Zoe Bäckstedt will be heading to her first Tour de France Femmes next month after being selected to help support Katarzyna Niewiadoma-Phinney’s bid for a second Tour title.

The decision to take the Welshwoman comes after she has emerged as one of Canyon-SRAM’s strongest riders in recent months. Bäckstedt claimed dual British road race and time trial titles in June.

Then on Sunday she won her second Baloise Ladies Tour title making it back-to-back wins in the Belgian race.

The Welshwoman’s performance against the watch was what secured her the win. She took the win in the 3.9km prologue and although she relinquished the leaders jersey briefly on stage two she stormed to victory in the 8km time trial on stage 3a.

On her Tour selection the 21 year-old said: “It's exciting, it's really cool. I’ve dreamt a little bit about being selected for the Tour in the last years.

She added: “Time trialling is the one thing that suits me the most so it’s really exciting to have a TT in there.

“Since the course was released last year, knowing that it had a time trial, there was maybe a little bit of a shift to focus on the Tour – to really do some prep and dial everything in so I could hopefully be selected. Now, I'm on the list to go and it's super exciting.

“I think the time trial is going to be my favourite stage of the whole race, and it's where I want to shine.

Bäckstedt, turned pro in 2023 straight from the junior ranks, has only raced one grand tour before, the Vuelta Femenina in 2024. She said: “I genuinely don't know how it's going to be. At La Vuelta, I was not in my best form and I fell sick halfway through, so there’ll be a lot of new things at the Tour this year.”

Although the time trial will be her primary focus she said she’s also hopeful of putting in a strong performance on one of the race’s tough road stage. She said: “I've looked at the route and there are a few other stages that I think could be okay for me if I can make it to the final, but the standout one is obviously the time trial.

“When I look back at the end of it, hopefully I’ve learned a lot. I think it's going to be one of those races where every day is a learning day.

“I would obviously love to go for a result in the time trial, but I can't put too big an expectation on it because it’s my first Tour and my first time against actually all of the big riders. Obviously, Marlen [Reusser] was in Tour de Suisse, so that was a good first experience, but having a good time trial, maybe one good road stage and doing a lot of team-work will be satisfying.”

Reflecting on her own goals, team leader Niewiadoma-Phinney said: "Coming into this year's Tour, I would definitely say that I'm richer in experience and have more knowledge of the Tour in general, which definitely gives me a little advantage. Because of that, I feel a bit calmer, and I also know what it takes to prepare perfectly for the race.

"This year is just a new opportunity. You're only as good as your last race.

"It's great to have a Tour victory on my palmares, but I definitely come in with a fresh mind and body ready to go after new experiences and, of course, the victory."

Aside from GC hopeful Niewiadoma-Phinney, Canyon-SRAM have a team that includes several other riders that could hope for a result.

Antonia Niedermaier was runner up at the Giro d’Italia Women in May and will be a potential GC threat alongside the team’s Polish leader.

Chiara Consonni can lay claim to her chances in sprint stages too.

They’ll be ably supported by Rosa Klöser, Soraya Paladin and Agnieszka Skalniak-Sójka.

Zoe Bäckstedt soloed to road race victory at the British National Championships on Sunday, attacking alone with 14km to go in Aberystwyth.

The Canyon-SRAM rider doubled up on her time trial victory from Thursday, holding off Josie Knight (DAS-Hutchinson) to take the elite title for the first time. Millie Couzens (Fenix-Premier Tech), the defending champion, finished third.

Knight might not have won, but alongside Bäckstedt was the standout rider of the race, having been in the early break and then leading for 90km on her own, with a significant gap of up to eight minutes at one point.

However, after joining forces with Matilda McKibben (O'Shea Red Chilli Bikes) and Jo Tindley (Smurfit Westrock), Knight's lead was cut down, before Bäckstedt attacked alone in search of the leader. With 14km to go, the 21-year-old caught Knight, and passed her.

Despite a concerted chase effort behind, Bäckstedt held off the remnants of the peloton, with the gap remaining at two minutes to them.

"The first part was super interesting, there was a break of ones and twos, who got maybe six or seven minutes ahead of us," the victor said, post-race. "On the last lap of the big lap, it was quite hard over that steep climb, and I was hanging on for dear life at the end of that. It wasn’t the most ideal feeling, so I knew it was going to be a hard day. Then on the long climb as we entered the small circuit, I felt really good, and Flora (Perkins) attacked and I followed it and went over the top of her, and then it was a 55km solo day to the finish to try and catch Josie. 

"It’s been a super good week. To win the time trial on Thursday and be on the podium with my sister that was a real highlight. To have her on the side of the road today and in the feed zone for me has been great. To have my whole family here has made it a great week where I could be super relaxed and have fun."

"It was a long old day," Knight, for her part, said. "Last year I got into a break and we worked quite well together, I am not the most confident rider, I don’t do a lot of road racing, so I’m not the most confident in the peloton, so I tried to get into a break to have a good day out. Unfortunately, I did that but I ended up on my own. Once I was gone I got a time gap of 25 seconds to four riders, and I was like, ‘do I wait for them, is it better in a group?’ and then it soon went to 45 seconds, so I knew I was in for a long day.  

"I was having mental battles with myself and asking ‘will they not just catch me already and put me out of my misery?' I was getting the time gaps so I knew Zoe was coming across, so I tried to give it all, but she just came past like a steam train.

"I was just chuffed to hang on for second. My team car kept coming up alongside me and telling me to believe in myself and that I could get second. So I just emptied myself to the line, so I am really happy." 

Bäckstedt also won the under-23 race at the same time. Imogen Wolff (Visma-Lease a Bike) and Erin Boothman (Liv AlUla Jayco Continental) finished in the third group on the road to take second and third in that classification, respectively.

Results

British National Road Championships, elite women road race (128km)

1. Zoe Bäckstedt, Canyon-SRAM, in 3:30:44
2. Josie Knight, DAS-Hutchinson, +1:42
3. Millie Couzens, Fenix-Premier Tech, +2:02
4. Pfeiffer Georgi, Picnic PostNL
5. Anna Morris
6. Imogen Wolff, Visma-Lease a Bike
7. Erin Boothman, Liv AlUla Jayco Continental, all at same time
8. Josie Nelson, Picnic PostNL, +2:03
9. Anna Henderson, Lidl-Trek
10. Noémie Thomson, DAS-Hutchinson, all at same time

Zoe Bäckstedt is in the best road racing form of her life. The 21-year-old is no stranger to being at the front of bike races and podiums, being a WorldTour winner, a national champion, and a junior and under-23 world champion, but this April she seems a level above.

In her 16 one-day WorldTour races up to this month, Backstedt's best finished was 15th at last year's Paris-Roubaix Femmes. No bad thing for someone in her development phase. But this year there has been a marked improvement. At Dwars door Vlaanderen, Bäckstedt finished fourth, before fifth place at the Tour of Flanders last Sunday, her best ever result in a Monument.

There, she was narrowly beaten to fourth by former world champion Lotte Kopecky, who has won the race three times, in the second group behind solo winner Demi Vollering. It was an incredibly impressive ride for the 21-year-old Backstedt, holding her own in an elite group of favourites including Tour de France Femmes winners Vollering and Pauline Ferrand-Prévot.

"I was really proud of myself for the ride that I did," she tells Cycling Weekly in the lobby of her team hotel in the hinterland of the Belgian, Franch border. "It was definitely the best day that I've ever had on the bike. The confidence I also had in myself, especially being at the front of the bike race on the Koppenberg, I was like ‘I could do something here’. I have to be really happy with this but hungry for more."

"Before the [Oude] Kwaremont, I was thinking I'm good, I'm gonna boss this," The Red Bull rider continues. "Then I got to it, and I was like: ‘Oh no, this is not going the way I planned’. You look up and it's like, cobbles and cobbles. There were a lot of emotions going through my mind, but it was mostly keep fighting, try and get to this wheel, try and stay with that wheel. You have so much going on, but you have nothing in your mind."

Fortunately, the opportunity for her hunger to be sated comes just a week after, with Paris-Roubaix Femmes taking place on Sunday, with its 20 cobbled sectors over 143.1km. For Bäckstedt, this opportunity is all the more special because it's Roubaix, her favourite race, one that suits her skillset almost perfectly, and also the race which her father, Magnus, won in 2004.

"I would say this is what my cyclo-cross season and spring lead towards," Bäckstedt says, her energy and enthusiasm for the 'Hell of the North' clear. "After the race, I basically start my off season this weekend. It's the build up to the end of my season. I can go all in for that last one, and then take a breather and recharge, I can just go 100% full gas for this one.

"I've got nothing else for a while. So it's nice that I can just, I can be completely empty on the finish line."

Sunday will be Bäckstedt's fourth Paris-Roubaix, having ridden every edition since she turned pro with EF Education-TIBCO-SVB in 2023. The only two she missed out on happened before she turned 18, which is a good excuse for not being there.

"The first year I was obviously in the team with Alison Jackson when she won [2023]," Bäckstedt recalls. "That was my first Roubaix, and then to be in the team that won in the end was a super cool feeling in itself. Then in '24 I was on Canyon and I had my dad in the team car for the 20 year anniversary of his win. That brought another special aspect to it.

"Last year, I had super good form, and I felt really good going into the race, and everything had panned out. Now, after Flanders, the legs have told me that they're good. They just need to be the same on the weekend."

The legs might be good, but there is so much of what happens at Roubaix is down to experience, luck, and positioning, two of which the Welshwoman has been working on.

"It's absolutely brutal, it's possible to get massive blisters on your hands, and then it's a lot about luck," she explains. "It's a race where you have 26 plans, every single letter of the alphabet has got a plan to it, almost. If you have a puncture, you ride it until you can't ride it anymore."

"In the first edition, I was there almost to make up numbers a little bit, just to experience the race," Bäckstedt continues. "Now I'm here as a rider and I want to be in the front group. I want to be there when the big riders get going, when it kicks off. It's a very big change, but I'm excited for it."

Being in the right place at the right time is part of what makes a successful Paris-Roubaix, and is what helped her to her stand-out result at Flanders, too.

"It's about positioning," she says. "It's about being out of trouble. If you're at the front, if you're in the first five, then you only have four possibilities for someone to crash. If you're hundredth, then you have 99 people in front of you that can crash. I just have confidence in myself, that I know what I'm doing, that I can do these races. I can be at the front, and I'm worthy of being at the front."

In the absence of Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney after her crash at Milan-San Remo, Bäckstedt was her team's leader at Flanders; the same role would be expected at Roubaix, despite the presence of former world time trial champion Chloé Dygert.

"I'm hoping that I will be the leader for the weekend," she says, diplomatically. "I've expressed enough how much I like this race, and how much I want to do well in this race, and I think the team believes that I can do well. It would be really nice to have their support on the weekend."

Despite having a fast finish, she is clear how she would rather win the cobbled Classic: "If you're on your own, then you have so many less things to worry about, to think about, whereas if you're in a sprint, anything could happen. It's the motto of this race."

While many riders fear Roubaix and the cobbles, one gets the impression that Bäckstedt savours it; it feels like the race is in her blood, and that she enjoys the suffering that it brings.

"I'm not really the kind of person that wants to go double bar tape or fully wrapped," she explains of her setup. "I quite like the feeling of having the exposed carbon as well. It can be quite cooling on your fingers, especially when you're riding your fingers get super tense. I'm not also one of the ones that goes tape on the wrist, tape on the fingers, that kind of stuff. No gloves, regular bar tape. Just ride the bike."

Just ride the bike. That might well be her motto at the race where anything can happen. Just keep riding, and an even more special result than last Sunday might well come.

Almost 300 men and women won an elite bike race in 2025, and that's only counting road events. Of those, it won't be a particular surprise that Tadej Pogačar topped the men's charts with 20 victories, and Lorena Wiebes the women's, with 25. It was Demi Vollering, however, who topped the UCI Women's WorldTour rankings.

None of this particularly matters in this latest list of our riders of the year.

We have already had Cycling Weekly's riders of the year, it's true, but that set of awards is British-focused, and decided by committee. This is a chance for our staff writers to go international, and make sure their favourites get their time in the limelight. There are no rules to this, beyond it should make sense, and repeats are allowed – although only one person chose Tadej Pogačar...

This is the second in a series of pieces where we have compiled thoughts from across the CW staff about 2025, and our favourite places to ride. Do let us know your thoughts!

Lorena Wiebes – Tom Davidson, senior news and features writer

Let me start this nomination with a simple fact: no rider, male or female, has won more races than Lorena Wiebes in 2025. The SD Worx-Protime rider claimed 25 road victories this season (Tadej Pogačar managed 20) – her best tally to date – and that’s not to mention the gravel world title and two track world titles she won, too.

To put it simply, Wiebes won everywhere. First race day of the season at the UAE Tour? Tick. Inaugural women’s Milan-San Remo? Tick. A stage of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift? Tick, plus another for good luck. For many riders, the tough thing can be keeping that consistency all the way through to the end of the year. How many of her last nine races did Wiebes win in 2025? Eight. Case closed.

Pauline Ferrand-Prévot – Simon Richardson, magazine editor & Anne-Marije Rook, North American Editor

Simon:

Being by far the strongest rider in the peloton is a gift. Yes, that rider can rightly claim to be the best, but honestly, how impressive is it if you win everything at a canter because of the physical ability passed down through your parents' genes?

What’s truly impressive is targeting the biggest two races on the calendar and winning them. And that’s what Pauline Ferrand-Prévot did in 2025. She also did it on her comeback to the road after years focusing on mountain biking. Yes, yes, yes, she will have trained on the road a great deal, but her positioning and peloton prowess would have been more than a little rusty.

Add to that the fact she was a new member of an already established team and needed to get everyone on board with her plan, and you have an exceptional achievement that surpasses simple physical ability.

Anne-Marije:

I’m such a fan of her story arc. We often, and rightly, call Marianne Vos the G.O.A.T. of women’s cycling, but Pauline Ferrand-Prévot is right there alongside her.

The 33-year-old Française is a 15-time UCI Elite World Champion across road, cyclocross, gravel and multiple mountain bike disciplines. She’s also the reigning Olympic cross-country mountain bike champion. Few riders in the history of the sport can match that level of versatility, that sustained excellence or that trophy chest.

After conquering virtually everything there is to win off-road, Ferrand-Prévot signed a three-year deal with the Visma | Lease a Bike super team in 2024, with the stated goal of winning the Tour de France within two to three years. She didn’t need nearly that long. In her very first attempt, and after five years away from the road peloton, she went out and won the thing. And with dominance at that.

Her Tour victory was nothing short of sensational. As was her Paris-Roubaix win, proving her versatility.

Ben Healy - Aaron Borrill, tech writer

In a sport that often tends to get quite robotic in terms of how riders approach racing, Ben Healy has been nothing short of a pleasure to watch. An animator in its purest form, Ben attacks using his instincts, not his power meter, and it shows in the way he races with his heart on his sleeve.

