Picnic PostNL ready for 2025 WorldTour relegation battle and development of next generation of racers

Picnic PostNL showed off their new colours and new Lapierre bikes at their January training camp in Calpe, Spain, marking the start of their 2025 season and their future plans.

The Netherland-registered team is locked in a UCI ranking points battle but hope to secure a place in the 2026-2028 WorldTour as their young riders show their talents and gradually take over from the veteran leaders.

Picnic PostNL's long-established overarching structure placed them among the pioneers in having an integrated and successful women's squad, as well as a development team that nurtures young riders and helps them step up to WorldTour level. The men's team won a total of 22 races in 2024, 18 of which came from graduates of their long-established development programme. All the team's riders are currently together in Spain for a vital January block of training. Only those who are riding the Tour Down Under were absent as they travelled to Australia.

The Dutch team enjoyed a memorable 2024 season, with Romain Bardet winning the opening stage of the men's Tour de France to take the yellow jersey for the first time in his long career, while Charlotte Kool pulled off a similar feat in the Tour de France Femmes a few weeks later.

Pfeiffer Georgi renewed her title as British National Champion and finished third at Paris-Roubaix, fourth at the Amstel Gold Race and fifth at the Trofeo Alfredo Binda. Unfortunately she later fractured a neck vertebrae during the Tour de France Femmes.

Oscar Onley won the Willunga Hill stage of the Tour Down Under and was second overall in the Tour of Guangxi, Bardet was second at Liege-Bastogne-Liege and Frank van den Broek won the overall classification of the Presidential Cycling Tour of Türkiye  - where he and Tobias Lund Andresen won five stages. Max Poole went close to victory on three stages at the Vuelta a España and then won the Le Tour de Langkawi.

Sprint leader Fabio Jakobsen won just one race in his first season with the team but believes he and Picnic PostNL have worked out what is needed to increase his strike rate. The Dutchman has been working on his endurance rather than his sprinting power, and is four kilos lighter than in 2024, thereby ensuring he can handle the trend for increasingly hilly race profiles and still produce his sprint finish.

Jakobsen will begin his 2025 season at the AlUla Tour and then go onto the UAE Tour, a race he describes as the biggest sprint showdown of the season.  

Bardet, John Degenkolb and Jakobsen stand out as team leaders but younger riders are developing fast. Onley, Poole and Frank van den Broek are learning stage racing from Bardet, while Degenkolb is road captain and a role model. Jakobsen is only 28 but knows he faces internal competition for sprint leadership from 23-year-old Casper van Uden, 22-year-old Tobias Lund Andresen and 22-year-old Pavel Bittner.

Bardet will retire after the Critérium du Dauphiné in June but is still motivated for a shot at the Giro d'Italia. He will be joined by Poole, while Onley, van den Broek and Jakobsen will target stage victories at the Tour de France. Poole will return to the Vuelta in 2025 as Picnic PostNL also race to score the UCI ranking points needed to stay in the WorldTour in 2026 and beyond.

The men's team has seen just three rider changes in its 28-rider roster, with young talents like Onley, Poole, Van den Broek, the USA's Kevin Vermaerke all expected to step-up a level as Bardet, Warren Barguil and former Paris-Roubaix winner John Degenkolb reach the final years of their careers.

Vermaerke was fourth at the San Sebastian Klasikoa and third overall at the Arctic Race of Norway, scoring over a thousand UCI points for the team in 2024. He will search for his first professional victory in 2025 as his progression from 2019 U23 Liège-Bastogne-Liège winner continues.

Team goals

"In 2025, the team will continue their approach to racing with a focus on two different pillars throughout the season, with the GC and sprint group," head coach Rudi Kemna said of the men's team goals, revealing the Grand Tour leaderships.

"At the Giro d’Italia we will have Romain Bardet who’s taking part in his last Grand Tour as a professional and Max Poole as our finishers for those challenging mountain days. Casper van Uden is planned to make his three-week debut and will be supported by a good lead-out train to search for those day results in the sprints."

“Topping 2024’s Tour de France will be hard, but we will once more head to the race with a focus primarily on going for stage results. In the more hilly and mountainous terrain we will have a strong group of attacking options such as the likes of Oscar and Frank. We want to take some steps forward with Fabio in the earlier part of the season and then aim to head to the Tour de France feeling confident."

Charlotte Kool, Pfeiffer Georgi, Franziska Koch and the USA's Megan Jastrab lead the women's Picnic PostNL team.

Kool has shown she is one of the best sprinters in the world and can only get better. Georgi is now back in training and talked to Cyclingnews with enthusiasm about her return to racing and targeting the Classics and especially Paris-Roubaix in April.

"In 2025 we want to further build on the foundations we have made in previous years, targeting success in the sprints where we have one of the best lead-outs and sprint groups in the women’s peloton"

"Alongside our brilliant sprint group, we have a strong classics core where we can compete for top results over the cobbles in the Spring; with the likes of Pfeiffer and Franziska, Megan or Charlotte if things come down to a fast finish. In those races we really believe in our strength across the board and want to use our numbers; racing smartly as a team."

Young stage riders Nienke Vinke, Francesca Barale and Eleonora Ciabocco will be joined by Marta Cavalli, who is gradually working on her return to racing after two crash and injury-hit years. Yet the 2022 Amstel Gold and La Flèche Wallonne Femmes winner refused to give in to her fears and told Cyclingnews of her determination to return to her best.

"We welcome the very talented Marta to the team and by working closely together with her we hope that she can return to the upper echelons of the sport with us. the idea is to head to the Giro d’Italia and Tour de France; however, we also need to allow the time for her to settle into her new surroundings and reset a little bit," Kemna explained.