Spin Cycle: Off the Lease…

On the cusp of a new season, one of the world’s best teams lost two of its stars through nothing other than an individual’s prerogative. Anthony Tan ponders why it happened and what it means.

The season in Europe hasn’t even started, yet Team Visma | Lease a Bike has already experienced two major losses in a little over two weeks.

And I don’t think they saw either of them coming.

The first bombshell landed into my inbox five days before Christmas, when women’s three-time world cyclo-cross champion, Fem van Empel, decided to “put her professional cycling career on pause for an indefinite period”.

“After a period of intensive discussions and careful consideration, it was mutually agreed with both Team Visma | Lease a Bike and van Empel’s management that, as of January 1 (2026), she will have no further obligations to the team,” read the team statement, sent on November 19 last year.

“In March (2025), she consciously chose to step back from the sport to focus on her mental well-being and manage physical complaints. After this period of rest, she decided not to continue focusing on road cycling and instead work towards a return to cyclocross at the start of the (2025/26) season.

“Although her training and initial races went well, van Empel noticed that the feeling she was seeking did not emerge. During the Koppenbergcross (on November 1), she had to abandon the race because it wasn’t going well at that moment.”

Explained the 23-year-old from The Netherlands: “During the Koppenbergcross, my body and mind gave a very clear signal. I am someone who doesn’t give up easily, but unconsciously, a decision had already formed then. This feels like the right step for me now.”

Then, just seven days into the new year – and having already attended the team’s first pre-season training camp – their defending Giro d’Italia champion, Simon Yates, took things one step further than van Empel: there will be no chance of a return.

“I have made the decision to retire from professional cycling,” said the 33-year-old Briton and twin brother of UAE Team Emirates-XRG rider, Adam.

“This may come as a surprise to many, but it is not a decision I have made lightly. I have been thinking about it for a long time, and it now feels like the right moment to step away from the sport.”

Highly unusual…

In The Move podcast published on December 16, co-host Spencer Martin said that the last time a defending Grand Tour champion chose to retire, it was Lance Armstrong after his since-rescinded Tour de France victory in 2005.

So it’s highly unusual.

Simon enjoyed his best-ever season in 2025, not only claiming overall victory in what was easily the most intriguing and spectacularly-fought Grand Tour of the year, but also nabbing a solo victory on Stage 10 of the Tour de France – one of two stage wins by a Team Visma | Lease a Bike rider at the Tour, the other being Wout van Aert on the Champs-Élysées.

After coming within three days of overall victory in 2018, only to succumb to a rampant solo assault by Chris Froome, his Giro triumph last year must’ve felt like heaven sent. Simon had already won the Vuelta a España in 2018, so, for a Grand Tour rider, there was just one other race to complete the trifecta…

At the end of 2024, however, his move from Jayco AlUla to Team Visma | Lease a Bike was facilitated in large part to support Jonas Vingegaard in the mountains at Le Tour. At Jayco Alula he had already made five attempts to finish on the podium in Paris – 2017, 2019, 2021, 2023, 2024 – where his best result was fourth in 2023.

So, while his statement doesn’t say exactly why he’s chosen to retire, his cycling palmarès is, for the type of rider he was, a very complete one.

Besides his Giro and Vuelta triumphs, he’s won stages in all three Grand Tours and taken overall victories at Tirreno-Adriatico (2020) and the Tour of the Alps (2021); there’s also his 2013 points race victory, achieved at the world track championships in Minsk, Belarus. Simon didn’t seem particularly interested in the Monuments, having ridden only 10 in 12 seasons on the WorldTour – his best result 5th place at the 2023 Il Lombardia.

Yates: “More than I ever imagined”

It could be a reason as simple as this: Simon Yates doesn’t want to spend his entire life in the world of cycling. In other words, he doesn’t want his existence to be defined by cycling alone.

“Cycling has been part of my life for as long as I can remember. 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,” he said.