He demonstrated this in spades at this year’s Tour de France, where he delivered a magnificent solo breakaway to win in Vire Normandie on stage six. He continued his fine run of form to finish third on stage 10 and snatch away the yellow jersey, becoming only the fourth Irish cyclist in history to don the coveted maillot jaune.

And then he did it all over again at the World Championships in Kigali, Rwanda, with a performance that earned him a bronze medal. Asked about what events are on his radar in the future at a team event in Girona last month, the Irishman told Cycling Weekly, “I’d like to try the Cape Epic, that looks like proper fun.”

Mathieu van der Poel – Adam Becket, news editor

There's something about Mathieu van der Poel that doesn't always sit right with me, it might be the Lamborghinis and the self-importance, but he is undeniably one of the best bike riders in the world, possibly ever. If it weren't for Pogačar, his season with victories at Milan-San Remo, Paris-Roubaix and the Tour de France would be heralded.

It's hard to see how a rider like the Alpecin-Deceuninck man can be beaten at times; he can match Pogačar on the Poggio and then out-sprint him, too. His stage win in Boulougne-sur-Mer at the Tour was classic Van der Poel, and then he fought back into the yellow jersey again. When a race is him vs his Slovenian rival, you know it's a must watch.

Isaac del Toro - Jamie Williams, video manager

It’s close between Isaac del Toro and Oscar Onley. I’ve chosen the former because I think he’ll be the rider that takes over the baton from Pogacar as the world’s best GC rider. Del Toro made mistakes, mistakes his team probably should have helped him avoid, but he’s young and I think he’s learnt from them.

He also handled the loss of the Giro d'Italia admirably, how easy it would have been to cross the line and lose temper with the team, Carapaz or other riders in the heat of the moment. Stunning rides this year and his story is only just beginning.

Evie Richards - Hannah Bussey, tech writer

This one is easy: Evie Richards. She's the first-ever British rider to win the XCO World Championships, the first-ever to win the short track Worlds, and now, the most successful female rider in short track World Cup history, and she seems to have had an absolute blast while doing so.

She's one of the best role models for young girls entering the sport, being vocal about her firm belief that you can win on the bike without sacrificing your health and well-being.

She's clearly worked hard to strike a good balance between life and racing. You can see she genuinely loves it, and it comes through in her riding style. It's such infectious joy that you can't help but be delighted with every result she gets.

If, like me, you have a cycling-fledgling in the family, you would do well also to join the Evie Richards fan club; you'll become a happier person if you do.

Tadej Pogačar - James Shrubsall, senior news and features writer

It's obvious – perhaps a little too obvious in fact. But tasked with picking a rider of the year it's difficult to go with anyone other than Tadej Pogačar. There is little need for me to list his victories here – countless words and many, many stories have been written about them. We've even seen the first tentative strains of what might be termed 'Pogačar Fatigue' from fans (and by his own admission, he's been pretty tired himself).

But as suspense has begun to dwindle when Pogačar is around, the feeling has been growing in inverse proportion that we are seeing history being made in front of our eyes.

If you're feeling a bit jaded with it all (many aren't), know this: in 20 years' time your young clubmates will have to watch you become all wistful as you recount the Slovenian's endeavours. Enjoy this moment.

Wout van Aert - Matt Ischt-Barnard, ecomm and tech writer

Wout van Aert's incredible return to form after arguably an up-and-down 2024 season, in which any brilliance was overshadowed by injury, was fantastic to watch.

Top five finishes across the Classics season quietened any speculation about his ability to still race at the top, before he won stage nine of the Giro d'Italia to put it completely to bed.

However, it was that final ascent and, ultimately, descent of Montmartre climb on stage 21 of the Tour de France that showed just what class he still is, and I hope an omen for the year ahead. A race with Van Aert at the front is never a boring one.

Wout is back, and I hope dearly that he can add another monument to his 2020 San Remo in 2026.

Zoe Bäckstedt - Meg Elliot, news and features writer

This might be cheating because Zoe Bäckstedt is also one of Cycling Weekly’s riders of the year, but I got the chance to interview her for our mag - and our chat only affirmed her place in the top spot, for me.

This year’s success followed an already glittering career, as she added a ninth rainbow jersey to her growing collection. At January's UCI Cyclo-cross World Championships, she collected rainbow jerseys in the mixed team relay and the under-23 race. She then went on to win five of the six time trials she competed in, scooping up a national and under-23 world title.

But in her final race of the season, Bäckstedt won gold at the UCI World Championships in Rwanda as the fastest under-23 woman in the time trial. Yet, the attribute that most sung out during our interview was her genuine love of bikes - whether she’s cycling off road or on, she’s just happy to be there, riding at her best.

Zoe Bäckstedt will make her cyclo-cross season debut on 28 December, less than two months after she fractured her wrist in a training crash, her Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto team has announced.

The 21-year-old, the reigning under-23 cyclo-cross world champion, said her helmet saved her life when she came off her bike on 1 November. Following the crash, she trained indoors for over a month, and has now been medically cleared to return to racing.

Bäckstedt was originally due to open her cyclo-cross season in mid-November, but will now do so at the UCI World Cup round in Dendermonde, Belgium, on 28 December. Her full calendar (published in full below) will count eight events, with her participation at the UCI Cyclo-cross World Championships on the final weekend of January still to be determined.

“For my first race back, my hopes and expectations are not super high – not in a bad way, but I don’t want to put pressure on myself to achieve something that’s not realistic,” Bäckstedt said in a statement released by Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto.

“It’s been a long six weeks watching everyone else racing and I just want to be racing with them. So maybe my first few races back are not great, but just give me some time.”

Last season, the Welshwoman competed in 16 cyclo-cross events, and finished inside the top 10 in every one. Her best results included second place in Zonhoven – her highest ever elite World Cup finish – and two victories at the UCI World Championships, in the mixed relay and under-23 race.

As she readies herself for her season opener in Dendermonde, the 21-year-old said she’s in “pretty okay shape, all things considered”.

“It feels so good to be back on the cross bike. I was a bit apprehensive about that first session, but in the end it was nothing to worry about,” she said.

“For sure, the strength around my wrist isn’t as good as it used to be, but that’s all part of coming back from injury.”

Earlier this month, Bäckstedt was named Cycling Weekly’s female Rider of the Year for 2025, thanks to her cyclo-cross and road performances; she also won five time trials this year, including the under-23 world title in Rwanda.

Asked about her love of cyclo-cross, Bäckstedt told Cycling Weekly: “Everyone thinks we must be a crazy bunch of people to enjoy racing in 2°C in the rain, when all the road riders are in the sun or on holiday. But that’s part of what I love about it, being in nature, among the trees.”

“In the summer, I always say, ‘Oh, I love the road, but I miss cyclo-cross.’ And in the winter, I always say the opposite. As long as I’m on a bike, I’m happy.”

Bäckstedt’s cyclo-cross calendar for 2025/2026 is below.

Zoe Bäckstedt's 2025/2026 cyclo-cross season

28 December: Round 8, UCI World Cup Dendermonde (BEL)

29 December: X²O Trofee Azencross - Loenhout (BEL)

1 January: X²O Trofee Baal - GP Sven Nys (BEL)

3 January: Superprestige Gullegem (BEL)

4 January: Round 9, UCI World Cup Zonhoven (BEL)

18 January: Round 10, UCI World Cup Benidorm (ESP)

24 January: Round 11, UCI World Cup Maasmechelen (BEL)

25 January: Round 12, UCI World Cup Hoogerheide (NED)

TBD, 30 January: UCI World Championships Hulst (NED)

TBD, 31 January: UCI World Championships Hulst (NED)

Dusk is setting in when I connect with Zoe Bäckstedt over video call. She is in Belgium, where it’s early evening and turning gloomy outside; she sits down to talk to me under bright artificial light. Fresh from the photoshoot for this piece, she has a Red Bull cap pulled tight over her blonde waves, and gives off a sparky energy as we begin chatting. Just out of shot, her wrist is in plaster – a training crash at the end of October left her with two small fractures, delaying the start of her cyclo-cross season.

Until this very recent spot of bad luck, 2025 had been a year of interdisciplinary dominance for the young Welshwoman. From a double victory at January’s UCI Cyclo-cross World Championships, rainbow jerseys collected in the mixed team relay and the under-23 race, she went on to rule supreme in time trials, winning five out of the six she competed in, and earning a national and under-23 world title. “If I look back [to last year], compared to where I ended the road season [this year], it’s a day-and-night difference,” she says. “I had a lot of wins this year, which I didn’t expect. I didn’t expect to win a road race – that was probably one of the big things, and also to win Nationals… Everything just fell into a good place.”

Her first big victory on the road came in July at the Baloise Ladies Tour, a six-stage race that weaves through Belgium and the Netherlands. Riding for Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto, Bäckstedt won the overall and three of the stages, including the 3.1km opening prologue. “It was very interesting. You do a half-hour warm-up for three and a half minutes of racing,” she recalls. Aged just 20 at the time, she became the youngest winner in the race’s 13-year history.

Bäckstedt’s crowning achievement came in September, in her final race of the season and one of her biggest goals: the under-23 time trial at the UCI World Championships in Rwanda. “Before the race, before I even got into my kit, I went into the start area and watched the first rider go off,” she remembers of the morning in Kigali. “I was like, ‘OK, I need to take in all of the drums and the music and the lights.’” Bäckstedt wasn’t due at the start ramp for another hour and a quarter, but wanted to be there, soaking it all in.

When her moment finally came, amid the noise and the rumble of drums, she dropped onto the course, a 22.6km blast she had divided into chunks in her mind. She makes it sound like a piece of cake: after the climb, the Côte de Nyanza, came a “really, really, really long downhill, a cobbled climb, and then you were done”. The homework paid off. Before even the halfway mark, she caught and passed Czechia’s Julia Kopecký, who had started 1.30 earlier. Her next victim was Marie Schreiber of Luxembourg, who had had a three-minute head start and was tagged with a kilometre to go. So commanding was Bäckstedt’s ride that the next-best rider, Slovakia’s Viktória Chladoňová, was nearly two minutes astray.

Bäckstedt has competed with the elites on the WorldTour since graduating from the junior ranks in 2023, meaning fans won’t see her in her under-23 rainbow jersey next year Instead, she’ll wear the red, white and blue of the British bands, the spoils of a National Championships TT title claimed on home soil in Wales. “My whole family came up and we were all super excited,” she says. “The time trial course was absolutely savage. It was super hard, that climb.” Bäckstedt recalls her radio was buzzing with time gaps from her coach; she was up on the defending champion, Anna Henderson, but the climbing wasn’t done. “I think she’s a bit better at climbing than I am, so I knew that I was possibly going to lose time there. I just had to give it everything.” Twenty seconds separated the two at the finish, the rider from Pontyclun winning gold ahead of Henderson.

Before the Worlds junior TT in 2022, Bäckstedt recorded her entire recon with a GoPro, dictating notes on the course to study later. Is it this stringent preparation that makes her such a fine time triallist? Or is it physical, her huge power and ability to hold an aero position while at full pelt? “In a weird way, I think it has a connection to cyclo-cross,” Bäckstedt says, “which is also a very individual effort, you versus your body – how hard can you push, how deep you can go. I have that power that I can unlock when I’m on a time trial bike.”

Being a multi-discipline rider comes with its challenges, too. “When you’re just riding the road bike, it’s easy to forget how to ride in sand and how to do full-gas starts for 20 seconds. They’re such different disciplines.” It’s talking about cyclo-cross, the mud, pain and thrill of off-road riding, that brings the biggest smile to Bäckstedt’s face.

“Everyone thinks we must be a crazy bunch of people to enjoy racing in 2°C in the rain, when all the road riders are in the sun or on holiday. But that’s part of what I love about it, being in nature, among the trees.” She pauses, as if remembering her equal fondness for the road. “In the summer, I always say, ‘Oh, I love the road, but I miss cyclo-cross.’ And in the winter, I always say the opposite . As long as I’m on a bike, I’m happy.”

When cycling is your full-time job, it’s vital to enjoy it – something Bäckstedt’s parents instilled in their two daughters, Zoe and her older sister, Elynor, who rides for UAE Team ADQ. “I’ve had a bike since I could crawl,” Zoe tells me. “My parents gave me and my sister bikes, and if we wanted to ride them, that was up to us.” The two girls’ Paris-Roubaix-winning father, Magnus, and 1998 British road champion mother, Meg, would take them to the outskirts of Cardiff on weeknights to ride with Maindy Flyers, the legendary club that shaped the early careers of Geraint Thomas and Elinor Barker. Zoe’s memory of her first race is lost among a childhood full of social rides, hill sprints and circuit races. Lining up at the start of a race felt as natural as a long training ride with the family.

In 2021, aged 17, Bäckstedt won her first road world title in the junior women’s race in Belgium. She went on to claim a momentous double the following year, winning both the road race and time trial titles. In doing so, she earned her first Cycling Weekly Rider of the Year crown, the youngest rider to ever win this magazine’s biggest honour. It’s credit to her meticulous approach, and her love of cycling, that she remains at the top of British racing. “I’m happy with the season I’ve had,” she says at the tail end of another golden year, “not necessarily just the results, but the progress that I’ve made both as a person and a rider.”

From riding her lap “so full gas that you’re gasping for air” in the mixed relay at Cyclo-cross Worlds, to winning alongside her team-mates at Baloise, the thrill she gets from riding – in whatever form it takes, and getting to share it – continues to shine from Bäckstedt. At just 21 years old, she has nine rainbow jerseys, split across disciplines and age categories. And as soon as her wrist has healed there will, no doubt, be more to come.

HONOURABLE MENTIONS

Anna Henderson

The Olympic time trial silver medallist secured her first Grand Tour stage win and a stint in the pink jersey at the Giro d’Italia, and closed her year with victory at China’s Tour of Guangxi. “It’s really nice to finish the season like this,” she said after the race. “My first year with Lidl-Trek ending in a win – it’s been really good.”

Cat Ferguson

In her first full year as a pro, the Movistar rider earned a maiden WorldTour win at the Tour of Britain in June, finishing second overall. She also scored a podium at the Trofeo Alfredo Binda, a string of top-10s, and was part of the victorious GB mixed relay team at the UCI Cyclo-cross World Championships in January.

Anna Morris

Morris successfully defended her individual pursuit crown at October’s UCI Track World Championships in Chile, having earned national and European titles in the event earlier in the year. On the road, she shone in the UK’s crit scene, winning four rounds of the National Circuit Series.

Katie Archibald

Archibald’s year was a testament to her longevity and grit. The 31-year-old track rider opened her season with her first national title in six years – dominating the points race on the final day – and ended it with gold in the Madison alongside Maddie Leech at the UCI Track World Championships. She also took home silver in the elimination race.

Matthew Brennan and Zoe Bäckstedt have been named Cycling Weekly's Riders of the Year for 2025 – the top honours in our annual awards, given to the best-performing British male and female riders throughout the season.

Both riders were judged to have shown outstanding consistency this year; Brennan won a remarkable 14 races in his first season as a pro, while Bäckstedt claimed three world titles and dominated in time trials.

