“You no longer enjoy it – that is what ruins riders”: Burnout debate grows as Simon Yates walks away

Modern cycling keeps asking more, earlier, and for longer. The calendar is denser, the speeds are higher, and the pressure to be in shape from the very first race of the year has become normal. As surprise retirements stack up, the debate around burnout is no longer theoretical.

When Simon Yates walked away at 33, fresh from winning the 2025 Giro d’Italia and adding a Tour de France stage to his palmares, it sent a jolt through the peloton. “This may come as a surprise to many, but it is not a decision I have made lightly,” he said in his retirement statement. “I have been thinking about it for a long time, and it now feels like the right moment to step away from the sport.”

Yates described a life shaped entirely by cycling. “From racing on the track at the Manchester Velodrome, to competing and winning on the biggest stage and representing my country at the Olympic Games, it has shaped every chapter of my life.” Yet even after a career-defining season, he chose to stop.

Into that wider moment comes a blunt verdict from a newly retired pro who lived through cycling’s biggest recent transformation. Looking back on 16 years in the peloton in conversation with Spazio Ciclismo, Davide Cimolai summed up what he now sees as the central problem of the modern sport: “You no longer enjoy it. That is what ruins riders.”

Cimolai says the change has been sharpest in the last few years, especially since Covid. “Having lived through the radical change of recent years, especially after Covid, I understand that it is tough, both physically and mentally.” What once allowed riders to build gradually through a season now demands instant form. “Once, to prepare for Milano–Sanremo, you arrived at Tirreno–Adriatico at 80 or 90%. Now, at the first race of the year, a good professional has to be in shape; otherwise, you risk not finishing or having longer recovery times.”

That constant readiness, he says, drains more than just the legs. “One thing that ruins riders is that you no longer enjoy it.” For him, the difference was personal and clear. “I realised that I was no longer enjoying racing. Once I used to leave races happy, in recent years… well.”

The pressure does not come only from training and racing. Cimolai points to a quieter change inside teams. “Maybe also because of the abuse of social networks, there is little interaction between riders. There is no longer a real group within the team, like there used to be.” Evenings that once meant shared time now look different. “Otherwise, you shut yourself in your room to watch Netflix and scroll social media. This is a bad thing, and it influences the rider a lot.”

For Cimolai, the decision to stop was also tied to what cycling takes away from life at home. “The first eight years are the most important in forming a child’s character and future, so I want to be there.” He accepts that modern sport makes that choice harder. “With the demands that professionalism now requires, it is very difficult to combine a career with a family if you want to raise your children in a certain way.”

Yates did not frame his own retirement around burnout or family pressure, but he spoke of a life entirely shaped by cycling and of stepping away with “deep pride and a sense of peace.” “This chapter has given me more than I ever imagined,” he wrote. “Memories and moments that will stay with me long after the racing ends and for whatever comes next.”

What links the two stories is timing. Yates left at the peak of his powers. Cimolai says that, in theory, that makes sense. “If I had been a great champion, I wouldn’t have thought twice about retiring at a very high level. I would have done it at the peak of my career, regardless of the stress of cycling.” But he also believes the stress itself has grown. “Now, at the first race of the year, you already have to be in shape.” And beyond form, “you always have to be switched on.”

The physical side has shifted too. “The other reason is that speeds have increased. Getting into the wind now is much more damaging compared to riding in the wind ten years ago.” Race design has followed the same path. “The trend is to put fewer and fewer sprint stages, even in stage races, because according to organisers the public gets bored.”

All of it adds to the same pressure point. “I don’t regret stopping, not even for a second,” Cimolai said of his own choice. “If an offer arrived today, it would be very hard to go back.”

Yates leaves behind a career built on resilience, Grand Tours and finally finishing unfinished business. “I am deeply proud of what I have managed to achieve and equally grateful for the lessons that came with it,” he said. “The harder days and setbacks were just as important.”

But his timing, like a growing list of early departures, keeps fuelling the same question. If riders are leaving younger, even at the top, is the system itself pushing them there?

Cimolai’s answer is simple, and hard to ignore: when racing stops being something you enjoy, “that is what ruins riders.”