Cyclocross takes centre stage

Hey there sports fans, how are you all doing? Winter came in with a vengeance here in the UK and reminded me that it hasn’t even begun yet, not really, and that I should really stop daydreaming about next road season and focus fully on cyclocross. The UCI World Cup began with round 1 in Tabor this past weekend, more on that later, but despite all the off-road action there is a palpable sense of ‘back to business’ among the roadies, with holiday photo albums being presented and just as quickly replaced by stories featuring riders back on their bikes, as team camp season begins, and the hamster wheel continues to turn inexorably. Off-season really doesn’t amount to much, these days, does it?

On with the stuff!

2 THINGS FROM ME

Thing 1.

Yes I realise this is just a repetition of last time’s thing 1, but it’s that important to me that I thought it was worth another plug. My essay on cycling’s Holy Week in 2025 features in this years’ Road Book Cycling Almanack. If you’ve never bought a copy before, I can’t recommend it highly enough. A full run-down of the year in cycling, with race reports, facts and stats and memories from all of the big races from the men’s and women’s pelotons, along with a series of essays exploring the sport in more depth from a brilliantly curated collection of contributors, including riders, journalists and fans of the sport from other fields - this year’s edition includes an essay penned by comic and actor Alexei Sayle!

Thing 2.

I was lucky enough to attend Rouleur Live in London the weekend before last. It’s a trade show and a series of talks all rolled into one, and there was plenty of food for thought, so I wrote a kind of review of the weekend on the Substack, check it out for thoughts from Dan Bigham on safety under increasing speeds, from Pauline Ferrand-Prévot on thriving under pressure, and from Jonathan Vaughters on making the sport more financially sustainable, and plenty more besides. (Oh and sign up, if you want to hear from me more regularly!)

9-ISH BITESIZE CHUNKS OF NEWS - THAT’S BASICALLY FULL-ON TAPAS!

• IPT out, NSN in! (Try saying that five times really fast)

  The ongoing pressure on Israel-Premier Tech concluded in a complete rebrand for the team last week, with the NSN company taking over title sponsorship, in partnership with Stoneweg. It seems to signal a departure for long-time team manager Sylvan Adams and with it, any connection to Israel, which should in theory see a shift from race organisers, many of whom were unwilling to host the team given the ongoing hostilities in Gaza. The team, who have been promoted to the WorldTour following the end of the three-year license period, will be officially registered Swiss on the UCI database. Here’s the summary from the team’s press release, available on their website:

  ‘The international sports and entertainment company NSN (Never Say Never) and Stoneweg, a global investment platform based in Geneva Switzerland, have entered into a joint venture in professional road cycling to take over the WorldTour and Development team structure ahead of the 2026 season. As a result, the new WorldTour Team name is NSN Cycling Team, and the Conti Team name is NSN Development Team. NSN Cycling Team is a Swiss team and has a Spanish structure that is based in Barcelona and Girona.’

• Froome parts ways with the aforementioned team

  One person who will not be joining his former teammates in the rebranded NSN squad will be four-time Tour de France winner, Chris Froome. It was recently confirmed that Froome would extend his contract with the team, and though he has not officially announced his plans for 2026, there is plenty of speculation and suggestion that this might be the end for his career.

• DSs chop and change

  There’s movement on the DS market as well, with Decathlon strengthening both on and off the bike, adding Mark Renshaw who moves to their sprint team (led by Olav Kooij now, let’s not forget) from his successful stint at Astana, while Heinrich Haussler joins the classics pathway at the team. Another ex-sprinter moving into leadership is Marcel Kittel, who returns to the sport in the team car of Unibet Rose Rockets (see their announcement below).

• Inaugural African women’s team launches

  Big news for African cycling this autumn, as it was exclusively revealed at Rouleur Live that the first ever UCI continental team registered in Africa and composed entirely of African riders will be launched in 2026. Team AMANI have existed as a project for some time, and provide opportunities for riders in East Africa, but have announced they will step up to continental level with the ambition of riding the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift by 2028. The team will be led by Rwandan star Xaverine Nirere.

• Half century for consistent Brand

  In cyclo-cross news, Baloise Glowi Lions’ Lucinda Brand celebrated a huge milestone last weekend, an immensely consistent and high-achieving 50 podiums in a row in cyclo-cross races. (Only Marianne Vos has recorded more consecutive podiums before her). The former world champion made it 51 in Tabor, and continues to underscore her power and longevity week in, week out.