For exclusive, feature-length interviews with both riders, pick up a copy of our special awards edition of the magazine – out today. Below is a list of all the winners celebrated.

Male rider of the year – Matthew Brennan

In his debut pro year with Visma-Lease a Bike, Brennan won 14 times, a tally bettered by just four other male riders: Tim Merlier, Isaac del Toro, Paul Magnier and world champion Tadej Pogačar.

The Brit began the season 349th in the UCI’s rankings, and ended it 43rd, having jumped more than 300 places. All that, and he only turned 20 in August.

“We came into the start of the season with the goal of trying to win one race, essentially,” Brennan told Cycling Weekly. “Then it spiralled a bit quicker and a bit more than we thought it would.”

Female rider of the year – Zoe Bäckstedt

This year was one of interdisciplinary dominance for the young Welshwoman. From a double victory at January’s UCI Cyclo-cross World Championships, rainbow jerseys collected in the mixed team relay and the under-23 race, she went on to rule supreme in time trials, winning five out of the six she competed in, and earning a national and under-23 world title.

“If I look back [to last year], compared to where I ended the road season [this year], it's a day-and-night difference,” the Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto rider told Cycling Weekly.

“I had a lot of wins this year, which I didn't expect. I didn't expect to win a road race [Baloise Ladies Tour] – that was probably one of the big things, and also to win Nationals… Everything just fell into a good place.”

International rider of the year – Pauline Ferrand-Prévot

Everyone knew that the Frenchwoman – a world champion in four different disciplines – was an exceptional bike rider. As such, very few doubted that her return to the road scene in 2025 after a six-year hiatus would be a success. But no-one could have foreseen the comprehensive glory that she enjoyed this year.

Podium finishes at Strade Bianche and the Tour of Flanders were perhaps to be expected – after all, short, punchy climbs were what she excelled on during her mountain bike years – but a 58-second victory at Paris-Roubaix, a flat brute of a race devoid of any significant climbing challenges, was not.

Even more unexpected was winning the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift on debut, especially in so crushing a manner.

Rising star – Erin Boothman

This season, in her final year as a junior, the 18-year-old’s medal collection ballooned in size. Boothman doubled her tally of world titles to four, earned three new European track titles, plus three national titles, all the while stamping her name on three world records: the junior women’s team pursuit, individual pursuit and kilometre time trial.

The Scot knew her form was good when she clean-swept seven out of seven events at a track meet in January. Everything after that, she told Cycling Weekly, was “eye-opening – I couldn’t be happier with how it has gone this year.”

Next season, Boothman will join Liv AlUla Jayco’s development team, before stepping up to the WorldTour squad in 2027.

British domestic rider of the year – Robyn Clay

The DAS-Hutchinson rider had a lot of success in 2025. There were five race wins, both the National Road and National Circuit Series, and the inaugural Rapha Super-League too – all by a 21-year-old who had only started racing at elite level a couple of years previously.

“Even being injured at the start of the season was a blessing in disguise, because it forced me to not start too early, and then I was ready at the right time,” she told Cycling Weekly.

The stand-out year has seen Clay earn a transfer to Women’s WorldTour squad Picnic PostNL for 2026.

Lifetime achievement – Pippa York

"I often tell the story of how I came last in my first race and I was first in my last race, [the 1995 National Championships],” York told Cycling Weekly. “In between, things happened."

These days most British bike racing fans can easily reel off handfuls of world-beating home nation luminaries. So much so, it’s becoming hard to remember when British cycling had practically zero presence on the Continent. But that’s how it was: in the 1980s, you could count on one hand all the UK riders you might spot at the Tour de France. One rider you most certainly would have included in that tally was Pippa York – known then as Robert Millar.

Glasgow-born York became the most successful British pro in years, with Tour de France stage wins and a historic fourth on GC, plus the mountains classification win in 1984 elevating her to a superstar status among British fans. At the same time, York was enduring a personal struggle with body dysphoria, and ultimately underwent gender transition in the 2010s. She has since forged a successful career as a cycling journalist, drawing on her racing experience to comment insightfully on today’s action.

Local hero – Bhima Bowden

In the first of our two reader-nominated awards, Macclesfield Wheelers put Bowden forward for Local Hero with a long testament to his work, from which the below is a short excerpt.

“Bhima runs the weekly hill-climb series in a way that I just don’t think can be topped. Before it starts, he works on photoshoots of every hill, writes compelling narratives about the climbs, and rallies a great team of volunteers. He really supports bringing in people who may not see themselves as traditional racers. While cycling home, we receive individual messages with our time and placement, which then goes into his fancy website and series leaderboard – he truly celebrates everyone.”

Club of the year – Newbury Velo

Newbury Velo's entry for this year's Club of the Year award was so comprehensive, so saturated with innovative, inclusive and wide-ranging membership offerings, it was clear right away that they were going to be hard to beat.

Formed in 2020 and already almost 400 members strong, the offers something for everyone, with a time trial series and a summer cyclo-cross series too, plus open time trials and a round of the local Wessex Cyclo-Cross League in winter. And that's not all; Newbury Velo also organises the Newbury Triathlon, numerous three-day touring trips throughout the year, plus a children's tour, and trips to Mallorca and the Newport Velodrome.

"We're not just serious racers," club chair Simon Bowden told Cycling Weekly. "It gives people a chance to have some fun and not take it too seriously. That's the key."

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Zoe Bäckstedt has said her helmet saved her life after a training crash left her with a fractured hand and wrist.

The under-23 cyclo-cross world champion will delay her move to riding CX due to the injuries; the Welshwoman was likely to begin her season off-road mid-November with a round of the X2O Trofee or Superprestige competitions, but will now have to wait.

"October - the highs and lows," the 21-year-old posted on Instagram, with a round-up of her month. As well as on and off-bike activities, including a trip to the LeBlanq event in Ibiza, and a new Lego-inspired Canyon paintjob, Bäckstedt shared photos of her damaged helmet, and her lying in a hospital bed.

"A perfect month of training and ‘holidays’ but a crash for me in training yesterday resulted in 2 small fractures in my hand and wrist…" the Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto rider wrote. "It’s a shame to have this outcome and to miss the first races of the season but give me time and I’ll come back stronger.

"One thing I know for sure, my helmet saved my life. Thank you Giro Cycling. Wear a helmet, please."

Her team commented: "The helmet appreciation ⛑️❤️. Take care and we’re sending healing vibes 🙌."

Bäckstedt had a successful road season, winning five of the six time trials in which she took part, including at the British National Road Championships and the UCI Road World Championships. She also won her first ever race overall, emerging victorious from the Baloise Ladies Tour in July, where she won three of the six stages.

She will definitely miss the European Cyclo-Cross Championships, which take place at Middelkerke on Saturday, and the first round of the UCI World Cup in Tabor on 23 November might also be too soon, but she will likely be back before the peak of CX season in December.

Last year, Bäckstedt finished fourth overall in the elite women's World Cup standings after a consistent season, which saw her finish on three podiums at World Cups.

Few riders have a time trial record like Zoe Bäckstedt’s this season. The Brit, still only 20 years old, has won the last four races against the clock she has competed in, earning herself a national title and a WorldTour victory at the Simac Ladies Tour. Now, if she wins one more, she’ll take home a rainbow jersey.

Bäckstedt will compete in the under-23 time trial on Monday at the UCI Road World Championships in Rwanda, and she’ll do so as one of the favourites.

Speaking ahead of the event, the Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto rider said her winning streak leaves her feeling “super confident”, and ready to “give it 200% to try and go for that gold modal”.

“That’s the goal,” she said. “I would really love to be able to do that, but you never really know what’s going to happen on a course like this, also with the altitude to think about. I think that’s going to be a big part.”

The under-23 time trial course in Kigali is located at 1,600m above sea level, with two climbs: the Côte de Nyanza (1.5km at 5.8%) and the cobbled Côte de Kimihurura (1.3km at 6.3%), which leads up to the finish line. In total, the route stretches 22.6km and climbs 350m.

“It looks like a fun course, if you ask me, not super technical,” Bäckstedt said. “It should be a reasonable ratio of distance and climbing to what Nationals was, so that’s also quite exciting, just without that really, really, really steep climb that we had to do, thankfully, only one time.

“I’m excited for it, some cobbles at the end – why not throw them in? – that’s going to be also fun. I think it’s going to be hopefully easy to break down. You obviously have the long climb quite early on and then still pushing on the downhill trying to make up time wherever you can. I would say it’s quite a nice distance for me as well.”

On Bäckstedt’s last appearance at the Road World Championships in 2022, the Brit did the double in the junior ranks, winning the time trial and defending her road race title from 2021.

She considered entering in the elite category this year, together with Olympic silver medalist Anna Henderson, but decided the 31.2km course was “a little bit outside of my comfort zone”.

“It’s a little bit longer and not what I’m used to,” she said. “I think I’ve got a good shot at the under-23, and I’m still under-23 for this season, so why would I not try and go for it?

“I hope I’m in peak condition. The last weeks of training have been good, so we will only find out on the day.”

Alongside the 20-year-old, national road race champion Millie Couzens will also compete for Great Britian in the under-23 time trial. Bäckstedt has decided to forgo the road race, as the route is “not the one for me,” she said.

The 2025 UCI Road World Championships begin this Sunday 21 September with the elite women’s and men’s time trials. The under-23 time trial will take place on 22 September between 9:35am and 11:45 am UK time.

Zoe Bäckstedt (Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto) dominated the Baloise Ladies Tour from start to finish to achieve her first ever pro general classification victory, winning her first pro road race on the way to that feat.

The 20-year-old won the opening night prologue, her first TT since winning the TT title at the British National Championships last month, by just one second from Ellen van Dijk (Lidl-Trek) and Charlotte Kool (Picnic PostNL).

She was absent from the next two stages, as they were bunch sprints, but triumphed on stage three A, the first of a two-stage day, holding off world-class sprinters Kool and Clara Copponi (Lidl-Trek) in the process.

Bäckstedt followed a move from Margaux Vigié (Visma–Lease a Bike) with only 2.3km to go to the finish, but was joined by Marie Schreiber (SD Worx-Protime) and held them off for victory.

"In that last lap, there were a lot of attacks, and with only two of us in the front group, I had to follow everything. I saw a rider from Visma go up the road with about 2.5km to go, and I thought, 'This is the only chance,'" she said. "A small thank you to Marie for helping me keep the gap out a little bit. I'm really happy."

Her GC victory, however, was built on a second TT victory in four days, as she once again beat Van Dijk on a longer flat course.

Bäckstedt wasn’t involved in the final stage sprint, but retained her race lead, triumphing over Van Dijk in the end by 12 seconds.

"I think the whole week has been good,” Bäckstedt explained post-stage four. “I've enjoyed racing. It's been also some good learning steps for me, helping the others in the team as well. So yeah, it's just been a fun week. I've really enjoyed it."

Looking ahead, she added: "We'll see what the future brings. I think maybe you're not going to see me winning at the top of Alpe d'Huez, but yeah, it's maybe some flatter races I could do well at."

Bäckstedt is the reigning under-23 cyclo-cross world champion, a title she has held for the past two years, so will head back to the CX course at the tail-end of the season, but has now shown the road form that was always coming. She will not race the upcoming Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift for Canyon, but with these victories under her belt, will be one to watch.

A shaky start and a late slip couldn’t stop Zoe Bäckstedt from winning her second consecutive under-23 title at the UCI Cyclo-cross World Championships on Sunday.

The 20-year-old fell twice around the course in Liévin, France, first on the opening lap and again in the final lap, but still won by a comfortable 39 seconds ahead of Luxembourg’s Marie Schreiber.

The victory meant the Welshwoman became the first Brit to win two rainbow jerseys in the event since Evie Richards, now a world champion mountain biker, in 2018.

“The first lap wasn’t so smooth for me,” Bäckstedt said after the race, explaining that course had become more slippery since her recon.

“I think maybe there was a little bit of panic, but also maybe just the adrenaline from the start of World Championships. I just slipped on one of the corners, wiped out and was a little bit further behind,” she said.

After rejoining the front of the race, the 20-year-old then pulled away and stretched out an advantage over her rivals. A slip on the final lap let Schreiber back to within 20 seconds of the lead, but again Bäckstedt grew out her buffer, eventually winning by 39 seconds.

“There were a few times where I could see that [Schreiber] was coming back a little bit,” Bäckstedt said. “Also on the finish straight, I looked at the TV screen to see where she was on the climb, but there were a few sections where I could really put some power down and focus on my strength, and then I was able to bring the gap back out.”

The victory capped a strong winter campaign for the 20-year-old, who scored three elite UCI World Cup podium finishes, and won the competition’s under-23 category overall.

Ranked as the fourth best cyclo-cross rider in the world, some questioned if Bäckstedt might compete in the elite category at the World Championships, but she decided it was still “too early” for her to step up.

“I have my whole career to race elite,” she said ahead of the championships. “Once I move up, I can’t go back. So if that means staying in under-23 this year and next year to hold onto the category for a little longer, then so be it.”

The Welshwoman's under-23 title brought her second rainbow jersey of the weekend, after she helped lead Great Britain to victory in the mixed relay on Friday.

The team of Bäckstedt, Cat Ferguson, Thomas Mein, Oscar Amey, Zoe Roche and Milo Wills won by just two seconds ahead of the Italian sextet to claim the nation’s first ever title in the event, first introduced in 2022.

Twenty-year-old Zoe Bäckstedt has said she wants to continue enjoying competing in the under-23 ranks before stepping up to the elites at the UCI World Cyclo-cross Championships.

The Brit, the current under-23 world champion, will defend her title this Sunday at the event in Liévin, France.

Bäckstedt goes into the race as the best ranked under-23 rider in the world, having just won her age category overall at the UCI World Cup. She is also ranked fourth in the UCI elite standings, but is not tempted to make the jump just yet.

"I have my whole career to race elite,” the 20-year-old said. “Once I move up, I can’t go back. So if that means staying in under-23 this year and next year to hold onto the category for a little longer, then so be it.

“I don’t want to jump too early into elite and potentially regret my decision, so I decided this year that I will battle for the under-23 title. It’s going to be super-tough and super-close racing, but I’m really excited to push for that title again and see what I can do."

If Bäckstedt were to race in the elite category, she would be the youngest rider in the field by two years. Still, it is not uncommon for 20-year-olds to compete among the elites – Fem van Empel, the reigning world champion, won her first elite rainbow jersey at 20.

Bäckstedt will line up alongside three other Brits – Cat Ferguson, Imogen Wolff and Ella Maclean-Howell – in the under-23 race, for which she is the outright favourite to win.

"Of course, it’s a big race, and there’s a lot more at the end of it, but at the same time, it’s just another bike race,” she said. “You have to think of it as another fun day on the bike and go out to really just enjoy it. If you focus too much on it being Worlds, the pressure can get to you."

There will be no British representation in the elite women’s race at this year’s Cyclo-Cross World Championships. According to British Cycling, this is because no riders met the criteria for selection, except for Bäckstedt.

“We select riders who have the best chance of performing at World Championship level or gaining valuable and positive development experience,” a spokesperson from the national squad said.

