G’day and Happy New Year! It’s Aussie Nationals week which means the Tour Down Under is right around the corner, which means the 2025 season is (almost) upon us. Before we know it we’ll be deep in Holy Week all amped up on the cobbled Classics and thinking about how anyone will best Lotte Kopecky at the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift.
Wheel Talk
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While we were away …
Not much happened in the world of road cycling news over the holidays, as it should be. Everyone deserves a little downtime. But there were a few kit announcements we missed while sipping eggnog and snacking on Piparkūkas. The two biggest drops were Canyon-SRAM-Zondacrypto and SD Worx-Protime, but UAE Team ADQ, Visma-Lease a Bike and more released their 2025 kits as well.
Predictably, Canyon-SRAM-Zondacrypto held true to their commitment to color, although the new version of their kit is … busy. There is a lot going on. It’s not wildly different from last year’s version but somehow it’s not quite as good.
SD Worx-Protime went for more colour while leaving behind their signature orange. They’ve been slowly working away from the colour for years, but even last year’s look had a bit of their old favourite on the shoulders and around the white star thing on the stomach. This new version is certified orange-free. They’ve leaned into pink and purple with hints of yellow and it will be interesting to see how it looks when the riders are lined up next to Canyon-SRAM-Zondacrypto and Liv AlUla Jayco. The three kits are different enough that we aren’t looking at another beach-fade-gate like in 2022, but between those three teams, AG Insurance-Soudal, FDJ-Suez and even UAE Team ADQ there must have been a memo that went around about using Paint to create the 2025 vibe.
UAE Team ADQ swung away from the beach fade they’ve adapted over the past couple of years and leaned into sand. And purple.
Visma-Lease a Bike’s kit is basically exactly the same as in 2024, the main difference being it will clothe Pauline Ferrand-Prévot.
Meanwhile, in Europe
While a few top WorldTeams will be making their season debut in Australia there are also a couple of 1.1 races in Spain happening in January. Almería is the first on January 19th and then the women have three-race Challenge Mallorca the 25th-27th (Trofeo Felanitx-Colònia de Sant Jordi, Trofeo Palma and Trofeo Binissalem–Andratx). Multiple WorldTeams are planning to attend Mallorca including Movistar, Uno-X Mobility, Human Powered Health, Canyon-SRAM-Zondacrypto, UAE Team ADQ and Ceratizit-WNT among them.
Last year it was in Mallorca that the then newly-reformed EF-Oatly-Cannondale team started their season strong with Noemi Rüegg winning Trofeo Felanitx-Colònia de Sant Jordi and Magdeleine Vallieres winning Trofeo Palma Femina while Eleonora Gasparrini won Trofeo Binissalem–Andratx. Rüegg is on the preliminary start list for TDU this year, so if you’re placing bets on who might have a good TDU it is worth putting an X by her name. (I’ll do a deeper dive into the TDU start list next week)
Challenge Mallorca will also kick off the 2025 season for a few ProTeams, the new tier of women’s cycling. EF-Oatly-Cannondale, of course, Cofidis, Laboral Kutka-Fundacion Euskadi, Arkéa-B&B Hotels and Winspace are on the list of teams. Overall the races should have a healthy mix of WorldTeams, ProTeams, and Continental Teams: enough WT talent to take notice of the results, ProTeams that will be eagerly hunting points, and Continental teams focused on testing themselves against the top and second-tier teams.
Racing Continues…
Tour Down Under is only 10 days away but before we head to Adelaide for the opening of the 2025 WorldTour, some new Australian national champions need to be crowned. It’s an exciting year for Aussie Nats – after 18 years in Ballarat the races are moving to Perth. Matt De Neef detailed the courses when they were announced in August.
Grace Brown, now retired, will not be defending her time trial title and there are a few solid riders who will be keen to take her place. Brodie Chapman, who finished second last year behind Brown, is a top favourite and will be racing in her UAE Team ADQ colours for the first time.
Ruby Roseman-Gannon will definitely want to defend her road title, but the race will be hotly contested. Unlike in previous seasons where the Australian WorldTeam Liv AlUla Jayco flooded the start line, they actually only have four Aussies on the team this year with Georgia Baker, Amber Pate, Josie Talbot and Roseman-Gannon. Lidl-Trek will line up with Lauretta Hanson, Amanda Spratt and Felicity Wilson-Haffenden; Canyon-SRAM has both Tiffany Cromwell and Neve Bradbury; and AG Insurance-Soudal has three in Anya Louw, Alexandra Manly (new signing from Liv AlUla Jayco) and Sarah Gigante. Unfortunately, Gigante won’t be racing as the former national champ is out for the start of the season. Chapman will be fighting for the green and gold on her own, but the race will also have a bunch of non-WT riders from the local Aussie scene to make things more interesting.
The race will be streamed live and our very own Gracie Elvin will be on the ground commentating so make sure you don’t miss it! It’s a good way to suss who came out of the offseason on good form before Tour Down Under and who is saving their bullets for the spring Classics and the European season ahead.
