Cor Vos
Hello, and thank you for opening this week’s Wheel Talk newsletter. After this week, I will be dialing down the newsletters with a break over the holiday period, meaning there is only this and one more newsletter remaining in 2025. I’ll also be trimming down the newsletter itself until the cycling season really kicks off in full in February.
This week: Just when I thought the transfer market had cooled down, SD Worx-Protime came in with the hottest transfer of the year. Lotte Kopecky opened up about her and the team’s decision to chase general classification contention, and more.
First things first: Lotte Kopecky opens up about her 2025 season
Going into the 2025 season, there was a lot of talk about what Kopecky would do without the team’s constraints of having to balance both the world champion and Demi Vollering. Kopecky’s near win at the Giro d’Italia Donne in 2024 (she finished second to Elisa Longo Borghini by 21 seconds, but the two were only one second apart going into the final stage) and second place overall at the 2023 Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift put her in the conversation to bid for the 2025 Tour title, and SD Worx-Protime was down one GC contender with Vollering’s move to FDJ-Suez. But pretty early in the season, it was clear Kopecky wasn’t on the same level she had been a year prior.
Still, in April, she won the Tour of Flanders, a result that would make most riders’ whole season if it weren’t for the fact she’d already won the race in 2023 and 2022. At the Giro, she was looking pretty good in the opening time trial, where she finished second to Marlen Reusser, but by stage 6, she was out of the race due to a back injury.
Kopecky on her way to the start of stage 3 of the 2025 Tour de France Femmes
In an interview with Het Nieuwsblad, Kopecky shed some light on her season as a whole and why she doesn’t plan on riding for general classification any time soon.
Kopecky has already said that her winter training was impacted by a lingering knee injury, but in the interview, she went into more detail, stating that the pain persisted throughout the Spring Classics.
The back injury that took her out of the Giro also curtailed her goal to take the yellow jersey in the opening stage of the Tour de France Femmes. She’d already announced that she wouldn’t be defending her rainbow jersey before a crash at Tour de l’Ardeche truly ended her road season.
“We went for a reconnaissance of that first stage, and I was really looking forward to it,” Kopecky said. “But I wasn’t even at 50% of my usual level. Somehow, I still hoped I’d make it through, but after the stage, that hope was gone. That was the low point. I had a good cry after that stage. A lot of tears were shed that week.”
In hindsight, Kopecky said that with the lead-up to the race, and the season in general, not going to plan, it wasn’t the best decision for her to continue focusing on the general classification, but that she would have regretted it if she didn’t try.
Kopecky also went into detail, talking about what the GC focus did to her body. She was starving herself but not losing any weight. Later, she was told her body had gone into “conservation mode.”
“At some point, I had an enormous calorie deficit. The strange thing was that my weight didn’t go down; there was too much of an imbalance.”
“Then you wonder: ‘What am I doing?’ I put a lot of energy into it and got nothing in return. I think I was actually heavier during the Tour than before. In terms of body fat percentage, we were where we wanted to be, but that doesn’t matter. It’s about weight, watts per kilo.”
One month before the start of the Tour, Kopecky decided she couldn’t follow the same plan anymore. She said she didn’t get a fair shot at the Tour this year. She’s started to work with a dietitian, but hasn’t seen the results she expected from that just yet.
Lotte Kopecky taking her third Flanders victory.
The Flanders win was the highlight of her 2025 season, she said, regardless of it not being her first victory at the Belgian Monument. Without that win, the season would have looked a lot more dire.
“The contrast with recent years is too great. It’s true that I made the best of it given the circumstances.”
A Tour bid isn’t completely off the table for the two-time road world champ, but it is highly unlikely. For now, Kopecky is focused on 2026 and getting back to her winning ways.
“The hunger is great, but we have to think about it carefully.”
Transfers update
Nienke Vinke to SD Worx-Protime! The best name in the peloton will have a new jersey in 2026.
Vinke was recognised internationally when she finished second overall at the 2024 Tour Down Under. This year, she backed up that result on European soil with a ninth overall at the Vuelta a España Femenina, fourth in the U23 time trial at the European Championships, and eighth at La Flèche Wallonne. She also won the Youth Classification at both the Vuelta a Burgos and the Tour de France Femmes this season.
She is another Picnic-PostNL rider to break contract early, as she was originally set to ride for them through the 2026 season. The first this year was Charlotte Kool, who departed the team early to join Fenix-Decuninck. Marta Cavalli is another who broke her contract early. She decided to retire from professional cycling after some difficult years due to injury.
Vinke’s move to SD Worx-Protime bolsters the team’s climbing talent as well as their future. With the departure of Demi Vollering at the start of this season, they need someone to turn to in the years to come. Anna van der Breggen may be the team’s GC go-to in 2026, but it’s important to have someone waiting in the wings.
“We see Nienke as a rider who can develop into a GC contender in the major stage races in the coming years, but also as someone capable of achieving strong results in the Ardennes Classics,” sports director Danny Stam said in a statement from the team.
“It was clear early on that Nienke is a real talent. We’re happy to have been given a second chance to work with her. In her first year, she can continue to grow in the shadow of riders such as Lotte Kopecky, Anna van der Breggen, Lorena Wiebes and Mischa Bredewold. She has already shown her climbing potential. Both on hilly terrain and on the long climbs in stage races, she performs very well.”
At only 21, Vinke has a big future ahead of her, the next three years of which will be with SD Worx-Protime.
In other transfer news, Premier Tech will become a title sponsor of Fenix in 2026, so the team will be Fenix-Premier Tech in the new year. They also announced the additions of Omloop Het Nieuwsblad winner Lotte Claes (another great name), Fien Van Eynde, who joins from the Continental-level development program, and Mylène de Zoete from Ceratizit.
Racing continues…
At the Tour Down Under in 39 days! How many familiar Australian voices can we cram into two or three podcast episodes on the ground in Adelaide?
Wheel Talk podcast
This week, I had the opportunity to talk to Ellen van Dijk about her decision to retire, her final season racing, the birth of her son, and so much more. It was such a fun conversation, and I am so excited for what Ellen has coming next in her life. Good news! She’s going to stay in the sport. What would we do without her?
There is also a written piece coming.
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