“In this case, in the elite women and under-23 men’s categories, there were no riders who met these objectives strongly enough to be selected.”

Bäckstedt’s under-23 title defence is scheduled for 12:05 GMT (13:05 CET) on Sunday 2 February. Other contenders in the event include Luxembourg’s Marie Schreiber, who finished a close second in the under-23 World Cup rankings, and Dutchwoman Leonie Bentveld, last year’s bronze medallist.

Bäckstedt is also down to compete for Great Britain in this Friday’s mixed relay event, alongside Ferguson, Thomas Mein, Milo Wills and recently minted junior national champions Oscar Amey and Zoe Roche.

This season, 20-year-old Zoe Bäckstedt took her first pro win, at the Simac Ladies Tour - where she also finished third on the GC. Now, she's into the cyclocross season, where she holds the rainbow stripes of the Under-23 World Champion.

But the outcome could have been so different, with a summer of illness keeping her off the bike. Cycling Weekly caught up with the Canyon-SRAM rider before the muddy-season kick off, to find out about how she made her 2024 season comeback possible.

You were sidelined for most of the summer with illness. How did you train to return to racing?

Zone 1 rides, as flat as possible, keeping the heart rate low. For the first week, I started with just half an hour a day on the turbo, and slowly progressed from there. When I started to feel stronger, I added 30-40 watts and just kept the chain tight for a few minutes. I’d sometimes do four times four minutes over the space of two hours. By the time I got up to eight minutes and it started to hurt a bit, I knew I was getting stronger.

You won the time trial on the first stage of the Simac Ladies Tour, your first pro win. Was it a target?

No, I hadn’t targeted anything. Simac was just a race that I needed to do to get some more race days under my belt. I’d done a few weeks of hard training and came into that first stage thinking I’d be happy with top 10. When I crossed the finish line and heard I had the fastest time, it was a bit of a shock. I thought maybe they were talking about someone else, but then my dad [Magnus Bäckstedt] confirmed it on the race radio. I hoped to hang on for a podium – to win was really something special.

With the CX season coming up, are you approaching it all guns blazing, or will you keep half an eye on the road?

Yeah, for now I’m focusing on the cross, with about 16 races to do. I want to put as much into each one as possible, and then think about the road season afterwards. Otherwise, it becomes a season of six or seven months, whereas if I look at it as lasting just until the end of the cross season, it’s only two and a half months.

How do cross and road training differ – can you combine the two?

Lately, there’s been a lot more shorter intervals, ahead of the first races. You come from the road season, having done lots of super-long efforts, to the cross season, where the power is so up-and-down. At the start of next year, when we go on a training camp before the [CX] Worlds, it’s more of a mix of efforts, as you’re then coming into the road season – I’ll adapt the intervals the others [team-mates] are doing, making them shorter or a little higher-power. I won’t be doing 20-30-minute efforts for a cross race, when I need to be doing 30-second all-out sprints.

Quick fire round...

If you could ride one place for the rest of your life, where would it be?

Sweden – great off and on road, with a mix of snow and sun.

Dream race to win?

Paris-Roubaix

Your biggest inspiration?

My sister [Elynor Bäckstedt]

Favourite mid-ride cafe snack?

A pastry with cream in the middle and strawberries on top – my go-to.

What’s the most embarrassing song on your playlist?

The whole playlist is embarrassing!

What’s your favourite sport or hobby outside of cycling?

Watching Formula One, and I like building Lego.

Name the celebrity you’d most like to take on in a bike race?

Zendaya [US actress and singer] would be cool.

This article was originally published in Cycling Weekly magazine. Subscribe now and never miss an issue.

Zoe Bäckstedt has had an odd 2024. The 20-year-old won the under-23 Cyclo-cross World Championships in February, finished second in the Antwerp Port Epic in May, and then won her first Women’s WorldTour event in October. However, she also spent months off the bike due to illness and injury.

“When I was racing this year, I’d say it was pretty good,” the Canyon-SRAM rider explains. “I didn’t do loads of races, but the races I did do, I had some decent results, at Roubaix, at the Vuelta, second at Antwerp. Then to finish it off with a stage win and a GC podium [at the Simac Ladies Tour] - you don’t expect it at the end of the year, but that almost makes it more special.”

The Welshwoman will head into the cyclo-cross season full of confidence from that first elite victory, but with low expectations. Her first race is this Sunday, at the X2O Trofee Lokeren - Rapencross, and the plan is for the U23 world champion to race all the UCI World Cups apart from the one in Sardinia - too difficult to get to, apparently.

“I don’t really know what to expect,” she said. “I think it’s the same in ‘cross every season, no one really knows what’s going to happen. Your skills could be rusty, or someone could have been doing more training on it over the summer. It’s about going into the first races with an open mind and just going there to get some intensity, and then you can start dialling down on everything and focusing a bit more on certain areas.

“I have no expectations of how my winter is going to go. I want to take it day by day, race by race, and then see how that is. It would be nice to have some podiums, some good results in World Cups.”

Back on the road, after winning stage one of the Simac Ladies Tour, there was hope that Bäckstedt could triumph overall. However, those plans were scuppered when she was left without any teammates after just the second stage.

“It was interesting, it made the race a lot different,” she said. “It’s not something you could really explain, but when you see people attacking and you think ‘where are my teammates to follow this one?’, and then you realise that there are none, and I was on my own. It was up to the other teams then to try and chase stuff down. It was fun though, it was like doing a really long ‘cross race, loads of staff and one rider. We had the camper and a team car just for me.”

It was a reassurance that Bäckstedt now feels at home at WorldTour level, just a couple of years after leaving the junior ranks, where she was world champion on the road, track and in ‘cross.

“The jump between junior and WorldTour was big, but now I know I can do those races,” she explained. “I can be there at the end. I’ve grown enough to be there in the final.”

The 20-year-old has now been joined in the WorldTour by another British junior world champion, Cat Ferguson, with other young Brits including Imogen Wolff and Carys Lloyd following.

“Their year is really super strong, and these girls are doing so many disciplines and doing what makes them enjoy riding,” Bäckstedt said. “I think that really helps.”

Back to shorter ‘cross races, and the 20-year-old should be troubling the podium once again across the winter.

Zoe Backstedt is a Red Bull athlete. Find out more about her journey with Red Bull here.

Few riders – perhaps only one – can say their parent called them home for their first professional victory. On Tuesday afternoon, that honour fell on Zoe Bäckstedt, as she time trialled to a milestone win at the Simac Ladies Tour, while her father, Magnus, gave her instructions in her ear.

The 20-year-old won the 10.1km opening stage against the clock in Gennep, Netherlands, beating time trial specialists like Ellen van Dijk (Lidl-Trek), Lotte Kopecky (SD Worx-Protime) and Chloé Dygert (Canyon-Sram).

The win marked her first since turning pro at the start of last year, and was made more special by having her father, a sports director at her team Canyon-Sram, alongside her throughout her effort.

“I really surprised myself,” Bäckstedt said afterwards. “I came just to have some fun, and just see what I could do today, and apparently that was enough to win the stage, so I’m really happy.

“[I was] pushing a lot. I had my dad in the car behind me, telling me, ‘Yeah, keep pushing! Come on! Come on! You can do it! Keep your head down! Really focus on trying to chase the motorbike in front.’ That clearly helped, and I’m happy with it.”

The course, a straightforward out-and-back, was “quite perfect”, Bäckstedt said. “[There were] a lot of straight lines, so that was really good for me,” she explained, “a little bit of cornering, so also a little bit of technical, and also [time to] take a breather and recover a little bit, and then full gas out of each corner.”

The Brit started Wednesday's second stage of six-day race in the yellow leader’s jersey, having won stage one by seven seconds ahead of Visma-Lease a Bike’s Lieke Nooijen.

Since her time in the junior ranks, Bäckstedt’s time trialling prowess has always been one of her strengths. She became junior world time trial champion in 2022, before adding the under-23 European title to her palmarès the following year. Now, she also boasts a victory at elite WorldTour level, a feat she didn’t realise at the time.

“I’m even more happy with that,” she said with a broad smile. “It’s really also a good preparation this week for my cyclocross season coming up.”

The cyclocross season begins this month, with the 20-year-old expected to build towards the World Championships in France on 31 January. The busy winter calendar comes after a quiet summer for Bäckstedt, after she fell ill following May's RideLondon Classique and missed three months of racing.

“I think many riders here are quite tired from the season,” she said at the Simac Ladies Tour. “I feel like I’m fresh and just getting started. For the next stages, I have no expectations. I’m going to go and race my bike and have fun, and we’ll see what happens.”

Zoe Bäckstedt is enjoying life on the bike right now, and it's easy to see why. In the last two years alone, the 19-year-old has held multiple junior time trial and road world titles, and followed that up with the under 23 European time trial title last autumn. 

If that wasn’t enough, she then stormed to victory - and yet another rainbow jersey - in the women’s under 23 race at the cyclo-cross world championships in February. 

She now finds herself at Canyon-SRAM - one of the biggest teams on the women’s WorldTour - and tells Cycling Weekly that her Grand Tour debut is on the horizon. 

On Sunday, the Welsh rider will line up for her first appearance at the Vuelta a España Feminina. 

"I've got this week in Spain now which is perfect training for it and for a little bit of prep," Bäckstedt says. "It's about getting used to the heat as well, because I can tell you, it's going to be a very warm week on the bike."

Her continued rise to cycling’s elite level will now be fuelled by a certain new sponsor displayed on her helmet which, she says, will definitely give her wings in the races to come. 

Bäckstedt recently inked a lucrative new deal to join the likes of Tom Pidcock, Pauline Ferrand-Prévot and Evie Richards and become a Red Bull-sponsored athlete. She tells Cycling Weekly that the deal had been in the works for several years. 

"They contacted my agent, after the Leuven Worlds (2021) I believe actually, then it's just kind of been in the process a bit since then," she says. "I never really knew when I would have the opportunity to sign. 

"Then suddenly, it started again, my agent suddenly said we were a week or so away from signing the contract, basically. And then I think most people have seen the video on my Instagram of when Tom Pidcock handed me over the helmet."

"The whole week my dad also was playing along with it," she adds as she reflects on the moment Pidcock himself rocked up in her hotel restaurant in Spain to welcome her to the club. "It had been so long that I'd been waiting for it, I'd been so excited to sign and officially become an athlete and that was that."

Bäckstedt hopes to carry the torch for Red Bull in women’s cycling moving forward. Prior to agreeing the deal, Kata Blanka Vas of SD Worx was the only other Red Bull sponsored athlete in the women’s peloton. 

"In women's cycling, there's not so many of us, especially on the road, that have got this helmet," she says. "And off road there's only only a few names. 

"So finally being in the world of a Red Bull athlete and having that title, it's super cool to be amongst so many great athletes that have all done so much, pushing limits in every way and pushing themselves to the max."

With the Vuelta firmly on her mind, she explains that her programme is largely decided on a race by race basis at Canyon. Bäckstedt has already ridden huge races like Paris-Roubaix Femmes this year, where she finished 16th, and now has one eye on the Paris Olympics this summer. 

"That's for sure something I'd love to go to," she says. "But there's so many good riders in the UK that could also be selected. So we have to fight for all of the slots, maybe it's my year, maybe it isn't. 

"In two, three years, I'm going to be wanting to go to the Giro [d'Italia Women], Tour [de France Femmes], Vuelta and want to do all of them… For now, it's just about making sure that I don't do every single race, because yeah, everyone knows I want to do that and is holding me back a little bit so that I don't burn out too quickly or something."

"Ride it like you own the road"

Bäckstedt explains that she is still in the process of discovering exactly what type of rider she is, but says that just maintaining enjoyment on the bike during her big experiences is enough for now. 

"You can go to a bike race and be nervous and feel a little bit a little bit scared in the bunch and then you can go to the next race and be like, 'I didn't enjoy the last one, I'm going to just completely change how I look at it, I'm going to just ride it as if as if it was an hour CX race' for me, that's how I look at it, just go full gas at every moment you and just ride your bike, ride it like you own the road, basically."

The 19-year-old wasn’t far behind the winning move at Roubaix and says she continues to watch the likes of Lotte Kopecky closely, ensuring she absorbs much of what the reigning road world champion is currently doing in the sport. 

"Everything she does is something I look at and think 'Oh, I'd love to do that'," she says. "But give me two years, maybe three, and that'll be there… There's a lot of riders that are just next level at the moment and something special on the bike. Even within our team, we've got so many riders that I look at and wish I could also be at that stage."

The road season is winding down, the nights are drawing in, which means cyclo-cross season is about to kick into gear. 

The UCI Cyclo-cross World Cup calendar opens this Sunday with the first of 14 rounds. This year, the calendar begins in Waterloo - no, not the major train station in London - the city in the US state of Wisconsin, and the chosen home of bike brand Trek.  

The day’s racing will begin with the women’s event at 12:40 local time (18:40 BST), with the men’s event following at 14:10 (20:10 BST).  

Sadly for road cycling fans, none of the power trio Wout van Aert, Mathieu van der Poel and Tom Pidcock will be on the start line, but here are five other names to keep an eye out for in their absence. 

Eli Iserbyt

Last year’s winner in Waterloo, the diminutive Eli Iserbyt is a consistent performer on the cyclo-cross circuit. The 25-year-old, a two-time world champion at under-23 level, has lived much of his senior career in the shadow of Van Aert and Van der Poel, but savours his opportunities to shine. 

Eight victories last season followed the Belgian’s most illustrious campaign to date, when he won 14 times across the winter of 2021-2022, and claimed the overall UCI World Cup.

In Waterloo, Iserbyt will no doubt be encouraged by the absence of the reigning World Cup champion, Laurens Sweeck, who is recovering from a muscle tear in his calf. 

Thibau Nys

Thibau Nys, son of cyclo-cross great Sven Nys, is the one of the most promising new kids on the block. 

At just 20 years old, the Baloise Trek Lions rider won his first elite race last weekend, taking victory on his season debut in Beringen, Belgium. What’s even more impressive is that he beat a field containing the top four UCI-ranked riders in the world; Sweeck, Lars van der Haar, Michael Vanthourenhout and Iserbyt . 

Victory stateside might not come as easily to Nys, but expect the under-23 world champion to be in the mix throughout. 

Fem van Empel

In the women’s race, world champion Fem van Empel is the standout favourite for victory. The Dutchwoman was almost untouchable last season, finishing on the podium of every event she took part in, save for a DNF at Val di Sole. 

It will take a lot to match the 17 victories she amassed last winter, but her tally is already underway. Last weekend in Beringen, Van Empel laid waste to her competition, winning by one minute and 18 seconds over her compatriot and runner-up Ceylin del Carmen Alvarado. 

The only question mark over the 22-year-old’s head is her level of fatigue. Riding for Jumbo-Visma, she completed a road calendar for the first time in her career this season, and took part in the recent UCI Gravel World Championships, where she earned herself a bronze medal. 