Wheel Talk Podcast
With Aussie Nats in mind, the first episode of the 2025 season is a conversation between Gracie Elvin and long-time Lidl-Trek super domestique Lauretta Hanson. Gracie chats with Lauretta about her Olympic experience, bringing that achievement home, and being a domestique in the WorldTour. Hanson was second in last year’s nationals road race, and is hopefully she can step up one spot this year, and honestly, how cool would that be?! Nationals is always a weird one, and with a new course hopefully we see some dynamic racing that suits Hanson this year.
Loren, Gracie and I will return next week with our first group episode of the year – breaking down Aussie road nats and disecting the TDU course.
Let’s Discuss
The UCI’s new guidelines for races hoping to become WorldTour level.
Prior to 2016, the women’s calendar was broken into two categories. There were UCI level races (1.1, 1.2, 2.1 and 2.2 depending on the race and if it was a one-day or stage race event) or World Cups (major one-day events). There was no “WorldTour” for women until 2016 when the UCI first implemented a “top tier” racing category for women that encompassed stage races like the Giro d’Italia (then Giro Donne) and Women’s Tour (now Tour of Britain) with one-day events like the Tour of Flanders, Strade Bianche, and the Ardennes Classics.
At first, the WorldTour calendar was only 17 races: 12 one-day races, four stage races and a TTT in Sweden. But it was a big step up from the 10 one-day races previously classed as “World Cups.” Since 2016 a lot has changed in women’s cycling. Minimum wages, WorldTeams, increasing professionalism within the sport and, of course, the level of racing. The calendar has grown as the sport’s popularity has soared and now more races want to be a part of the WorldTour in order to attract the top talent in the sport. In 2025 the calendar is set at 28 races – 15 one-day events and 13 stage races including three events of eight or more stages (the Tour is the longest at nine stages).
It wasn’t until years after the formation of the WorldTour calendar that the UCI added a rule requiring 45 minutes of live coverage from event organizers. In 2020 two ASO races (Flèche-Wallone and Liège-Bastogne-Liège) weren’t able to provide any live coverage of their events, and neither was the Giro Donne. The ASO races were able to hold onto their WWT status, but for the 2021 season the Giro, the longest-stage race on the women’s calendar, was demoted. They were able to regain a spot on the calendar and have seemingly turned themselves around under new management, but the expectations put on WorldTour events are gaining more scrutiny as more people tune into the women’s races. In 2024, when the men’s Tour de France and the women’s Giro were running at the same time it was impossible not to notice the poor video quality of the women’s event compared to the men’s that would come on the television later in the day.
On January 1 the UCI released new criteria for races hoping to join the WorldTour in the future. The UCI Management Committee used to make decisions based on the application submitted by the race and the opinion of the UCI but moving forward the list of criteria taken into account by the Professional Cycling Council which will then be passed onto the UCI Management Committee. New guidelines include:
- The level of participants on the start list at prior editions of the event
- The format of the event and how it contributes to the image of women’s cycling as elite competition
- The sporting ambition of the event
- The quality of the organization (particularly in regard to the safety of the riders)
- The technical quality of TV coverage
- The level of live international and host country TV coverage and audience figures for prior editions
- The level of interest on social media for prior editions
- Respect for the UCI
- Compliance with sporting ethics
- Compliance with UCI regulations
A few things are interesting here, the biggest is that races hoping to make the jump to WorldTour in the future must prove before they submit an application to the PCC that they can provide adequate TV coverage and cultivate at least a hint of a social media presence. Simply put, races will need to have live coverage if they want to be considered for the WorldTour, just like those already at the WorldTour level.
Already we are seeing ProSeries races with live coverage that rivals some WorldTour events, but the goalpost just got moved if they want to step up. It’s great for people who want to watch more women’s cycling or follow along on social media. This also means existing WorldTour races will need to up their game when it comes to live coverage of their races.
Going forward, the calendar will be established first by the Professional Cycling Council before the UCI Management Committee approves the decision.
Other amendments made to the rules effective on January 1 include an official Women’s U23 category at the World Championships, changes to the 3 km rule that the UCI was already testing in men’s racing last season (it can be changed to 5 km depending on the course), and fines for riders who “celebrate in the bunch,” talk into their radios during a sprint or slow down in a sprint enough to endanger other riders.
How these regulations will continue to push the sport forward remains to be seen (in a good way), but there are a number of races that want inclusion in the WorldTour, for example Tour Féminin International des Pyrénées and Thüringen Ladies Tour, the former of which already has a few strikes against them.
A picture worth a couple of words
A woman of the people.
Taylor Swift corner
According to the pattern of her re-records and new releases, 2025 will be the year of Reputation (Taylor’s Version) and Taylor Swift (Taylor’s Version). We can hope. Fingers crossed.
Until next time!
In case you missed it, FDJ-Suez has been pumping out some awesome behind-the-scenes videos from team camps/pre-season training. In case you need quality winter-trainer viewing content.
Thanks for reading! I’ll be back next week as we get ready for the Tour Down Under and the season ahead!
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