Unbound, Ironman and ski mountaineering: Michael Woods unveils post-WorldTour privateer schedule

Michael Woods isn’t done competing yet. The 39-year-old Canadian retired from the WorldTour at the end of 2025 but his appetite for challenging himself hasn’t faded.

In a reflective blog post published today, the four-time Grand Tour stage winner revealed that he plans to compete in triathlon, gravel racing, mountain bike marathons and ski mountaineering.

"The aim is to see how, after 15 years of building an aerobic base in one sport, I stack up against the best endurance athletes across a number of disciplines," he writes, adding that his calendar will include top-level events like Pierra Menta, Ironman, Leadville and Unbound Gravel.

The announcement comes after a less-than-storybook ending to his WorldTour career. Woods describes it as "a funeral without a casket," with his cycling career feeling "lost at sea."

The former Canadian national champion had hoped to end his time on the WorldTour at the Grand Prix Cycliste de Montréal, a race on home soil that helped launch his career more than a decade earlier. Instead, his final race turned out to be the closing stage of the 2025 Tour de France on a cold, wet Champs-Élysées.

"Crossing the line with Benjamin Thomas at the Tour, I had no idea this would be my last race as a professional cyclist," he writes. "I wasn’t rolling around the Champs-Élysées thinking this was my final pro road race."

That outcome was ultimately decided for him. A long-standing inguinal hernia worsened after the Tour, leaving him unable to train or race. "The pain worsened to the point that riding was no longer viable," he writes, the injury bringing his professional career to an abrupt close.

"Instead of sinking beers on Rue St. Catherine post-race [in Montréal], I found myself sitting at a dinner table in the Shouldice Hernia Hospital with a bunch of men my dad’s age, discussing our impending hernia surgeries and retirements," Woods shares.

A former runner, Woods came to cycling late, joining the WorldTour with Cannondale-Drapac at 29 in 2016. He went on to win stages of the Vuelta a España and Tour de France, along with finishing on the podium at the UCI World Championships and Liège-Bastogne-Liège.

"Since I started cycling at such a late age and never envisioned riding for as long as I did, the idea of retirement was something I was constantly aware of," he says. "Having also lived a life outside of the sport and dealt with the end of another sporting career, I was confident that my retirement would only bring me great satisfaction. Instead, it brought the opposite."

Woods reveals that he had a contract option for another year on the WorldTour but declined it in favour of pursuing his long-held belief that "one of the most beautiful things you can do in life is challenge yourself."

"I want to challenge myself again. I want to put myself outside of my comfort zone and try to compete in and against the best endurance athletes across a range of disciplines," he says.

Through a project titled Way to Race, Woods will test himself against specialists across multiple endurance disciplines. Alongside racing, he plans to document the process through his blog, Instagram and YouTube, exploring questions ranging from how a WorldTour rider fits into the privateer-driven endurance scene to whether the Tour de France truly represents the hardest endurance challenge in sport.

Stay tuned.