Shirin van Anrooij

Like Van Empel, Shirin Van Anrooij is another who balances cyclo-cross ambitions with a career on the road. 

This year, the Dutchwoman reached new heights with Lidl-Trek, as she won her first WorldTour race in the Trofeo Alfredo Binda, and claimed victory in the debut edition of the Tour de l’Avenir Femmes. 

Her cyclo-cross prowess is also developing. Van Anrooij is currently the third-ranked rider in the world, behind Van Empel and Puck Pieterse, and is the reigning under-23 world champion. 

Zoe Bäckstedt

Nineteen-year-old Zoe Bäckstedt has already been out racing in the States for the past week, and has two wins under her belt, both taken at the Major Taylor Cross Cup.

Still a handful of years younger than the rest of the field, the British national champion’s goal this season is likely to score her first UCI World Cup podium. She came close last year, with fourth place finishes at Gavere and Besançon. 

Now, there’s a feeling that the breakthrough elite ride is just around the corner for the former junior world champion. The muddier the better for Bäckstedt. 

One of the most exciting talents in the women's peloton, Zoe Bäckstedt, has joined Canyon-SRAM in a mid-season transfer.

The British 18-year-old joined EF Education-TIBCO-SVB last August following a dominant junior career in which she was world champion on the track, in cyclo-cross, and also both in the time trial and road races.

It was announced in recent weeks, however, that EF Education-TIBCO-SVB would be folding at the end of the current season, with SVB collapsing in May, TIBCO revealing that they wouldn't continue to back the team, and EF Education's decision to set up their own separate women's team.

That has meant the team's 16 riders have been free to choose new teams, and while some have signed contracts for next season with new outfits, Bäckstedt has made the immediate swap to Canyon-SRAM, a team led by Ronny Lauke.

She will team up her father, Magnus, who was a professional himself. Her sister, Elynor, 21, has ridden for Lidl-Trek since 2020.

Immensely talented, Bäckstedt has been thwarted by injuries this season and raced just 15 UCI days, but that figure does include April's Paris-Roubaix. Her best result is seventh at the recent Tour of Scandinavia in the stage four time trial. 

"I’m excited about the opportunities at Canyon-SRAM Racing. I will get to race with a strong squad and have the freedom to race in any discipline I want to as well," Bäckstedt said in a team press release.

"The team has made a lot of developments in the last year, and you can see that on and off the bike. I really like this; it helped my decision as I like to have a good structure around me.

“I believe I will bring to Canyon-SRAM Racing some more good tunes to the pre-race playlist, my love for the sport and just the fact I’m happy to be at a bike race with my teammates.”

>>> Read more: All pro peloton transfers for 2024

Bäckstedt will now start to focus on the upcoming cyclocross season, with her first race the Major Taylor Cross Cup in the USA. 

Her former team manager, Linda Jackson, commented: "I am so happy that Zoe found a good home with Canyon-SRAM Racing. Placing Zoe on a new team before the 2023/2024 cyclocross season started was critical to supporting her 2024 World Cyclocross Championships goals.  

"While sad about my team’s circumstances that led to this change, I am truly excited to follow her future with Ronny’s team, and I wish her the very best.”

Ask any rider about Paris-Roubaix, and they'll tell you it's a race like no other. 

Some fear the cobbled Monument, namely the narrow, rugged farm tracks on which it takes place. For others, the unpredictability brings great joy.

Across this year's men's and women's editions, 20 British riders set out to conquer the Hell of the North. Here are the stories of four of them, all debutants, and what they had to endure to reach the velodrome.

Josh Tarling - Outside time limit

There was one statistic on everyone’s lips at the start line of the men's Paris-Roubaix in Compiègne. Josh Tarling, just 19 years and 53 days old, was set to become the youngest male rider since 1937 to compete in the race. 

The day turned out to be a baptism of fire for the Welshman. With 150km to go, Tarling crashed with his Ineos Grenadiers team-mate Luke Rowe, bloodying his knee and tearing through his kit. He ended up riding over 100km alone to Roubaix Velodrome, where he finished six and a half minutes adrift of the time cut. 

How did he find the race? “Long,” he smiled, standing proudly under the sun. “[I had] a crash and two punctures, so I’ve done Paris-Roubaix right, no?” 

For Tarling, abandoning the race was never an option. “My girlfriend would shout at me if I didn’t make it here," he said. "It’s just Paris-Roubaix, isn’t it? You have to finish.” 

Speaking to Cycling Weekly by the team bus, the teenager’s girlfriend Grace concurred. “I knew that he wouldn’t be happy with himself truly if he didn’t get to the finish line,” she said. “He’s very determined. If he wanted to get to the line he would, and he did.”

Grace travelled to Roubaix with Tarling’s family, who cheered from the stands of the velodrome as he rode a solitary lap and a half. The sight brought his mother Dawn to tears. 

“He’s that kind of rider,” Dawn said. “He’ll always finish, so we waited because we knew he’d come. When we saw him, it was just awesome.”

Though Sunday’s race marked Tarling’s senior Roubaix debut, he had already completed the junior event twice. His father Michael explained that bad luck has been a constant across his experiences. 

“In the youth race, he was in a breakaway and there was a level crossing that came down and they didn’t give them the time back again," he said. "Then last year, I think he crashed. He deserves a good ride here one day.” 

Zoe Bäckstedt - 46th

Zoe Bäckstedt came into her first Paris-Roubaix with a simple goal in mind. “If I can finish it,” she told Cycling Weekly ahead of the race, “then that’s a great day for me.” 

The 18-year-old cut a relaxed figure at the team presentation in Denain. Like Tarling, she would be the youngest rider in the race, but with a lifetime’s worth of advice from her father Magnus - winner of the 2004 edition - and his old Speedplay pedals, she felt better prepared than anyone. 

In the end, the day was everything she had expected. “It was carnage, it was fast,” she said afterwards. “My legs were struggling, and it was just [about] trying to hold it [the bike] upright. There were a tonne of people crashing on the small parts that were slippery.”

Alongside her, in the race convoy with Canyon-Sram, her father kept a watchful eye. “He drove past me at one point when I was at the back and stuck his hand out the window and just gave me a thumbs up,” she said. “I know he’s in a different car, but he still looks out for me, which is really nice.” 

As for Bäckstedt’s team, EF Education-Tibco-SVB, the race played out like a dream. While the teenager spent the day in the peloton, her team-mate Alison Jackson was up the road in the breakaway, crafting a career-defining victory. Bäckstedt knew nothing of it. 

“I couldn’t hear anything on the radio for the last 50km,” she said. “I came into the velodrome and looked up at the big screen, because I knew the winner would be up there and I just saw AJ sprinting and then celebrating. 

“I think I just screamed for that whole lap and a half round the velodrome. When I saw my soigneur, I was like ‘AJ won! AJ won!’ I kid you not, I just cried.” 

Sam Watson - 121st

Twenty-one-year-old Sam Watson swung into Roubaix Velodrome wincing. He held his bars loosely - one hand on the hoods, the other in the drops - and gritted his teeth as he rounded the final bend. When he stepped off his bike, he stood, dazed, and stared down at his bare, blistered palms. 

“My body’s in pieces,” he told Cycling Weekly. “My hands, all the skin’s come off. That hurt more than my legs today.” 

The Groupama-FDJ rider began the race wearing gloves, but as the cobbled sectors clocked up, and the attrition bedded in, the friction grew unbearable. The only option was to take them off.

“I just had to ride the sectors without trying to put my palms on the handlebars,” he said. “Everything hurts. I’ve got blisters on my feet, no skin on my hands, back hurts. Luckily I’ve got a few days off now.” 

Asked to recount his day, Watson began at Haveluy, the sector before the Forest of Arenberg, where the winning move went. “That’s where it really kicked off,” he said. “I took Stefan [Küng] into it, just behind [Mathieu] Van der Poel and Wout [van Aert]. I was going as hard as I could already, I couldn’t follow them. And then from there really it was just a battle to the finish.

“Of course, I would’ve liked to have been there a bit more at the end, but I couldn’t hold my handlebars. Over the sectors, it was just agony.” 

Alice Towers - 23rd

Initially a reserve, British road champion Alice Towers only got the call-up to this year’s Paris-Roubaix two weeks before the race. “I was really nervous,” she said afterwards, which is why she chose to escape up the road. 

There, safe from the perilous proximity of the bunch, she rode for 100km as part of the breakaway group from which Alison Jackson eventually won. 

“I’d been on one recon, and I just sort of dived in,” Towers told Cycling Weekly. “The plan was to be vigilant. I was more of a support rider for the first bit of the race, and then the break actually went quite a long way, and I was there at the very end. So I’m pleased about that.”

On her Roubaix debut, the 20-year-old crossed the line in 23rd place, half a minute down on the winner. When she found out her companions stayed away, she rued the moment she lost contact, which came on an unsuspecting motorway bridge between the final sectors. “It just caught me by surprise,” she said. “But I was gone. I was pretty cooked anyway, so I don’t know what I could have done.”

Face muddied, Towers stood in the velodrome and shook out her arms, sore from the bone-shaking terrain. “I think they’ll be bruised tomorrow,” she laughed, before reflecting once more on the race she had just finished.

“I’m happy to have ticked it off,” she said. “[Beforehand], everyone was just like, ‘Oh my god, the Hell of the North, it’s crazy there. It’s horrible.’ But actually, I enjoyed it more than I thought I would.”

Paris-Roubaix has long been a testing ground for new bike tech. This year, though, at least for Zoe Bäckstedt, it was a chance to delve into the past. 

On her race debut, the 18-year-old double junior world champion rode to 46th place using pedals that belonged to her father, 2004 Paris-Roubaix winner Magnus Bäckstedt. 

At the race start in Denain, the teenager explained to Cycling Weekly how the pedals came into her possession. “Dad gave me them at the start of the year, something like that, just after I joined the team, and was like, ‘I’ve been saving these, so feel free to use them’. And here I am today.” 

The Speedplay pedals, which have been stripped of their plastic casing, were custom-modified for Magnus during his racing days. Speaking to Cylingnews, the Canyon-Sram sports director said: “We’ve always known that Speedplay have been a little bit of a tricky one as soon as you get a bit of mud between the cleats and pedals to clip in.

“And those ones, Richard from Speedplay sat in the bathtub in Compiègne and he ground off the coloured bits of the pedal and so that was just the metal so I could effectively clip if I got any mud in the cleats.”

Here are five more interesting bits of tech that were on display during the latest edition of the women’s Paris-Roubaix. 

What happened to bar tape? 

In days of old, pros would wrap their bars twice over for extra padding over the cobbles. 

On Saturday, however, Bäckstedt was one of a handful of riders to compete with bare bars, perhaps for an aero advantage. 

Eagle-eyed gallery viewers will also spot the Pink Panther sticker on the top tube of the teenager's Cannondale Lab71 SuperSix Evo. She explained to Cycling Weekly that this is a nickname given to her by her mechanic when she first joined EF Education-TIBCO-SVB at the start of this season. Gesturing to her jersey, she added: "Because, you know, pink." 

Trek-Segafredo's new paint job

US bike brand Trek, title sponsor of Trek-Segafredo, debuted a new paint job at this year’s Paris-Roubaix. 

According to the company, the new ICON Monumental paint scheme is a “tribute to all who have battled their way to the finish and lived to tell the tale” at the race. 

Above is 2022 champion Elisa Longo Borghini’s Project One Domane SLR. Note, too, that the Italian went for a 52T 1x Sram drivetrain for the race. 

Recycled inner tube hack

It’s amazing how far an old inner tube can go. For Longo Borghini and the Trek-Segafredo mechanics, it makes for the perfect hack to keep components together over the bumpy cobbles. 

Here, the battery on her Sram RED eTap electronic shifter is being held in place by some old rubber, stopping it from falling out during the race. 

Prototype cobble tyres? 

While the rest of Canyon-Sram went for Schwalbe Pro One tyres, Maike van der Duin looked to be trialling a new cobble-specific set. 

The tread appears similar to the Pro Ones, with the main difference being the tan walls. Still, with the word 'prototype' printed on them, they've piqued our interest. 

If in doubt, go with gold

Israel Premier Tech Roland's Caroline Baur opted for flair with her tech choices. Despite all her team-mates riding with standard black computer mounts, the Swiss road champion went for a gold-coloured K-Edge option. If in doubt, go with gold. 

If there’s one race in particular that double junior world champion Zoe Bäckstedt has been looking forward to, it’s Paris-Roubaix. 

She wasn’t sure if she’d ride it this season. After all, she’s only been a pro for three months. But after a strong showing in the early-season Classics, the 18-year-old has cemented her place at EF Education-TIBCO-SVB, and can’t hold back her excitement to take the start line on Saturday. 

“I did a recon yesterday with the girls and we hit the first sector of cobbles and I was just like, ‘Yeah, I do really love this race’,” Bäckstedt tells Cycling Weekly in northern France.

“Every time I hit the cobbles, I had a, well, I say little smile on my face, it was a pretty big smile. I was just loving it, following the girls, following how they were navigating the sectors. 

“Obviously it’ll be different in the race to riding with five other people, but yeah, it’s going to be carnage.” 

Carnage, it seems, that Bäckstedt is more than prepared for. Under the tutelage of her father Magnus, winner of the 2004 men’s edition of the race, the teenager has spent a lifetime learning ahead of her Paris-Roubaix debut. 

“He’s been giving me tips for this race my whole life,” she says. “I already know everything that there is to know about this race, about every single sector pretty much. I’ve got enough information off of him over the years.”

When Bäckstedt lines up for tomorrow's départ in Denain, she’ll do so alongside her older sister, Elynor, who rides for Trek-Segafredo, as well as her father, now a sports director at Canyon-Sram.

It’s a moment she expects to be “full of emotions”, before her focus turns to the jagged, bone-shaking cobbles and her duties with her EF Education-TIBCO-SVB team.

What’s the junior world champion expecting from her first Roubaix? “A lot of crashes,” she says matter-of-factly. “It’s been raining here all day, so I think it’s going to be pretty slippery out on the course. 

“We went out yesterday and there was one sector that had a lot of standing water in the corners. Considering I was riding legs out, in a summer jacket, I was pretty shocked when I saw it."

For her race debut on Saturday, Bäckstedt's goal is simple: reach the finish line. 

“If I could do that, then that’s a great day for me," she says. "I’m a first-year pro, racing Paris-Roubaix. It’s pretty big. So yeah, If I can finish it, if I can help someone in the team out, get someone in the front group, then that will be great. I’m going out there to enjoy it, as well.” 

Already this season, the teenager has made an impression at EF. She worked her way into a promising move at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, and raced to 13th at Dwars door Vlaanderen. Still, she says, the step-up from the junior ranks has been marked. 

“[At Gent-Wevelgem], my Wahoo file was 100km more than what I raced at junior road Worlds,” she says. “By the time we’d gotten to the hills, I’d already done longer than I was racing as a junior. So considering I was still there at the finish of that one, I’m pretty proud of myself.” 

