Racing<\/p>\n
Bike racing\u2019s brightest prospects join team\u2019s stars for 2026<\/p>\n
January 2, 2026<\/p>\n
EF Pro Cycling is on a mission.<\/p>\n
Our team\u2019s talented crew of young racers and superstars is ready to launch into 2026 and continue to reinvent professional cycling. From the pits of Belgian cyclocross to the Tours de France, Unbound Gravel to the Giro d\u2019Italia, cycling\u2019s historic monuments to the renewed Philadelphia Cycling Classic, our men\u2019s, women\u2019s and development squads<\/a> are set to rocket past all expectations thanks to our athlete-driven approach to the sport.<\/p>\n In 2025, Magdeleine Vallieres<\/a> stunned the world with her world championship win in Kigali<\/a>. Mags raced in pink from the start of her professional career. Now that she has earned this year\u2019s rainbow bands, she extended her contract through 2028<\/a>.<\/p>\n Ben Healy<\/a> was the breakout rider of the 2025 Tour de France with his stage win<\/a>, two days in the <\/a>maillot jaune<\/a>,<\/a> and monster attack on Mont Ventoux<\/a>. Ben joined EF Education-EasyPost as a neo-pro back in 2022. The team recognized his talent early on and gave him the freedom and support he needed to become one of the most exciting racers of his generation.<\/p>\n EF Pro Cycling\u2019s next generation of cycling superstars is waiting in the suit room. This year, they will get their shot to burst into the firmament alongside leading lights like Ben and Mags. With teammates such as Richard Carapaz<\/a>, Kristen Faulkner<\/a>, Neilson Powless<\/a>, and C\u00e9drine Kerbaol<\/a> to lead them, this year\u2019s grand tours and classics are going to be scintillating.<\/p>\n \u201cFor this season, we have a plan built around the DNA of our team, which is daring to race and daring to win and not being afraid to go all in and lose everything,\u201d said EF Education-Oatly general manager Esra Tromp. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s all about going out there and having fun and creating something really cool in the races. We will race really aggressively. We will not wait and be conservative to end up 15th or second or sixth. For us, that is not important. We will go all in and see if we can win races and create value for our sponsors and value for the development of our riders.\u201d<\/p>\n EF Education-EasyPost\u2019s plan for the new year is just as exciting. With hotshot sprinter Noah Hobbs<\/a> jumping up from EF Education-Aevolo to join teammates such as Marijn van den Berg<\/a>, Vincenzo Albanese<\/a>, and Madis Mihkels<\/a> on our men\u2019s squad, we have assembled one of the best sprint teams in our organization\u2019s history.<\/p>\n \u201cWe’ve got a team with a lot of speed,\u201d said EF Pro Cycling founder and CEO Jonathan Vaughters. <\/p>\n \u201cWe are going to spend quite a bit of time learning how to use that speed. It has been a while since this team has had as many sprinters and fast guys and leadout riders on it, so learning how to get that group to work together and to win sprint finishes is going to be a big objective.\u201d<\/p>\n Our sprinters will carry their speed to the classics so they can rocket Neilson Powless<\/a> and Kasper Asgreen<\/a> to the front of the peloton before every corner, cobbled sector, or berg. We will bring a formidable crew to the races leading to the Ronde van Vlaanderen and Paris-Roubaix. New recruits Luke Lamperti<\/a> and Matthias Schwarzbacher<\/a> bolster a squad that includes stalwarts such as Michael Valgren<\/a>, Mikkel Honor\u00e9<\/a>, and Colby Simmons<\/a> \u2013 the young American also joined last year from EF Education-Aevolo.<\/p>\n Ben Healy and Richard Carapaz will take over the controls when the peloton reaches the Ardennes. Li\u00e8ge-Bastogne-Li\u00e8ge is one of the races Ben dreams of winning. Last year, he finished third there<\/a> and believes he can do better. Our squad wants to boost him onto the top step of the podium.<\/p>\n \u201cThat will take a more concerted effort,\u201d Vaughters said. \u201cSetting up races so Ben can succeed is a specific task. Ben can only succeed in scenarios where the race has been hard and fast and aggressive for a really prolonged time. When we create that, he tends to be a rider who is really successful.\u201d<\/p>\n Ben proved that with his 2025 Tour de France stage win and yellow jersey raid.<\/p>\n EF Education-Oatly\u2019s squad for the Ardennes classics will be just as strong, with Magdeleine Vallieres<\/a>, Kristen Faulkner,<\/a> Noemi R\u00fcegg<\/a>, and C\u00e9drine Kerbaol<\/a> ready to launch when the races near their finish lines. Their talented new teammates Solbj\u00f8rk Minke Anderson<\/a>, Auke De Buysser<\/a>, Stina Kagevi<\/a>, Alexis Magner<\/a>, Caoimhe O’Brien<\/a>, and Alice Towers<\/a> are eager to support them in hilly one-day classics, mountainous stage races, and grand tours.<\/p>\n C\u00e9drine Kerbaol has unfinished business at the Tour de France Femmes. The French time trial champion and former Tour stage winner was disappointed to miss her chance to blitz the general classification at last year\u2019s race due to her crash on the final mountain stage. At the Vuelta Espa\u00f1a Femenina last season, C\u00e9drine finished fourth overall. Second place on stage 7 of the 2025 Tour was a good result, but C\u00e9drine wants more, and the 2026 mountainous route will give her many chances to soar.