“I am deeply proud of what I have managed to achieve and equally grateful for the lessons that came with it. While the victories will always stand out, the harder days and setbacks were just as important. They taught me resilience and patience, and made the successes mean even more.”

Nor is he prepared to continue to make the many sacrifices required to be a professional cyclist at the highest level, it seems. “To my family, you shared the sacrifices that came with this sport. The absences and missed birthdays were never easy, yet you understood what this journey meant to me and supported it wholeheartedly. I owe you more than I can ever properly express. Thank you.

“I step away from professional cycling with deep pride and a sense of peace. This chapter has given me more than I ever imagined. Memories and moments that will stay with me long after the racing ends and for whatever comes next.”

Beating The Pog just got harder…

The regret of losing a rider as valuable as Simon Yates – who, at this point of the season, will not be able to be replaced with an equally credentialled rider – is not lost on Team Visma | Lease a Bike’s head sports director, Grischa Niermann. “It is a shame that he is stopping now,” he said, “but he does so at an absolute high point. Simon was an exceptional climber and general classification rider who always delivered when it mattered most. In the (2025) Giro, he peaked at a moment when almost no one expected him to be able to win anymore, which truly characterises him as a rider.”

Undoubtedly, it will make Vingegaard’s already Herculean task of beating Tadej Pogačar at the Tour even harder.

With a winning margin of 6’17 and 4’24 in the last two Tours, respectively – combined with The Pog’s ability to win multiple other races, seemingly at his discretion, without affecting his form in July – there is a strong argument to suggest the Slovenian is, rather absurdly, only getting better, while the 29 year-old Dane is, through injury or otherwise, simply playing a game of catch-up he cannot win. It has only been two-and-a-half years since Jonas won the Tour, yet such has been Pogačar’s dominance, it feels far longer than that.

Coincidence or something else?

Is the fact that van Empel and Simon Yates are from the same team a reflection on Team Visma | Lease a Bike?

I don’t think so. I think it’s purely coincidental.

Since its inception in 2015, known as LottoNL–Jumbo and created from the ashes of the Rabobank pro cycling team (1996-2012), the Dutch-based WorldTour outfit was determined not to adopt a win-at-all-costs mentality. Long-term sponsor Rabobank left because it was “no longer convinced the international professional world of cycling can make this a clean and fair sport”; incoming general manager Richard Plugge insisted history would not repeat itself.

True to his word, in the ensuing 11 seasons, they have not, at least according to my recollection, encountered any major doping scandal, nor have they been accused of unfair conduct. Instead, they have gone on to become one of the top three teams in the UCI WorldTour and currently sit second in the team rankings, only bettered by UAE Team Emirates-XRG, the outfit of the world’s best rider.

Had it not been for The Pog, Team Visma | Lease a Bike would almost certainly have won the last six Tours de France.

It’s fairly clear they did not try to convince Simon to alter his decision – he told us “I have been thinking about it for a long time”, after all.

But with van Empel, 10 years his junior and a professional for just three seasons, the team said they “did everything possible to find a way for her to continue feeling good within the sport. Ultimately, the world champion concluded that it is better for now to take her career in a different direction.”

Said van Empel: “This is a well-considered decision that I feel good about. At the moment, both the motivation and the enjoyment I have had in cycling for years are missing. I wanted to be honest and fair about this with the team. For now, this is the best choice. It feels like the right time for a new chapter.”

Change was inevitable

For different reasons, their departures have thrown a spanner in the works of Team Visma | Lease a Bike.

However as with anything in life, if you’re not feeling it, and the feeling persists, change is inevitable.

If you’re heart is not in it, professional cycling is far too hard a profession to endure – even if the wins are still coming, as was the case with van Empel and Simon Yates.

The main thing is that they take time to recalibrate their body and mind, find out what they want to do next, and be well supported by those that truly understand them and love them for who they are, not what they do or what they have achieved.