“It’s been a big few months,” Bäckstedt continues. “It’s been tough at times, obviously, but it’s going to be for everyone, no matter if you’re coming up from junior or if you’ve been racing for years. It’s always going to be tough racing with these fields, because they’re all super strong. But I feel like I’ve been ok.”  

EVEN WOUT VAN AERT CAN LOSE HIS NERVE 

Wout van Aert is a rider that’s often seemed infallible at times. That’s certainly the impression you’d arrive at after watching him win a plethora of Tour de France stages across the years, and all from different scenarios.

However, even the sportsmen and women at the absolute top of their discipline are always going to find occasions where they seemingly come unstuck. 

Throughout his cyclo-cross campaign, Van Aert has arguably held the upper hand over his long standing rival, Mathieu van der Poel, picking up a variety of wins where in the closing stages he’d had the cutting edge to land a victory. 

However, the manner in his defeat to Van der Poel last weekend saw many comparisons drawn with the style in which he lost the 2020 Tour of Flanders to the Dutchman, proving that even the seemingly most consistent, most successful athletes can be prone to losing their nerve on the biggest of stages. 

THE FUTURE IS BRIGHT FOR BRITISH CX 

With the absence of the reigning elite men’s World Champion, Tom Pidcock, from the start list in Hoogerheide, it may have appeared that there was a distinct lack of high flying British talent capable of threatening Van Aert and Van der Poel and the podium positions. 

Due to their sheer power, physicality and wider road experience, that may well be the case with only Pidcock realistically being able to match them. Although if you look at the wider picture from across the weekend, British cyclo-cross is in a stronger position than it may initially seem. 

The mixed-relay team took a stunning silver medal in Friday’s race, pushing the Dutch squad all the way for the win with the whole relay team possessing an abundance of talent in their own right.

In the elite men's race, current British national champion, Cameron Mason also earned a more than respectable ninth with another British star, Thomas Mein, taking 14th. 

Even with no Pidcock, the kids are still alright.

ZOE BÄCKSTEDT IS FAR FROM A ONE HIT WONDER ON THE WORLD STAGE

In Zoe Bäckstedt, Great Britain possesses one of the most exciting young riders in the sport with everything pointing to her becoming an astronomical star in the future. 

After taking the female elite national title just a few weeks ago, Backstedt’s impressive silver in the under 23 women’s race could just be the start of a dominant few years on the CX scene for GB. If her current form is anything to go by, then you wouldn't bet against her stepping up to the elite category in the not too distant future and comfortably challenging for the podium there.

Now that the drama of the Netherlands is out of the way, the 18-year-old will briefly reset before re-joining her trade team on the road for a debut campaign as a professional with EF Education-Tibco- SVB.

Bäckstedt is likely to target Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, a race which she previously told Cycling Weekly she is "so ready" for. The 18-year-old oozes confidence, and backed by the coaching of Emma Trott, expect to see Bäckstedt continue her rise to stardom in the months ahead.

TRASH TALK GETS YOU NOWHERE

Before they had rolled up on the start line in Hoogerheide, all of the noise coming from Van Aert and the Belgian camp was that winning the world title “did little” for the Jumbo-Visma man’s palmares and it was implied that it meant nothing to him. 

We’ll never know how much of that he really genuinely believed, or whether it was some kind of deliberate ploy to get inside Van der Poel’s head and affect his performance. 

If it was indeed the latter, then it spectacularly backfired on the Belgian as once the race got underway, there was only going to be one winner, with the Dutchman absolutely hell bent on taking the honours on a route which held special significance to him given that Hoogerheide holds many personal connections to the Van der Poel family. An example being that his father, Adrie, was born in a village close by. 

Perhaps based on this situation, Van Aert will have learned not to be quite so vocal beforehand, and instead let his racing do the talking. Playing the race down in such a way only came across as egotistical and arguably disrespectful to the discipline.

WHATEVER YOU CAN DO, WE CAN DO BETTER

Before the weekend began, it was already rumoured that the event organisers had sold more than 30,000 tickets for the occasion, and the crowds were indeed absolutely huge with the noise they generated even bigger.

Traditionally, cyclo-cross’s home has been in the mud of Flanders, although the Dutch took that on board and said ‘anything you can do, we can do better’. 

With them being roared on by crowds of that size, it then generated a feeling of inevitability that Fem van Empel and Mathieu van der Poel would go home with both of the rainbow jerseys in the elite category. 

Zoe Bäckstedt annihilated all competition to become British female elite national cyclocross champion and under 23 champion in Milnthorpe this afternoon. 

As she sprinted away from the start line, Bäckstedt didn’t look back and soon opened up a huge lead leaving her fellow competitors to scrap for second and third from the start.

Speaking to Cycling Weekly after the race, Bäckstedt explained that getting a good start was crucial on the heavy course in the Lake District. 

“I had a fast start which I was really happy with. Coming onto the first section it was pretty sketchy as there were a lot of ruts forming in the mud so I knew how important getting it right from the start was,” she said. “I’ve had a lot of good starts in races recently, so I just went from there.” 

On Saturday as she surveyed the course, the 18-year-old predicted that she would need to do a lot of running in order to maintain an advantage. Once the racing was underway on Sunday afternoon, Bäckstedt’s prediction soon appeared to be correct and post-race she explained that the sections involving running were where she could really push on. 

“It was a fast course. There were several places out there, particularly on the climb after the pits, where you could put a fair bit of power down, although the running was where I could really make up a fair bit of time,” she said. 

After dominating proceedings on home soil, Bäckstedt explained that with the cyclocross world championships in Hoogerheide, the Netherlands just around the corner, she would be fully focussed on a podium finish. 

“I’m feeling full of confidence after getting the national title today, but the worlds is another thing altogether,” Bäckstedt said. “There’s going to be a lot of different riders there and different competition but honestly, I’m looking forward to it so much.” 

“Let’s try for the podium out there now. Why not?” 

CAMERON MASON OVERCOMES DIFFICULT START TO LAND MEN’S NATIONAL TITLE 

Meanwhile Cameron Mason overcame a difficult start to land the men’s senior national title. 

The Trinity Racing rider was slow off the start line and soon found that last year’s winner, Thomas Mein, had built an early advantage. 

Mason was able to remain level-headed and calm, and soon clawed back the deficit to the early frontrunners to pull himself back into contention for the title. 

The Scotsman’s natural ability and skill soon shone through as he pushed on through the technical sections, involving a fast downhill chicane, before disappearing into the distance. 

Once he had finally taken the lead, Mason didn’t look back and sped around the fast and sweeping course to lap his nearest rival Mein and land a spectacular win. 

Speaking to Cycling Weekly, Mason explained that he had learned from past mistakes where he had “attacked the course too early” and the difficult start soon worked in his favour as his rivals tired. 

“I’d made the mistake last year of trying to attack the course a bit too much fairly early on,” Mason said. “This year I wanted to let the race come to me. I had a terrible start which is what it is, but then my pace really started to show after a few laps. All I had to do was string a few corners together and ride at my own level then once I had that gap, I just went into time trial mode as much as I could to the end which paid off.” 

Elsewhere Seb Grindley also overcame several mechanical issues to secure a superb junior men’s national title and explained post-race that his preparation had been far from ideal.

“It was hectic out there! I had a shocking start but managed to make my way through to the front of the pack after about a lap,” he said. “I then dropped my chain which was really stressful, so I just had to keep my head on to be honest and claw my way back and stay smooth through the race.”

“It’s certainly not been the best prep for me before the race too. I was pretty ill for about a week and it’s only recently cleared up. Today I felt great but I’ve missed a fair bit of training. In the end everything turned out good though so I can’t complain. 

Imogen Wolff took the junior women’s national title with a dominant performance which she explained left her hoping she would make the selection for the upcoming world championships. 

“I’m chuffed with this today. It’s been a long time in the making. With world selections coming up next week I’m really hoping that I’ll have done enough to be able to pull on the stripes out there,” she said. 

After a long winter of cyclocross, Zoe Bӓckstedt is full of confidence as she awaits the opening weekend of the cobbled classics in Belgium.

Speaking to Cycling Weekly at the British national cyclocross championships, Bäckstedt said that the full details of her road programme are yet to be decided. However, her season is likely to begin with the women’s edition of Omloop Het Nieuwsblad in late February. 

“I’ll be doing Het Nieuwsblad and that’s about it for now. We’ll have to see how I am after this cyclocross season,” she said. “I don’t want to do too much too soon and end up tiring myself out.” 

“Although yeah, opening weekend in Belgium and Het Nieuwsblad, bring it on I am so ready for it,” she added.

“I honestly can’t wait to get racing, it’s going to be so good out there.” 

Despite having one eye on the beginning of her first full season as a professional with EF Education-Tibco-SVB on the road, Bӓckstedt is aiming to become British national cyclocross champion before the upcoming world championships in Hoogerheide, the Netherlands in February. 

Coming into the national championships, the 18-year-old has picked up several top ten results throughout the winter in the UCI cyclocross world cup. Bӓckstedt explained that testing herself against some of the world's top riders has left her feeling confident ahead of a big few weeks of competition. 

“The Christmas period has been really good to me,” Bӓckstedt said. “It’s been really exciting being up in the top ten’s and top five’s of some of the World Cups that I’ve done, particularly in some of the races where I’ve been up against some of the best riders.”

“I’m just excited to be able to race a national championship again, particularly as I missed last year as I got Covid just before it,” she added.

Bӓckstedt was on the sidelines on Saturday to support Ceris Styler of Bӓckstedt Bike Performance who landed the veteran women’s national title. The 18-year-old explained that coming along to support Styler had given her a chance to preview the course ahead of Sunday’s elite women’s race. 

“I’ve just tried to get a look at the course and see what some people do picking their lines, it will have changed by tomorrow with a lot of wetter mud,” she said. 

“It looks like there may be a fair amount of running, but nothing that you don’t expect in a bit of cyclocross. I’m sure there will be plenty of sliding around as well. It’s just good to be back racing in the UK for a bit.”

Now the curtain has drawn on the 2022 road season, focus is already shifting to what next year might bring. Who’s destined for a career-defining victory? Who will emerge as the next big thing? 

It’s impossible to keep an eye on everyone, so here are 10 of the most promising up-and-coming riders to watch in 2023.

Fred Wright

You can’t help but get the feeling that something big is coming for Fred Wright. The Brit enjoyed his best season to date in 2022, but despite his plucky determination, a WorldTour win still eluded him. 

Wright came agonisingly close to victories at the Tour de France and Vuelta a España this season, but both times had to settle for second behind Danish powerhouse and former world champion Mads Pedersen.

In the first half of 2023, Wright is likely to aim for the Monuments and his Bahrain Victorious teammate Matej Mohorič believes it’s only a matter of time before he wins one. After his valiant display in April’s Tour of Flanders, it’s hard not to think the same.

Juan Ayuso

This September, Juan Ayuso became the first teenager to step onto a Grand Tour podium since 19-year-old Henri Cornet won the Tour de France almost 120 years ago. 

Now 20 years old, Ayuso has already established himself as one of the peloton’s strongest climbers. The UAE Team Emirates rider’s performance at this year’s Vuelta a España proved he has what it takes to become a GC candidate, and with the likes of João Almeida, Brandon McNulty and Rafał Majka at his side, there’s no reason he can’t win one. 

The Spaniard has said he’d like to test himself in the Ardennes next spring, before targeting the Vuelta once again. This time, he’ll be hoping to swap his third place for the top step. 

Thymen Arensman 

Also impressing at this year’s Vuelta was Dutchman Thymen Arensman. Then riding in the colours of Team DSM, Arensman charged up the overall standings in the final week, with a win on the race’s queen stage atop Sierra Nevada. He eventually finished sixth on GC - his best ever three-week performance. 

In 2023, Arensman will move to Ineos Grenadiers as a readymade Grand Tour rider, replacing the departing Richard Carapaz, who is off to EF Education-EasyPost. Though it’s uncertain if he’ll get the chance to lead the team, he certainly has the pedigree to challenge for a podium. 

Josh Tarling

Joining Arensman at Ineos next season will be 18-year-old Josh Tarling. The teenager’s signing was announced back in August, and at the Road World Championships month later, he showcased exactly why he was such a sought after talent. 

In Wollongong, Australia Tarling stormed to his first ever rainbow jersey, winning the junior men’s time trial by 19 seconds. He was then tipped for victory in the road race, but a nasty crash sadly forced him to abandon.

The Welshman won all four time trials he competed in in 2022, so keep an eye on him against the clock next season.  

Zoe Bäckstedt

Zoe Bäckstedt is a once in a generation talent. At just 18 years old, she currently holds four junior world titles across four different disciplines and was crowned Cycling Weekly’s female rider of the year for 2022. 

Bäckstedt started the year strongly, claiming her first cyclo-cross rainbow jersey in Fayetteville, Arkansas. She then travelled to Tel Aviv in the summer where she won gold on the track in the Madison with her partner Grace Lister. 

Her crowning achievement, however, came in September when she did the double at the Road World Championships, taking the junior road and time trial titles. In fact, Bäckstedt’s winning margins in both events were the highest ever recorded in the junior ranks at the championships. 

Next season, the teenager will join American team EF Education-TIBCO-SVB as she looks to find her feet on the WorldTour. She might not win as often as she’s used to, but she’s certain to try a few trademark long-range attacks. 

Sam Watson

21-year-old Sam Watson is the latest Brit to sign a WorldTour contract with French team Groupama FDJ, following in the footsteps of Jake Stewart and Lewis Askey.

This June, Watson earned himself the under-23 British road title at the National Championships in the south west of Scotland. Having broken away from the pack, the then 20-year-old almost took the elite men’s title, but couldn’t get round former world champion Mark Cavendish in a dash to the line. 

Groupama FDJ don’t shy away from throwing their neo pros into big races, so don’t be surprised to see Watson’s punchy, aggressive style light up the Classics.

Alice Towers

Alice Towers was another rider who burst onto the scene at the British National Championships, powering through blustery winds and torrential downpours to take the biggest win of her career. 

Then just 19 years old, Towers launched a brave solo attack in the women’s elite road race and rode 40km on her own to the finish. On the podium, she swapped her sodden team jersey for a brand new national champion’s one. 

Next season, Towers will step up to cycling’s highest level with Canyon-SRAM, a team that’s likely to allow her to race in her favoured offensive way. Donning her special red, white and blue jersey, she won’t be hard to spot in the bunch. 

Arnaud de Lie

In what was a disappointing 2022 season for Lotto Soudal, young Belgian talent Arnaud De Lie provided a much-needed ray of hope. The 20-year-old sprinter managed eight victories in his debut season with the WorldTour squad, with all of them coming in important one-day races. 

In fact, De Lie was so consistent this year that he finished the season sixth in the UCI points rankings, ahead of the likes of Mathieu van der Poel, Tom Pidcock and Julian Alaphilippe. 

Though Lotto Soudal are set to be relegated to ProTeam level, De Lie will still get a lot of big opportunities on his programme for 2023. Could a first Grand Tour stage win be waiting for him? 