• STOP PRESS: Last minute bites of news!

  All of these came through within the past couple of days as I was writing the newsletter, so I’m keeping them short:

  • Esteban Chaves calls time on his career, after 16 years in the peloton. EF Education-EasyPost released a touching video featuring the smiliest rider in the bunch to commemorate his retirement

  • Torstein Traeen returns to Uno-X Mobility havings pent two years at Bahrain-victorious. The Norweigan wore the red jersey for X days at this year’s Vuelta a Espana

  • Other signing news: Geoffrey Bouchard signs for TotalEnergies, while Valentina Cavallar joins Team SD Worx-ProTime, and Fernando Gaviria continues his career at Caja Rural

• EVEN MORE STOP PRESS! Speaking of Fernando Gaviria, it was revealed yesterday he has received a suspended sentence and two-year driving ban for drinking and driving in Monaco. He was five times over the legal limit for the country, and was stopped at 1:15 in the afternoon - a pretty shocking thing for anyone to do, but with pro cyclists so often bearing the brunt of dangerous driving, it’s pretty much unforgiveable to my mind.

4 BITES OF FUN

Celebrating the lighter side of the sport…

1. If you haven’t seen Demi Vollering riding with her dog Flo before, then watch this reel, it is joyful and Flo is such a good doggo.

   EDIT: Have tried to post this link 3 times but it’s not working so here’s a screenshot and a link to go check out Demi’s Instagram for yourselves!

2. Jonas Abrahamsen goes sailing, and Uno-X make a very funny post about it.

3. What do you do if your hair could use a wash? Answer: find a helpful sausage dog to take care of it for you.

4. And because life just isn’t complete without a Thibaut Pinot farm animal post, here’s a Thibaut Pinot farm animal post…

4 RACES TO WATCH

For everything else, there’s FirstCycling.

1. UEC European championships, Middelkerke (8 Nov) (Elite women)

In which the Netherlands’ Inge van der Heijden took the lead from the gun and stayed clear of the rest for THE. ENTIRE. RACE. Behind her, Sara Casasola was outnumbered, riding with Lucinda Brand, who suffered from a very poor start, and Aniek van Alphen. Brand tried to push Casasola to do the lion’s share of the work, playing the team card, and with the gap to the leader growing, the two Dutch riders were free to try and tire the Italian, to try and effect a 1-2-3 for the Netherlands. In the end, it was a nasty crash in one of the sand sections for Casasola that put that outcome beyond a doubt. There was never any doubt as to the winner though, with van der Heijden taking the European title, the biggest victory of her career, by a margin of 41 seconds over Brand, with van Alphen third.

2. UEC European championships (Men)

Belgium took the race on from the front, with Toon Aerts leading out from the gun, and plenty more of their riders involved in the early stages of the race, which quickly developed its regular dynamic of a Belgium v Netherlands tag-team bout. Joris Nieuwenhuis and Pim Ronhaar were on the offensive for the Dutch, but Belgium colonised the front of the race with eight of the first 11 riders by the third lap.

The Belgians used Aerts like a blunt object, inflicting his brute power to accelerate the pace and drag out the group, picking off the riders who weren’t on a good day. It was Pim Ronhaar who picked up the gauntlet for the Dutch, attacking Aerts, but the Belgians used their numbers to try and tire him, with Vantourenhout piling on the pressure, though there was some temporary unrest within the team as Thibau Nys refused to come through to take his turn. Joran Wyseure stepped up instead, with Ronhaar isolated among three Belgians heading into the second half of the race. He didn’t let it phase him though, attacking on lap 5 of 8 to open up a small lead.

It was a straight punch-up between Ronhaar and Vantourenhout on lap 6 as the race neared its climax, the two trading blows with Nys slipping back, though he later returned to the fore, and by the penultimate lap some of the chasers were able to catch the leaders who were struggling having gone so hard, including Cameron Mason, one of six men who would contest the victory in the final lap, four of whom were Belgian. Ronhaar led through the final two sand sections but despite his best efforts, fighting side by side with Nys and riding from the front, it was the blunt instrument of Toon Aerts who had the most left in the tank, following the attack of Nys to find a gap and launching his own explosive effort heading into the final straight, where his savage power proved too much for the rest as he sprinted over the line to take a huge victory. Like the Dutch in the women’s race, Belgium filled the podium once again with Nys second and Joran Wyseure third.

This one was so good, like such an incredibly hard-fought, down to the wire battle - catch it if you can.

