"If you’re always going to ride against Pogacar, it’s not going to work" - Cian Uijtdebroeks focuses on smaller races and getting the winning feel in 2025
Cycling
Cian Uijtdebroeks was one of the biggest Grand Tour prospects in the peloton and at the end of the 2023 season he was in the spotlight of a shocking transfer between the BORA team and Team Visma | Lease a Bike, with a contract breaking involved. However his first season was cursed with an injury, and in 2025 the Belgian is looking to get back to his level and gain confidence through victories.
It was a year where he was nowhere near the consistency he had shown in the past, and struggled in many races. "... It got worse and worse, to the point where I had no feeling in my legs anymore. The first thing you start thinking is: no blood flow, so maybe there's something wrong with the femoral artery. But in the end, we did scans after the Vuelta and then we saw on the MRI scans that there was a pinched nerve," Uijtdebroeks shared with Wielerflits in Oman.
The entire year was virtually a miss in terms of results, and it hampered his career. But now fully aware and working on the health problem for some months, the 21-year old is looking to show what he is capable of doing.
"I wanted to make a step up from my performance at BORA-hansgrohe in 2023. Last year we noticed in the training that the level was definitely there. What's more, we were even able to improve my VO2 Max," he admits. "We saw positive signals, but in competitions it went wrong. I always collapsed somehow, without my heart rate being really high. Then it was not easy mentally. After that I needed some time to mentally reset".
With Visma packing leaders left and right, Uijtdebroeks will follow a more secondary calendar, where he hopes to take his first pro win, but also be in the fight for wins and get his confidence up. He starts his season as a leader at the Tour of Oman, where he will be a contender for the overall win against the likes of Adam Yates and David Gaudu.
“That’s true. If you’re always going to ride against Pogacar, it’s not going to work, right. That’s why I’m also going to ride some smaller races. Like some one-day races in France that finish on a hill. Those are just races where I get 'carte blanche' and can experiment," he explains. "That story of learning to win is a combination of choosing races and showing courage for me.”
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Rúben SilvaEditor-in-Chief
A founding contributor to CyclingUpToDate since its launch in January 2022, Ruben Silva has played a central role in shaping the site’s editorial direction and long-term growth. Before joining the project, he built his experience through independent blogging at Echelons Hub and by producing race previews for Ciclismo Internacional, developing a strong analytical voice rooted in daily engagement with professional cycling.
Beyond editorial work, he has been closely involved in the expansion and coordination of CyclingUpToDate’s wider network, helping establish and support sister platforms across multiple languages. This includes ongoing collaboration with CiclismoAlDia (Spanish), CiclismoAtual (Portuguese), WielrennenUpToDate (Dutch), and RadsportAktuell (German), contributing to a shared editorial vision and consistent international coverage.
He also helps oversee editorial governance across the network, setting standards for accuracy and consistency and coordinating updates or corrections when needed.
Originally from the Porto metropolitan area in Portugal, he holds a bachelor’s degree in Geography. His path into cycling journalism was shaped not through formal media training, but through independent reporting, community engagement, and sustained on-the-ground involvement in the sport.
Over the course of his career, he has conducted approximately 100 interviews across road cycling and cyclocross, ranging from one-to-one conversations and online formats to press conferences and on-site pre- and post-race coverage. His interviews include leading riders, team managers, and prominent figures within cycling media: Tadej Pogacar, Jonas Vingegaard, Mathieu van der Poel, Primoz Roglic, Wout van Aert, Joao Almeida and Tom Pidcock; managers like Patrick Lefevere and Joxean Matxin; and YouTube personality Bryan Kennedy (BKXC)...
Within 18 months of launch, he helped grow CyclingUpToDate’s English-language platform into one of the most-read cycling news websites, built entirely from the ground up. As both a professional journalist and lifelong cycling enthusiast, his focus remains on delivering accurate, timely, and well-contextualized coverage.
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parisbound0008-11-2026 - there needs to be space in life for pointless comments!Ketterechts08-11-2026
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