<\/p>\n World champion Magdeleine Vallieres aims to become a general classification rider too. Her sights are set on the Giro d\u2019Italia. Tromp thinks Mags\u2019 rainbow jersey is going to inspire the whole squad.<\/p>\n \u201cMags leads by example,\u201d Tromp said. \u201cFor the other riders now, seeing her rainbow jersey there in the group when they are out training or at dinner will make them think, \u2018OK, now we need to step up, because we have the world champion in our team and we need to show that in the races. We need to be able to help her.\u2019 That is going to give a big push to all of the riders. Mags will draw a lot of confidence from the jersey and will get more confidence from the team to go out and race a lot of finales and find more wins.\u201d<\/p>\n Come Tour time, the whole squad will be looking for their chances to attack and open up the race. That\u2019s how our team wins.<\/p>\n \u201cWe’re the team that is there to win with style,\u201d Vaughters said. \u201cWe entertain, because we are genuinely trying to make the race different to try to win it. We try to win by exploiting the seams in the fabric, finding the weak spot in the fabric, right where the seam is. If you cut through that, it’s the easiest point. Nobody else is thinking that way.\u201d<\/p>\n Our team\u2019s approach to athlete development is also unique. This year, the team recruited a crew of extremely talented young cadets. Auke De Buysser and Mattia Agostinacchio<\/a> joined the team straight from the juniors. Making sure that they reach their full potential is a long-term process that will surely include lots of ups and downs. Both Vaughters and Tromp were racers themselves and have drawn on their own experiences as athletes to help young riders achieve their dreams.<\/p>\n \u201cOver the past two years, we really focused on developing happy, healthy athletes,\u201d Tromp said. <\/p>\n \u201cCycling is a job, and it is their job to produce results, but we can do that in a really fun way. We want our athletes to be happy on and off the bike. We offer them good psychological support and put a real focus on nutrition and health<\/a>. That produced a lot of results last season, and I’m sure that will also be the case over the coming seasons.\u201d<\/p>\n Vaughters is convinced that the team\u2019s current crop of young riders, including EF Education-Aevolo recruits like Roberto Capello<\/a>, Peyton Burckel<\/a>, and Juan Felipe Rodriguez<\/a>, will soon be winning the biggest races in the world.<\/p>\n \u201cYour highest probability of success in this day and age in cycling is to identify talent young, nurture that talent and keep that talent around until they’re fully mature and ready to win the largest races,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n \u201cWe’re an organization that allows an athlete the time to learn the hard lessons. That doesn’t mean they get forever to learn the hard lessons. There does need to be a learning curve going on, but I don’t think there are so many WorldTour organizations that are telling their riders to sleep an hour more and train an hour less, as we are doing. I believe that is the best pathway to long-term performance. Ultimately, as Esra said, healthy and happy athletes will perform better over the long run.\u201d<\/p>\n The flight path to cycling superstardom is not always linear, but it is propelled by developing good habits early, taking big chances in races, and training consistently.<\/p>\n \u201cCould 2026 be spectacular? It could. It could also be disappointing,\u201d Vaughters said. \u201cI\u2019m taking a long view on that and understanding that we have recruited the best talent out there. That isn’t going to necessarily pop into the limelight immediately. We have to allow them time to organically grow. But I know that the team from a long-term perspective will grow and take some really big steps forward toward some really big performances, which is what we’re ultimately after.\u201d<\/p>\n The future of EF Pro Cycling starts in 2026.<\/p>\n Sign up for our newsletter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Racing Bike racing\u2019s brightest prospects join team\u2019s stars for 2026 January 2, 2026 EF Pro Cycling is on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":387952,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,784,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-387951","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-cycling","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=387951"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387951\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/387952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=387951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=387951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=387951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}