"I want to give myself a deadline" - One of the most experienced men in the peloton confides with thoughts of retirement

In 2025, Alessandro De Marchi will put down in the books his 15th season in professional peloton. At the age of 38, he was able to find a place that feels like a home to him in Jayco AlUla. If it were up to the breakaway specialist, he would have loved to go on racing forever but his body begins to give off a bit. In any case, De Marchi doesn't want to put an end-date on his career, with the decision to be made at the end of spring.

"I want to give myself a deadline," says De Marchi at Bici.pro. "I don't to arrive in October next year and announce that I will stop racing. If, as I imagine it, I will be at the Giro d'Italia, which is the goal of the spring, I want to know that it could be the last. If I decide to stop, I will say so before the start. I think that would be the best way to really experience it fully."

"We're thinking about it," he continues. "Also because there are a series of little things that have forced me to reflect. I didn't want to make a decision now, in the middle of winter and far from the races and the team, so maybe I would have only had a vision. It's a question I'm asking myself and slowly I'm trying to get to an answer. If I had to listen to my heart or my mind, I would go on forever. But there are signals that the body sends you and the mind can go up to a certain point, but it can't turn back time. The twenties won't come back."

De Marchi is not afraid of retiring as much as not being competitive in the races. Therefore he wouldn't want to "just roll along" for a year. "Maybe my worry is not being ready or capable of changing roles. Once you admit this, you can also decide not to get to exhaustion. This is another thing that is very important to me. I would not like to continue just because I have found a contract and stop after a year too long. Luckily here I have someone to talk to. It's about taking stock and making a decision."