“The team trusted me even before Simon Yates retired” – Visma’s new Italian climbing force no quick fix for Yates-sized Giro gap

When Simon Yates’ sudden retirement left a Giro winner-sized hole inside Team Visma | Lease a Bike’s Grand Tour plans, many outside the team assumed the pressure would immediately shift onto the shoulders of the squad’s newest climbing recruit, Davide Piganzoli.

Inside the team, however, things looked very different.

“The team trusted me even before Simon Yates retired,” Piganzoli explained in conversation with Bici.Pro. “They told me I was already an important rider for them and that I would have my space.”

That distinction matters. Because Piganzoli is not being rushed into anything. He is not being positioned as a solution. He is being integrated into a system that already had a clear place for him long before Yates stepped away from the sport.

And that place is alongside Jonas Vingegaard at the Giro d’Italia.

Piganzoli’s first months at Visma have not been what he expected. Not because they have been harder, but because they have been calmer.

“From what I’ve seen so far, there is really very little stress here. You train well, but the right amount,” he said. “If one day it rains, nothing happens. You do some rollers and recover the next day. I honestly did not expect that. That is the thing that struck me the most.”

For a rider coming from a smaller team, the assumption was that a WorldTour superpower would be rigid, intense and uncompromising. Instead, he has found flexibility, dialogue and trust. “It is not just about getting on the bike,” he added. “There is nutrition, gym work, equipment, tactics. Everything is looked at, but without obsessive pressure.”

That environment is part of why he feels ready for what comes next.

Piganzoli’s calendar has him riding Volta a Catalunya with Vingegaard before the Giro. That is no accident. “I will race Catalunya with Jonas and try to understand how he works, how the team works around him,” he explained. “I will go to the Giro with the goal of helping him as much as possible.”

And that responsibility is something he wears with pride.

“If I think that last year I was the leader in a much smaller team, and now a big team asks me to do a very important job for a great captain, I understand that maybe I am worth something and I am on the right path.”

What surprised Piganzoli even more than the training structure was the human side of the team. “I did not expect these champions to be so sociable,” he admitted. “They always have a joke ready. And when they see you a bit on the side, they bring you into the group.”

He recalled one moment during a six-hour training ride that perfectly captured the atmosphere. “Victor Campenaerts even changed the route so we could stop at a bar where they make the best biscuits in the world. I still have the image of all of us taking over the place with the bikes, sitting calmly with the staff.”

It is a small detail, but it explains a lot about why new riders settle quickly inside this team.

While the outside narrative links his opportunity directly to Yates’ departure, Piganzoli himself is clear that the plan was already in place. “Simon is not someone you replace overnight,” he said. “But the team trusted me even before he stopped. They told me I was an important rider for them.”

The Giro was already part of his programme. His role was already defined. The trust was already there.

The only thing that has changed is how visible that role now appears from the outside.

For Piganzoli, being asked to work for Vingegaard is not pressure. It is validation.

“This gives me motivation and the desire to work. To see riders like Vingegaard, Van Aert, and Jorgenson speaking to you during training, treating you like part of the group, it is something I am really proud of.”

He is not trying to fill Yates’ shoes. He is trying to prove that Visma were right to believe in him long before those shoes became vacant.

And that is why he may prove to be far more important to Vingegaard’s Giro ambitions than many realise.