3. UCI World Cup Tabor (23 Nov): Elite women

A frozen day in Czechia greeted the riders for their first appointment of the 2025/6 UCI World Cup. Temperatures plummeted to -9 overnight and the already relatively technical course was rendered slippery and treacherous, which would make for two exciting elite races.

Though Fem van Empel and Puck Pieterse were absent, the race marked Shirin van Anrooij’s first race back in almost two years. Marie Schreiber also returned to the field and was quick off the mark, taking the early lead as it characteristic of her (though she later DNF’ed following a crash) leaving Lucinda Brand to take up the challenge, along with European champion Inge van der Heijden. The pair formed a lead trio alongside Leonie Bentveld as they moved into lap 3, but they were far from being away and gone, and Sara Casasola was able to bridge over to her teammate van der Heijden, while homegrown talent Kristina Zemanova latched onto Bentveld’s wheel to form a chase group as the lead trio became Brand plus the two Crelan-Corendon riders.

The final lap turned into a straight head-to-head battle between Brand and Casasola, the two riders extremely well-matched in the cold conditions on the technical Tabor parcours. Brand kicked away from the Italian just a few hundred metres from the line, and was able to hold her off to take the first World Cup victory of the season. Van der Heijden finished third.

4. UCI World Cup Tabor (23 Nov): Elite Men

The men’s field is arguably closer than ever this year, and the first world cup fixture offered an opportunity to see who would raise their games. It was two of the strongest riders of the season so far, Thibau Nys and Joris Nieuwenhuis, who struck out to take an early lead heading into the second lap of eight, while Cameron Mason had a mechanical issue at the start, preventing him from actively competing in the race.

Nieuwenhuis hit the deck on lap 2 leaving Nys to storm into the solo lead, pursued by Michael Vantourenhout and Emile Verstrynge along with a recovering Nieuwenhuis. By lap 5, the chasing group was growing with the likes of Lars van der Haar and Laurens Sweeck latching on, and Mason was charging his way back through the field, but Nys was maintaining his lead, and he continued to do so with assured consistency over the course of the race, never challenged by the chasing group who remained over 40 seconds back throughout. The chasing group fractured as first Michael Vantourenhout, then Emile Verstrynge came down, allowing Ryan Kamp to charge into a top-5 position on the penultimate lap, his best performance in a long while. Nys continued to dominate as Sweeck pushed onto into clear second place heading into the final lap. Nieuwenhuis and Verstrynge continued to slip and slide and Jente Michels joined the battle for the final podium spot, as Cameron Mason charged into the top 10 with a truly epic ride having been dead last following his early mechanical.

Nys sealed the deal and proved himself the top dog among the men right now, with Sweeck second and Nieuwenhuis third. Mason finished just 37 seconds down in 9^th position – absolutely incredible resilience from the Scot.

1 FINAL THOUGHT

It’s the dark time of the year, and my brain is not working in hyper mode these days, so just one thought for you today, which is really news, so actually none, which I would say is an accurate reflection of my actual mind right now. Here it is, anyway!

1. Geraint Thomas comes (stays?) home

This is technically news, but the news section was becoming bloated with all the breaking stories this week, so I’ve decided to write a bit about this one here. It was confirmed by INEOS on Thursday 27th November that freshly retired Tour de France winner Geraint Thomas will become Director of Racing at the team, as of 2026. It’s quite the step up, to go from rider to such a managerial position so quickly, and as far as I know (there was an extensive list of riders taking the UCI DS course knocking around somewhere last week) he hasn’t recently been on the UCI’s Director Sportif training course, so perhaps it’s more of a ceremonial role '(read ‘vibes’).

Either way, it’s no surprise to see the Welshman continue to work with the team with which he rode ever since their inception as Team Sky in 2010; he has helped create the culture there, after all, and he is part of the team’s DNA. His influence will be significant for younger riders coming through, and it will be great for the cycling public at large to continue to be able to see G out and about at races. Good decision INEOS!

THE LAST WORD

Thanks for reading and I hope you didn’t miss me too much in the intervening three weeks - this newsletter is supposed to be twice monthly but I seem to have fallen off of that rhythm a bit - I may not may not go back to ‘normal’ in the coming weeks, who knows - it will be a nice surprise!

If you’d like to support my writing, you can buy me a coffee, and if you’d like to hear from me more regularly, sign up to the Substack.

Until next time,

Cheers,

Katy