Niamh Fisher-Black 

Team SD Worx’s Niamh Fisher-Black is already maturing into one of the finest climbers in the women’s peloton. The diminutive New Zealander had her strongest season yet in 2022, winning the youth classifications at the Giro Donne and Itzulia Women, before going on to become the under-23 road world champion in Wollongong, Australia. 

With team-mate Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio moving on to AG Insurance-NXTG for 2023, there’s space at SD Worx for a new GC talent to come to the fore, and the coaches won’t need to look far for a replacement. Fisher-Black’s results show that she’s the obvious fit. 

Mattias Skjelmose Jensen

Danish cycling is booming at the moment, and Copenhagen-born Mattias Skjelmose Jensen is one of those riding the wave.

The 22-year-old Trek Segafredo rider completed his first Grand Tour in 2022, finishing a commendable 40th at the Giro d’Italia. The shorter stage races proved more fruitful for him, though, with victory in the Skoda Tour Luxembourg, as well as podiums at the Tour de la Provence, Tour de l’Ain and his native Tour of Denmark. 

A Grand Tour podium might be a stretch too far for Skjelmose Jensen for now, but a top 10 could certainly be on the cards in 2023. 

As her father and 2004 Paris-Roubaix winner Magnus potters around behind her, Zoe Bäckstedt struggles to pinpoint exactly what it is that makes her so much better than other 18-year-olds. She does, after all, have not one but four world titles to her name right now. 

“Honestly, I couldn’t tell you,” she tells Cycling Weekly from her winter home in the Flemish countryside. “I get part of my cycling skills from my parents, obviously my dad winning Roubaix, my mum being national road champion, things like that.”

“It’s useful having a cycling family as my background, but I put a lot of hard work into my riding, training and racing.”

Bäckstedt doesn’t get an off-season like other riders. For her, the racing never really stops.  

“If I were just a road rider, I’d probably have a month off and then go to Spain or somewhere sunny for a really long training camp,” she says. 

But she’s more than just a road rider. Each year, when the nights begin to draw in, Bäckstedt’s focus shifts to cyclo-cross, her favourite discipline. Her face lights up as she begins to explain the joys of cold mornings spent racing through mud. 

“I just love it,” she says. “I embrace the pure grit and grime of Belgian winter and basically just layer up.”

“It’s like two degrees in the middle of a field in Belgium somewhere and you’re like ‘Why am I here?’ But yeah, I just love it.”

Over the past month, the teenager has been so busy border hopping between races that she’s barely had a chance to reflect on her season. When she does, she’ll realise that 2022 was special. Even by her high standards. 

Bäckstedt opened the year by winning her first Junior Cyclo-cross World Championships in Fayetteville, Arkansas, breaking away from the rest of the field on the opening lap. In August, she travelled to Tel Aviv, Israel, where she claimed the junior Madison world title on the track with her partner Grace Lister. 

When asked what her favourite race of the season was, though, she barely stops to take a breath. “I’ve got to say road Worlds,” she replies. “Probably the road race and the time trial, doing the double.”

In September, a week after completing a clean sweep at the three-stage Watersley Ladies Challenge, Bäckstedt headed to Wollongong, Australia, as the clear favourite for both events. She was the defending junior road world champion, and had only missed out on the gold in the time trial by 10 seconds the year before. 

As the hype built up around her and expectation grew larger, Bäckstedt took no notice. Instead, she was out doing what she does best. Preparing. 

“I’d done a lot of studying, let’s say. I’d done my homework on the TT course. I’d been watching GoPro laps from months before. I GoPro’d the lap myself, so I watched that back twice before I raced and I had basically commentated my whole way through the lap. Just saying what gear I was in, power, which side of the road was better, down to…” She pauses. “I’d nailed it.”

When the teenager showed the footage to her coach Emma Trott, sister of five-time Olympic gold medallist Laura Kenny, it was met with astonishment. “She was like ‘I don’t get how you do it’,” Bäckstedt says. “I was just riding along and basically screaming at my GoPro at the side of me.”

Rolling down the start ramp, the Brit knew she’d have to ride hard to avoid the disappointment of the previous year. So she tore hell for leather, hurtling towards the first time check quicker than elite women’s race winner Ellen van Dijk had gone two days previously. 

“I was literally going full gas to that time check,” Bäckstedt says. “I knew that once I had gotten myself up the climb, there was a little bit of respite with the downhill. Then it was full gas to the finish.”

Back home in South Wales, with the clock nearing 2am, her parents watched on nervously from their living room. As their youngest child thundered around the course, Magnus and Meg grew more agitated, rising up out of the family sofa to stand closer to the television. Watching her daughter descend, Meg’s heart rate rose to 155 beats per minute. 

“I think that was probably higher than my heart rate, if I’m honest,” the 18-year-old laughs. “I think she gets more nervous for races than I do.”

Four days later, Meg would have to battle her nerves again, this time watching Zoe's defence of her road race title. 

“In recon, I said to my teammates, if it’s dry on the course, you don’t need to break in the corners on the downhill,” the teenager says. “That’s pretty much what I did, apart from one corner, for the whole first descent. I looked back as we went over the first climb and there was a bit of a gap. So I was like ‘Well, we’re like three, four, five riders here, let’s push on and see what happens.’”

The Brit ended up spending just 15 minutes alongside her rivals in the race. With 58km to go, she roared off the front - something she has a real habit of doing - and was never seen again. Her winning margin of 2-07 was the largest ever recorded in the junior ranks, and the victory was made even sweeter by it coming on her 18th birthday.

“I had a lot of people saying happy birthday to me up Mount Pleasant. I’m like absolutely dying, chewing my stem, and they sing happy birthday?” she laughs, starting to sing the sombre tune. “That’s not motivational at all!”

As she rode down the finishing straight in Wollongong, Bäckstedt’s face was awash with tears. “I came across the finish line and I just kind of got a bit emotional,” she says. “I was 18 and crossing the line to win my fifth world title. I was like, 'Wow,' I felt quite proud of myself in that moment. Probably a kilometre out I started welling up, and then just that last 100m, it was crazy.”

The warm welcome she received at the roadside also took hold of her. “Apparently the Austalians love the Brits,” Bäckstedt laughs. “Down the whole finishing straight people were shouting for me, every single lap, anywhere I was on the course, just shouting for me.”

With a birthday and two new rainbow jerseys to celebrate, Bäckstedt toasted her successes as any adult would. “Obviously I had a little bit of champagne,” she says. “I basically spent the evening with my sister and the rest of the elite women and the junior women. And that was about it, if I’m honest. Just having a chill time, you know?” 

It’s a wonder Bäckstedt finds the time to relax between racing and training, but she does. Asked what she likes to do outside of cycling, she answers bluntly. “Netflix,” she says, making her father chuckle in the background. “Dad and I just finished How to Get Away with Murder, and now we’re watching Shooter.

“We watched eight episodes of this one series yesterday. What was it called? It was something about houses, buying million dollar houses, and Dad was just like, 'Whoa,' and I was like, 'Whoa.' We finished one season, like the whole thing, in half a day.” 

Next year, the teenager will get to spend more time with her father, with both of them joining the women’s WorldTour, albeit for rival teams. While Zoe dons the bright pink of EF Education-TIBCO-SVB, Magnus will be part of the race cavalcade as Canyon-SRAM’s lead sports director.

“This guy is going to get it!” she says, scrunching up her face to look tough. “No, I’m kidding. It’ll be interesting. Obviously I can’t now go to Dad and text him and be like, ‘Oh, this is what our plan is.’ And he can’t ask me.

“Mum is the neutral now for me, Dad and Elynor [Zoe’s sister who rides for Trek-Segafredo]. She’s the mastermind who knows all the team plans at the moment.”

Today, as the junior world champion prepares to take her first steps in the senior ranks, she seems relaxed. She knows many are forecasting big things, but that doesn’t faze her one bit. “There’s no pressure on me to go straight in and get results,” Bäckstedt says. “Coming up from a junior and doing that in your first year is virtually impossible.

“I’m just here to help out the team, hope they can get some results and just find who I am. I really look forward to what’s to come next season.”

This interview originally appeared in Cycling Weekly magazine on 1 December. Subscribe now and never miss an issue in 2023. 

Quadruple junior world champion Zoe Bäckstedt believes it will be “virtually impossible” for her to continue her winning ways next season, when she steps up to the women’s WorldTour for the first time. 

The 18-year-old will join the senior ranks with EF Education-TIBCO-SVB in 2023, having signed a professional contract with the American team back in August. 

Speaking to Cycling Weekly in an exclusive interview in this week's print edition as we named her our female rider of the year, Bäckstedt said she “can’t wait” to start racing.

“The first couple of years are basically there for me to find who I am as a rider,” she added. “There’s not as much pressure for me to go straight in and give results.”

This year, the Brit added four new rainbow jerseys to her collection, claiming junior world titles in cyclo-cross and Madison, before going on to win the road race and individual time trial double at the Road World Championships in Wollongong, Australia.

Asked if she hopes to add to her palmarès in 2023, Bäckstedt said: “Coming up from a junior and doing that in your first year is virtually impossible. 

“I’m just there to help out the team, hope they can get some results and just find who I am.”

In 2022, the teenager raced three times as a trainee for EF Education-TIBCO-SVB and enjoyed her new domestique role. 

“It’s not something I’ve done before,” she said, “having to navigate going back through the peloton to the cars, things like that. I really look forward to what’s to come next season.” 

After Bäckstedt's double victory at the Road World Championships in September, her coach Emma Trott was quick to play down expectations of the 18-year-old's future. 

"[Bäckstedt’s goal] will be to learn the ropes in regards to new bike races," Trott told Cycling Weekly, "different distances, different speeds.

"My perspective is not to expect a great deal from her [next season], so that the pressure is not on her so she can learn and develop in her own time.

Zoe Bäckstedt is Cycling Weekly’s female rider of the year for 2022. For a more in-depth look at her season - including an exclusive interview - pick up a copy of this week’s magazine, out 1 Dec. 

Tom Pidcock and Zoe Bäckstedt have been crowned Cycling Weekly's male and female riders of the year, an award given to the season's best British talents. 

Having both won rainbow jerseys at the cyclo-cross World Championships in January, the duo went on to enjoy success on the road, with Pidcock shining on his Tour de France debut, and Bäckstedt completing the junior double at the Road World Championships. 

Below is a list of the winners celebrated in Cycling Weekly's 2022 awards. For more information, including exclusive interviews with both Pidcock and Bäckstedt, pick up a print copy of the magazine today. 

You can also subscribe onlineand get the magazine delivered direct to your door every week.

Male rider of the year - Tom Pidcock

This season, the 23-year-old grappled with the Classics, won the queen stage at the Tour de France and took home the rainbow jersey at the cyclo-cross World Championships. 

His personal highlight this season was his awe-inspiring Alpine coup in July, when he attacked on the descent of the Galibier and powered solo through Alpe d’Huez’s mythic hairpins. “Nobody was expecting that in the Tour, were they?” Pidcock told Cycling Weekly with a grin in the interview.

Female rider of the year - Zoe Bäckstedt

Zoe Bäckstedt is a once in a generation talent. At just 18 years old, she currently holds four junior world titles across four disciplines: Madison, cyclo-cross, road, and time trial. 

Her crowning achievement this season came in September, when she did the double at the Road World Championships in Wollongong, Australia, taking the junior road and time trial titles in spectacular fashion. In fact, Bäckstedt’s winning margins in both events were the highest ever recorded in the junior ranks at the championships. 

International rider of the year - Annemiek van Vleuten

No other rider has been as dominant as Annemiek van Vleuten in 2022. The Dutchwoman’s season has been one of staggering consistency, and has seen her win a Monument, four stage races and a rainbow jersey. 

in July, at the age of 39, Van Vleuten blew away the competition at the inaugural Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, finishing 3-48 ahead of second-placed Demi Vollering. “It’s not normal what she did,” the SD Worx rider said of her compatriot after the race. 

Rising star - Leo Hayter

2022 proved a breakthrough year for 21-year-old Leo Hayter. The Brit won the seven-day Baby Giro, claiming two stage wins in the process, and earned himself a bronze medal in the under-23 time trial at the World Championships. 

Next year, Hayter will ride alongside his brother, Ethan, on the WorldTour for Ineos Grenadiers. In an interview published in today’s Cycling Weekly magazine, the South Londoner said he believes he can be “on top level” against the world’s best. 

Outstanding achievement - Dan Bigham

When Ineos Grenadiers brought in Dan Bigham as an aerodynamicist, his duty was clear: knock the Hour Record into oblivion. In August, the 31-year-old completed the feat himself, before turning his attention to help team-mate Filippo Ganna further his own benchmark. 

The Italian ended up shelving the record at 56.792km, leaving Bigham to celebrate with a "dream" victory in the team pursuit at the Track World Championships. 

Domestic rider of the year - Jacob Scott

The WiV-Sungod rider is currently the number one ranked domestic male rider in the UK, having taken five victories and the National Criterium Series title. He also narrowly missed out on the top spot of the National Road Series, finishing second to his namesake and team-mate Robert Scott. 

Club of the year - Halesowen CC

Founded in 1939, the West Midlands-based cycling club perfectly combines racing with community spirit. Halesowen CC have become known for their kaleidoscopic Mapei kits and outstanding academy, coached by volunteers at the club’s outdoor velodrome.

Local heroes - Bridget and Ian Boon 

Bridget and Ian Boon’s first date was a 200km ride on a tandem. Over the past four years, they’ve become legendary timekeepers, officiating 15 Road Records Association events, including Michael Broadwith’s successful Land’s End to John O’Groats attempt. 

Lifetime achievement - Sean Yates

In 2012, former Team Sky DS Sean Yates helped Bradley Wiggins to the first ever British Tour de France win. The Brit's other successes include stage wins at the Tour and Vuelta, a national road championships and launching his own coaching company, Sean Yates coaching. 

Zoe Bäckstedt has the world at her feet. The Welsh teenager was the only rider to take home two rainbow jerseys from this year’s World Championships, winning the junior women’s individual time trial and road race. 

Not only that, but she won both titles in resounding fashion. Her winning margins of 1-36 and 2-07 were the largest ever seen in the junior ranks at the Worlds. 

As Bäckstedt now prepares for her WorldTour debut with EF Education-TIBCO-SVB, British Cycling coach Emma Trott was quick to play down expectations. 

“[Bäckstedt’s goal] will be to learn the ropes in regards to new bike races," Trott told Cycling Weekly, "different distances, different speeds.

“My perspective is not to expect a great deal from her, so that the pressure is not on her so she can learn and develop in her own time.”

The British Cycling coach was in the team car on Saturday when the 18-year-old stormed to victory in the junior women’s road race, having attacked just nine kilometres after the flag drop. When asked if she expected to see such a dominant performance, Trott responded: "I'd sound cocky if I said yes. 

"But barring accident, injury or illness, I was confident that yes, that was possible.

“Once she was gone, it was one of those... She’s the best time trialist in the world, isn’t she? I know what she’s capable of in terms of being able to hold stable power over a period of time.

