“It was a tough period. It completely consumes you” – Derek Gee on transfer uncertainty, pressure and a reset that reshaped his Lidl-Trek move

For a rider who has built his reputation on calm progression and steady learning curves, the past months landed very differently. Derek Gee arrived at his new team late, under a cloud of uncertainty, after a period that sat far outside the neat rhythms of training blocks and race calendars. The racing never stopped in his head, but the future did not feel settled.

“It was a tough period,” Gee admits in conversation with Bici.Pro. “It’s the kind of thing that completely consumes you, because it’s your everyday life.”

That sense of pressure matters because Gee is not a rider changing teams from a position of comfort. His rise into Grand Tour contention came later than the modern pathway usually allows, shaped by a gradual transition from track racing and a short apprenticeship as a general classification rider.

Momentum had finally arrived, then suddenly paused. What followed was not noise or drama, but something quieter and more corrosive: uncertainty.

Even while his situation remained unresolved, Gee describes refusing to let the process stall. “Even when my future was uncertain, I was training hard, knowing that there would be an outcome in the negotiations,” he says. The line reveals less about contracts and more about mindset. Preparation became the constant when everything else felt provisional.

That self-directed approach fits a rider who has never leaned heavily on systems or inherited leadership roles. Gee’s learning curve has been compressed, not smoothed. Two seasons of genuine GC ambition have come after a late turn professional, leaving room to improve but also little margin for drift. When stability disappeared, training became a form of control.

The release only came when the move was complete. “When you arrive at the new team’s training camp, the tension really disappears very quickly,” he says. That relief is an important context. This was not a celebratory switch, but a reset that allowed him to refocus on racing rather than resolution.

Arriving late can unsettle any group, but Gee insists the environment he stepped into felt ready rather than rigid. “Despite arriving incredibly late, I found a very well-organised team,” he says. “I felt integrated very quickly during the December training camp.”

That sense of fit is central to how Gee frames the move. He does not present it as an escape or a rescue, but as a chance to recalibrate. The appeal was ambition, not comfort. “The objective of being in a team like this can only be to aim for the podium,” he says. “I joined this team essentially because they are incredibly ambitious.”

Those ambitions align with how Lidl-Trek now see their stage race future. Gee was brought in with a defined role. “I was brought in to focus on the general classification and try to shift the balance in that direction,” he explains. The clarity contrasts with the months that preceded it.

Gee is candid about how consuming the limbo became, but equally clear that it has not lingered. “So it hasn’t left any scars, and I feel re motivated, ready to return to racing,” he says. That matters because his ambitions are not limited to one race or one season. He still views himself as a work in progress, physically and tactically.

“By today’s standards, I turned professional very late, at 25,” he says. “I’ve only had two years of attempts at riding for the general classification.” The implication is not doubt, but upside. There are no glaring weaknesses, he says, but no single dominant strength either, which leaves small margins to find across every discipline.

The reset at Lidl-Trek is therefore less about starting over and more about removing friction. The uncertainty is gone, the pressure now familiar rather than abstract. What remains is a rider who has already learned how quickly momentum can be interrupted, and how deliberately it must be rebuilt.

For Gee, that perspective may be the most valuable outcome of all.