got the legs to be a contender in one-week stage races and maybe a top-10 threat in grand tours. After pooh-poohing the traditional GC rider not only in the van Eetvelt capsule but in the Vingegaard capsule on Tuesday, I’ll tell you that Vine does fit that archetype. He’s not only a good climber but a superb time trialist: first at Australian national championships in 2023, ahead of Luke Durbridge and Luke Plapp, second at this past Chrono des Nations, fifth at worlds.

Which seems obvious in retrospect, that a guy who got pulled off the street because he was so good at pegging a power meter would excel in races that require sustained power output.

What I don’t know about Vine is his ultimate ceiling. And we didn’t find out last season, because he was one of the numerous victims of the infamous Tour of the Basque Country Culvert of Stars, and he arguably came off worst out of everyone who ended up in that ditch. Vine had some good performances once he came back. There was the aforementioned world championship top five, an ITT win at Vuelta a Burgos,⁷ and the KOM jersey at the Vuelta, where he was all over the breakaways.

So let’s roll it back in 2025 and see what he can do.

23. Shirin Van Anrooij, 22, Lidl-Trek, Netherlands, Classics Specialist

Van Anrooij is one of two riders who I think have the most to gain by Elisa Longo Borghini leaving Lidl-Trek. Longo Borghini is not only one of the best riders out there in both the classics and stage races, but her seniority gave her a complete chokehold on team leadership. That meant that van Anrooij, throughout the classics season but most notably at the Tour of Flanders, put in victory-worthy efforts in service of Longo Borghini, only to finish third or fifth or 12th herself. I think she could do a lot better if let off the chain.

22. Maxim Van Gils, 25, Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, Belgium, Puncheur

I learned from Cian Uijtdebroeks last winter that just because a talented young Belgian is the subject of a transfer tug-of-war, that doesn’t automatically mean he’s going to set the world on fire the following season. But Red Bull wanted Van Gils badly, and now the young Belgian is lined up for Ardennes Week.

I’m skeptical as to whether he’s as good a puncheur as Roglič, his new teammate, but the old guy is targeting the Giro in 2024, which is an awkward timing fit with the hilly classics. My expectation is that Van Gils will be let off the chain, and in a proper team—as opposed to his former club, Lotto Dstny, which can be a little clown shoes—I think it’s fair to want big things. Here’s a list of races in which Van Gils finished in the top 10 in 2024: Strade Bianche, La Flèche Wallonne, the Famenne Ardennes Classic, Liège-Bastogne-Liège, GP Montreal, and Milan-San Remo.

Any new blood in the hilly classics, after years of domination by Pogačar and to a lesser extent Evenepoel, is sorely needed.

21. Juan Ayuso, 22, UAE Team Emirates, Spain, GC Specialist

Ayuso won his first professional stage race in 2024, the Tour of the Basque Country.⁸ He also finished second at Tirreno-Adriatico. But it’s not unfair to read this season as a mild disappointment. Pogačar podiumed the Vuelta at 20 and won the Tour de France the next two seasons. Ayuso did the same as a 19-year-old and hasn’t repeated the feat at a grand tour in the two seasons since.

Most of that has to do with being Pogačar’s teammate. The best rider in the world has, and deserves, unchallenged primacy at any race he chooses to enter. But even though Ayuso is under contract through 2028, I don’t know how long he can stay as Pogačar’s understudy. Ordinarily, UAE could designate him as their man for whatever stage races Pogačar chooses not to attend. But not only has Pogačar bogarted most of the big ones with his Giro-Tour double attempt, there’s a line at UAE: Adam Yates, João Almeida, Brandon McNulty, Vine, Pavel Sivakov, and Isaac del Toro’s coming through as well.

UAE could field an entire grand tour roster of riders who would expect to be grand tour leaders at a mid-tier World Tour team. And of those, Ayuso is the one I expect to be least patient. Yates has had his shot as a GC leader, and to some extent so have McNulty, Almeida, and Sivakov. They’re probably cool to work for Pog at the Tour, chase the occasional one-week GC, and make a ton of money to smile and put on a good show. Del Toro is just getting started.

Ayuso might have the goods not just to aid Pogačar but to beat him. And I don’t know how long he’ll be willing to sit around without knowing for sure.

20. Kasia Niewiadoma, 30, Canyon-SRAM, Poland, Puncheur/Climber

A year ago, Niewiadoma was near the top of this list, and one of the most closely-watched riders in cycling. Not because she won all the time, but the opposite. Niewiadoma became a cult hero because she’d show up at the head a decent-but-still-badly-outgunned Canyon-SRAM team, pour her heart and soul all over the tarmac, and come home fourth. Like clockwork.

Only now, she not only broke that streak with a massive win at La Flèche Wallonne…

What We Obtain Too Cheaply We Esteem Too Lightly

…she upped the stakes by winning the Tour de France Femmes.

The Race of the Year

And not only did she win the biggest race of the year, it was the most dramatic final day of the Tour de France since⁹ LeMond vs. Fignon in 1989. And the best race of the year by a huge margin.

So yeah, Niewiadoma’s still one of my favorite riders, and a major player in the classics and on GC for one of the biggest women’s teams…but there’s a bit of Alexander weeping because there were no more worlds to conquer here. Like, she did it. There’s nothing more to prove.

1. Some of them self-inflicted, but as a baseball writer I can tell you with absolute certainty that liking racist Twitter posts does not make you a worse athlete

2. I’m going to keep calling them this even though they announced a new title sponsor at the end of October. Dygert and Niewiadoma’s trade team now goes by “CANYON//SRAM zondacrypto.” Which is just ludicrous vanity punctuation/capitalization, for starters. I have too much self-respect to use that style. And speaking of self-respect, nothing says stability and dignity like an all-lowercase cryptocurrency exchange. God have mercy.

3. And few athletes in any sport

4. And she is such the greatest of all time that I’m willing to use an acronym I absolutely detest

5. Where she finished fifth in 2023 in her World Tour debut

6. Several riders, including the likes of Tim Wellens, have won multiple World Tour stage races in that time over multiple seasons

7. Take that for what it’s worth; Vine beat Edoardo Affini, but the field thinned out pretty quick after that

8. Assisted, if you want to call it that, by most of the leading GC riders in the world crashing

9. Feel free to argue if you think I’m wrong, but I don’t think I am