“How you see Zoe on the bike and racing is actually like her attitude and her personality coming out. It’s kind of her painting her picture as she races. I think if you allow her to grow in a fashion that is slow and sustainable, actually, she’ll end up painting those pictures for more years, rather than two years and we’ve burned a young bike rider out.”

Next year, Trott will continue to train Bäckstedt as she makes the step-up to the WorldTour. Their relationship is often credited as being central to the teenager's success, which now sees her hold four world titles in four different disciplines. 

"We trust each other," said Trott. "She trusts me and I trust that she does the work as well. I think that’s really key to the whole thing.

“We’ve got our own goals and our own agendas, but that will stay between us for the time being.”

Even by her own standards, Zoe Bäckstedt’s ride in this morning’s World Championships junior road race was special. 

The Welsh rider spent just 15 minutes alongside her rivals on her 18th birthday, before she broke free on a descent and powered alone to victory in Wollongong, Australia. It was the dominant display many expected of her before the race, and one that solidified her status as one of the sport's most promising young talents. 

Throughout the race, Bäckstedt navigated the 67.2km course with ease, looking as assured in the corners as she did on the challenging ascents of the steep Mount Pleasant Road. As she came across the line, she sat up and wiped the tears from her eyes, smiling as she toasted a winning margin of over two minutes. 

France’s Eglatine Rayer took the silver medal ahead of Dutch 18-year-old Nienke Vinke in a two-up sprint for second place.   

The course comprised four laps of a 17km circuit that was almost identical to the one where Bäckstedt won the junior women's individual time trial on Tuesday. 

Speaking after her victory in the road race, Bäckstedt revealed that she hadn't originally planned to attack so early. 

"I planned to with a lap to go, or something like that, and I came over the climb the first time and I felt really good," the 18-year-old said. "I was climbing at the front which, for a climb like that and for me, the rider I am, is not predicted. 

"I was in tears from a kilometre to go. There were so many people out on the course shouting my name and happy birthday, especially on the climb. That's where I needed it the most." 

Last year in Leuven, Bäckstedt claimed her first road world title, pipping her breakaway companion Kaia Schmid in a sprint to the line. Since then she has enjoyed a commanding season on the junior circuit, notably winning the Tour of Flanders by a minute back in May. 

Bäckstedt continued her fine form right up to this year's World Championships. Earlier this month, she completed a clean sweep at the Watersley Challenge juniors race, where she won the overall title as well as all three stages and the mountains classification jersey. 

The Welsh rider, who also holds junior world titles in cyclocross and the Madison, will race on the WorldTour for EF Education-TIBCO-SVB next year. 

Results

UCI road world championships 2022 - women's junior road race (67.2km)

1. Zoe Bäckstedt (GBr), in 1-47-05
2. Eglantine Rayer (Fra), at 2-07
3. Nienke Vinke (Ned), at same time
4. Francesca Pellegrini (Ita), at 2-19
5. Maho Kakita (Jap)
6. Julia Kopech (Cze)
7. Eleonora Ciabocco (Ita)
8. Xaydee van Sinaey (Bel)
9. Alizée Rigaux (Fra)
10. Noëlle Rüetschi (Swi), all at 2-21

On Tuesday morning, Michael Tarling watched from a hotel room in Poland as his 18-year-old son, Josh, won his first world title.

Josh's mother, Dawn, and younger brother, Finlay, were at the race in Wollongong, Australia. Ten thousand miles west, his father was on a work trip in Eastern Europe, readying himself for the day ahead with the logistics company he joined just a few weeks prior.  

“I came into the office late,” Michael told Cycling Weekly. “I told everyone I wasn’t going to be here until around about 11 o’clock.” 

That morning, Michael had been wide awake, eyes glued to the television as his son thundered through the winding time trial circuit. 

“I had Eurosport plugged into the hotel tele and the live timing from Tissot on my phone trying to work out where he was,” Michael said. “Fin and Dawn were sending us updates on the family WhatsApp group as to how it was going.

“Fin was in the media car following him with Mark Renshaw so he was having a whale of a time watching.

“It looked like it was all going really good until the final time check. I think he lost about six seconds. We were a bit heart in mouth and the WhatsApp group was going backwards and forwards about whether he could hold on. But he had it all in control in the end, bless him.” 

Josh averaged over 49km/h around the 28.8km course, taking the rainbow jersey in the junior men's individual time trial by 19 seconds.

“He said afterwards that when he caught Jens Verbrugghe, who was in front of him, he thought he was probably going a little bit too hard so backed off and maybe backed off a little bit too much. But I think he did that to give us all a bit of a scare in the end. There were a few tears once he crossed the line.

“I must admit," Michael continued, "I’m probably not as focused as I should be on this trip, that’s for sure.”

The view from Wales

Earlier that same morning, at 1:46am UK time, Magnus and Meg Bäckstedt watched nervously from their family sofa in South Wales as their daughter, Zoe, rolled down the start ramp in the junior women’s individual time trial.

“I never actually went to bed,” Magnus told Cycling Weekly. “At about half past 10, 11 o’clock, I started feeling a bit butterfly-y.”

Last year, when Zoe crossed the line first in the junior road race, Magnus fell silent in his TV commentary role. A video released later that day showed the Paris-Roubaix winner sobbing as he celebrated in the commentary booth. This year, he said, the emotions were back. 

“We were both standing up in front of the television last night,” Magnus said. “We had one or two points where [Zoe] was descending, taking one of the corners in the skis and full gas. [Meg] was like ‘oh my god, my heart rate’s going up so high.’ So she looked and she was like 155 beats per minute.” 

Over in Wollongong, Zoe made racing look easy. The 17-year-old ended up winning by a margin of over 90 seconds, earning her a fourth world title in as many disciplines.

“I think the ride was something special, in terms of performance and everything that goes with it, you know, the pressure before the race to deal with being the outright favourite.

“I don’t know how she does it,” Magnus added.

In the early hours of Saturday morning, Zoe will be the favourite once again as she looks to retain her title in the junior road race. With his eldest daughter Elynor competing in the women’s elite event afterwards at 3:45am, Magnus isn’t expecting to sleep a wink. 

“We’ve got a few friends and family coming round to watch it,” he said. “I think it will be an all nighter for us all to watch both of the girls do their racing.”

Michael Tarling, too, is planning a family affair for when his son Josh takes the start line in Friday’s junior men’s road race. “I’m landing in the afternoon and driving home,” Michael said. “Then I’ll probably go and watch it with his grandparents, my mother in law and father in law. They’re not too far away, so we’ll watch it together, I think.”

After dominating the junior women's time trial at the World Championships on Tuesday, Zoe Bäckstedt is now looking forward to the road race on Saturday.

She will start the event not only as defending champion, but as the favourite for the crown for a second year running, such is her form. 

The Welsh rider put over 90 seconds into her nearest rival, Justyna Czapla of Germany, in Tuesday's event, showing how far ahead of her peers she is. 

It might be a case of the other national teams joining forces in an attempt to negate the 17-year-old's power over the 67.2km course around Wollongong. However, Bäckstedt sounds ready for the race.

“It’s going to be a tough one; I’m looking forward to it," she said after her victory on Tuesday. "Now I know what the course is like under a full gas effort, obviously we have a couple more climbs but it’s going to be interesting and fun and very early in the morning! 

"From the time trial course, I think the road course suits me, but there’s some steeper climbs put in for the road race, it’s a little longer, there’s some more corners, so anything could happen on the day as well.”

While the route might be under 70km for the junior women, there are still 998 metres of altitude to be gained over it, which is mainly because of the four ascents of Mount Pleasant.

Not only is Bäckstedt the defending road race champion, and now the world champion in the junior time trial, but also the junior world champion in cyclocross and in the Madison on the track. A four-time world champion at present, casually. 

Tuesday was also a great day for Wales, with the winner of the men's junior time trial, Josh Tarling, also hailing from west of the Severn Bridge.

“I planned to try and get under 20 minutes. That was our goal,” Backstedt explained in the mix-zone after she had been presented with her second rainbow jersey on the road.

"This year I knew that I wanted to win it and came in hoping to win it and I pulled it out of the bag on the day," she continued.

“Basically because it was only 14 kilometres, I planned to just go as hard as possible for the whole thing because there was a couple of descents and then through the corners you can recover as wel. Any moment where you could put power down it was going as hard as possible to try and get my best time.”

Despite it looking like it, it was "far from easy" for the rider from south Wales, she said.

"My coach had told me [from] the car that if I kept going as I was, I would win. And I crossed the line and I was pretty sure I was up, I was trying to look up at the board,” she said. “I came in aiming for a sub 20 [minute time], and I ended up with 18:30, so wow.

“It was far from easy, if I’m honest. We rode it [the course] on recon day and I was riding with some of the pros and getting some advice and having fun on it. I came into it knowing the climb was going to be tough. Being the last person off I had already seen some of the times at the half-way point and at the finish. I just kept pushing and pushing.”

The one shame for Bäckstedt is that the junior women's TT, which was 20km shorter than the elite equivalent, was on a different course, which left her unable to compare her effort with those riders already on the Women's WorldTour. She will join EF Education-TIBCO-SVB on a professional basis next season.

“I would have loved it if the elites had done the same lap as we had, and they had just done two laps or something like that, so I could kind of compare times," she said.

"But yeah, I mean, it gives me some good markers for how I'm going and hopefully next year I'll get some good time trials in on the road. “But I reckon I could have done a decent time in the elites, but we'll never know because obviously conditions are different. They do longer, you have to pace it differently and everything like that. So I can't fully say."

Zoe Bäckstedt has signed a full-time WorldTour contract with EF Education-TIBCO-SVB, just one race after the team signed her as a trainee for the rest of the 2022 season. 

The 17-year-old clearly impressed at the CIC-Tour Féminin International des Pyrénées as she helped the team win the opening stage team time trial, before working to secure Krista Doebel-Hickok the overall victory. 

Currently the junior world champion in both cyclocross and on the road, Bäckstedt confirmed she will race both disciplines with her new team, something that enticed her to sign with the American squad. 

“It makes life a heck of a lot easier, if I’m being honest, than racing for two teams," she said. "There, you get the problem of being pulled in one direction for a road training camp but you get pulled into the cyclocross season and then nothing tends to coordinate. 

"But with EF Education-Tibco-SVB, I can do road and then I can switch to cross and do cross for as long as I want to, as many races as I want to and then I can take a break and go back onto the road. That approach of ‘you do what you want to do and we’ll make it work.’ I get to do a full cross season like I want to and I get to race on the road like I want to.”

As well as being accomplished on both the road and in cyclocross - she finished the most recent cyclocross season with 10 victories while riding for Belgian cyclo-cross development squad Acrog-Tormans as a junior - Bäckstedt is also a successful track rider.

At the 2021 European junior track championships, she secured gold medals in the individual pursuit, team pursuit and Madison. 

This isn't a surprise, though, when considering how ingrained cycling is within her family. After all, she is the younger sister of current Trek-Segafredo rider Elynor Bäckstedt, as well as the daughter of two former cyclists, too.

“My dad [Magnus Bäckstedt] won Paris-Roubaix [in 2004] so for as long as I can remember, he’s ridden a bike. My mum [Megan Hughes] was the British national champion in the road race and has a track bronze medal in the sprint as a junior. My sister has Worlds medals and now rides in the WorldTour," she explained.

"Cycling is in my blood."

Bäckstedt was courted by multiple teams but found what she wanted at EF Education-Tibco-SVB.

“I spoke with a couple of other teams. I had a Zoom call with Linda [Jackson], the team owner. Just the way I was speaking with her, the way she was speaking with me, how we got along, it seemed to work," Bäckstedt said.

"I went downstairs after that call and I said to my dad, ‘That’s my team. I want to sign for them.’ Just the whole vibe was what I wanted. Linda let me be myself, she was herself. I think we clicked a little bit then. I felt good, I felt confident. 

"I looked at some of the riders on the team already. The likes of Abi Smith, I already knew. Lizzy Banks, too. I know a couple of people within the team already so it's nice to know that if I find it a little bit hard the first couple of times, I still have someone I can talk to that I know already that can help me out.”

Clearly, EF Education-TIBCO-SVB are just as excited to have Bäckstedt continue her development with the team. A rider with plenty of potential, founder and owner Linda Jackson spoke glowingly about providing the best opportunities for her to excel at the elite level. 

“Zoe is an incredible up and coming talent in both road and cross and I believe that we will provide a great home for her across both disciplines," Jackson said. 

"Spotting new talent has always been our strength, but the addition of EF Education First as a co-title partner now enables us to provide the infrastructure and support that riders like Zoe need to progress into top elite level riders. 

"We have been working on a CX program for Clara Honsinger, so the addition of Zoe to this effort was a natural fit. Our goal is to provide Zoe with the supportive environment that she needs as she steps up to the elite level.”

Multi-discipline junior world champion Zoe Bäckstedt has signed with EF Education-TIBCO-SVB as a trainee and will start racing in the pink kit starting August 1, 2022. 

The 17-year-old multitalent is a star on the rise, having won the junior women’s road race at the 2021 UCI Road World Championships where she also earned the silver medal in the junior women’s time trial. She then went on to win her second world junior title just months later, this time at the 2022 UCI Cyclo-cross World Championships.

Additionally, Bäckstedt is a three-time European junior track champion and a junior European cyclo-cross champion as well.  

After taking a short break following her rainbow ride at the Cyclo-cross World Championships, Bäckstedt won two of the three stages, the overall classification, and the points jersey at the EPZ Omloop van Borsele.

“As the current Junior World Champion in both road and cyclocross, Zoe is clearly very talented,” said Linda Jackson, founder and owner of EF Education-TIBCO-SVB in a press release. 

“Our goal is to support her overall development and nurture her growing talent. I am so excited at the prospect of what we are going to achieve together.”

EF Education-TIBCO-SVB is an American-registered team with an active racing calendar in both Europe and the US, on road as well as dirt, including the Life Time Grand Prix series. Veronica Ewers, another developing rider, has been blossoming as part of the team’s development program. She’s earned herself a guest-riding spot in 2021 and has been earning her now-pro spot ever since with outstanding performances at Festival Elsy Jacobs, Itzulia Women and Navarra Women’s Elite Classics.

It was this opportunity to develop as a road racer while continuing to compete in multiple disciplines that appealed to Bäckstedt.

"I'm so excited to be joining Women's WorldTour team EF Education-TIBCO-SVB as a trainee and I can't wait to start racing for them later this year. I love their multi-discipline approach to cycling,” she said.

“Plus I'm looking forward to wearing the best kit in the peloton.”

A product of a cycling family, Bäckstedt comes from quite the cycling pedigree. Her father, Magnus Bäckstedt, is a Swedish former professional road race and time trial champion who’s career highlights include winning Le Samyn, a stage at the Tour de France and the 2004 Paris-Roubaix. Her mother, Megan Hughes, a former professional track and road racing cyclist who won the 1998 British National Road Race and the Welsh National Road Race Championships in 1999. 

Her older sister, Elynor Megan Bäckstedt, currently races for the UCI Women's WorldTeam Trek–Segafredo.