'I got left out' - How one contractless pro is fighting to get back to the WorldTour

If you've followed cycling over the last few years, you'll almost certainly know the name Lukas Pöstlberger. He's a Giro d’Italia stage winner, a two-time Austrian road champion, and he wore the yellow jersey at the Critérium du Dauphiné for four days in 2021. Now, aged 32, he finds himself in a tight spot.

Without a team, Pöstlberger is racing the Tour of the Alps this week for his national squad. It's just his second road race of the season, his first this year at pro level, and the stakes are high. A good performance, he feels, will help him get back into the pro ranks, a tier from which he fell at the end of last year. 

"There was a little bit of a miscommunication with [Jayco AlUla] last year," he told Cycling Weekly ahead of the first stage. After seven years at Bora-Hansgrohe, Pöstlberger joined the Australian squad in 2023, where he stayed for just one year, before he got "left out". 

"My management and their management have a different approach of doing things," he said. "I really wanted to stay, and then I got left out. I don't want to blame anybody specific, but it played a part that some Australians wanted to come back to the team and be competitive there. There was a spot to fill when they left me out, and some local guys had the benefit of it."

"I tried to get in touch with other teams, but at the end of September, it's really hard to get anything going. I had to find a different solution and try myself as a privateer, maybe bridge a year and get back to the WorldTour next year."

At the Tour of the Alps, Pöstlberger doesn't have the luxury of a plush team bus. He's travelling from stage to stage in the Austrian squad's white minivan, and racing on a blue Lapierre bike, the fruits of a personal deal with the brand.

This season, though, he's gotten more used to riding with flat handlebars. "I had to switch to mountain bike," he said, a sport he hadn't done since he was 11 years old. "It's much easier to get into a hard race in mountain bike nowadays. It's been a bit of an adventure I’d say, but it's good preparation.

"It's a different approach when you have to do all the organisation and the supporting and the planning for yourself, also to be competitive and reach the level the others are at. They have a lot more racing in their legs, but this maybe plays in my favour."

Today, thanks to his quiet race schedule, Pöstlberger feels fresh and ready to prove himself. He forced his way into the breakaway on stage two of the Tour of the Alps, where he stayed for over 160km, riding on home roads into Austria, before dropping back to the peloton. 

"In the end, I couldn't hold the wheel," he said at the finish, short for words under the Alpine sun. "I tried but I wasn't successful." 

Still, what the Austrian's move did show was a dogged determination, the same attitude that helped him through the winter, and the same one he hopes will land him a contract for 2025. 

"I'm already talking to teams," he said, before adding: "There's nothing concrete. It's a hard business and a tough job. I hope my experience will help me get in touch and stay in cycling." 

With a clear mission at hand, Pöstlberger's back on the radar.