After the golden generation of Deignan, Thomas and Froome – What does the future hold for British cycling?

This off-season has brought a momentous change in British cycling as the last vestiges of the nation's golden era in the sport appear to have left top-level racing behind.

Geraint Thomas, 2018 Tour de France winner and double Olympic champion, has called time on a 20-year career to move into a backroom role at Ineos Grenadiers. 2015 world champion and triple Monument winner Lizzie Deignan, pregnant with her third child, has also hung up her wheels.

Four-time Tour champion Chris Froome, meanwhile, hasn't yet confirmed his plans. However, at 40 years old, recovering from serious injury and with no confirmed contract for 2026, it's safe to say he'll be the last of a golden generation of British racers who won it all on the road and track.

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It's a group of racers which would also count the likes of Mark Cavendish, Jason and Laura Kenny, Bradley Wiggins, and Chris Hoy among their number.

So, what's next for British cycling? Is the nation on the cusp of another results boom? We've taken a look through the current peloton to find out.

At the peak of their powers

First things first, let's talk about the crop of riders who already appear to be at the peak of their powers. A host of riders in their early 30s and mid 20s includes a Grand Tour winner and Classics contenders, even if none have quite hit the heights of the legends of the previous generation.

Simon Yates, with wins at the Vuelta a España and Giro d'Italia under his belt, is the most accomplished name on this list of riders. Now 12 years into his career, 33-year-old Yates can count 11 Grand Tour stage wins on his palmarès, including three at the Tour de France, plus a Tirreno-Adriatico title, a couple of near-misses at Paris-Nice, and several other major stage races.

Many other riders listed here would be thrilled to accomplish a fraction of what he has during his time in the peloton, putting him at the top of the tree among the 'interim' generation of British riders.

His twin brother Adam is another rider closer to the end of his career than the start and another who has achieved plenty. He currently looks to be spending most of his time on the bike as part of Tadej Pogačar's winning machine, and can look back on plenty of successes himself, including wins at the Volta a Catalunya, Tour de Suisse, Donostia San Sebastián Klasikoa, and Tour de Romandie, plus a Tour de France podium.

Alongside Simon Yates, who this season soared to his Giro win and won a Tour stage from the breakaway, Q36.5 racer Tom Pidcock is the current superstar of British cycling. The 26-year-old has won multiple world titles in cyclo-cross and in cross-country mountain biking, also scoring two Olympic golds in the latter.

Pidcock can count titles at Amstel Gold Race, Strade Bianche, and a freshly achieved Grand Tour podium at the Vuelta among his big achievements on the road to date. With plenty of Grand Tours and Monument starts in his future, there should be plenty more success on the way, too.

Over in the women's peloton, Pfeiffer Georgi is among the sport's top Classics racers with a Paris-Roubaix Femmes podium and a Classic Brugge-De Panne victory to her name. Her 2025 was a tough one, results-wise, but at 25, she has plenty of years left to keep on challenging for those big wins.

In contrast, Anna Henderson enjoyed one of her best seasons yet, taking two major victories, her first two at Women's WorldTour level. The 27-year-old flourished in her first year at Lidl-Trek, following up a stage win and a stint in pink at the Giro d'Italia with a season-ending triumph at the Tour of Guangxi.

Stevie Williams is a name we haven't heard much of lately, though with good reason, as a knee issue plagued him in 2025. The 29-year-old didn't race after May this season, though there's hope that he can get back to his best – 2024 saw him win the Tour Down Under, La Flèche Wallonne, and the Tour of Britain – next season.

Elsewhere, Ineos Grenadiers' Ben Turner also took his biggest wins in 2025 with stages of the Tour de Pologne and Vuelta, while Fred Wright is a consistent Classics challenger, even if a big win has eluded him during his six years as a pro to date, but perhaps a move to Pidcock's team for 2026 will change that.

The next superstars?

Beyond that crop of well-established British racers lies a group of supremely talented up-and-comers who are primed to make their mark in the very biggest races. Time will tell if these five riders can hit the dazzling heights of British cycling's golden generation, but right now they're the brightest young talents from the nation.

Oscar Onley, who turned 23 in October, is already flying high in the WorldTour, having enjoyed a breakout season in 2025. The Scotsman has risen through the ranks at Picnic PostNL and has progressed season by season. In 2024, he was runner-up at the Tour of Britain and Tour of Guangxi, won a stage and took fourth overall at the Tour Down Under, and scored top 10s at the Tour de Suisse and Tour de Pologne.

This year, he took another leap forward with a stage win and a podium in Switzerland before the big one – fourth overall at the Tour de France, just 1:12 off third at just his second start.

Despite originally being under contract with Picnic to the end of 2027, he will move to Ineos Grenadiers for 2026 after a big buyout and super late-season move. With more resources and a stronger supporting cast behind him, the coming years should only bring more success in the stage races and Grand Tours.

Nineteen-year-old Cat Ferguson has only just finished her first season at Women's WorldTour level with Movistar, but she had already proven her ability to compete at the top level as an 18-year-old, ending her 2024 season – raced mostly as a junior – with a second place at La Choralis Fourmies and a win against the pros at Binche-Chimay-Binche.

She kicked off 2025 with a podium place in a reduced group sprint at the Trofeo Binda before a 30km solo attack at Classic Brugge-De Panne, and a top 10 at Brabantse Pijl. Following her Grand Tour debut at La Vuelta Femenina, she won the Navarra Women's Elite Classic and narrowly lost the Tour of Britain title on the final day, claiming a stage win along the way.

Her season ended on another high, with her fourth win at a pro race at the Vuelta Andalucía. Already performing at the highest level as a teenager, the sky appears to be the limit for Ferguson.

Visma-Lease a Bike rookie Matthew Brennan is another rider who exploded onto the scene in 2025. The 20-year-old made the step up from the Dutch squad's development programme this year, and few would've expected what came next.

After a couple of wins with the development squad in March, he scored his first pro win on the harsh cobbles of northern France at the 197km GP de Denain, some feat for a neo-pro. The wins kept on coming later in the month via two sprints at the Volta a Catalunya – his first WorldTour triumphs – while he got the call-up to support Wout van Aert at Paris-Roubaix in April.

More success followed – a stage of the Tour de Romandie, the Rund um Köln, two stages and the overall at the Tour of Norway – and continued through the end of the season with stages at the Tour de Pologne, Deutschland Tour, and the Tour of Britain.

If Onley is British cycling's next great stage racer, then Brennan looks set to step up as the nation's next great sprinter-cum-Classics racer.

Zoe Bäckstedt is another rising star in the women's peloton, at 21 already a champion in three separate disciplines. The Welshwoman has been a cyclocross world champion at both junior and under-23 levels, also achieving the same on the road. She's pulled on the rainbow stripes on the track, too.

On the road, she graduated to the Women's WorldTour in 2024, with a time trial win and third overall at the Simac Ladies Tour the highlight of her neo-pro season. She repeated the feat this season, also winning the British national time trial title.

2025 also saw Bäckstedt take her first major stage race victory, converting two time trial victories and another stage win into the overall at the Baloise Ladies Tour. She rounded out her season with the under-23 world time trial title in Rwanda, averaging a speed higher than any rider in the elite race (even if her ride was 9km shorter).

With all these results on her palmarès, it's no surprise that Bäckstedt is tipped as the world's next great time triallist.

Joe Blackmore became Great Britain's first-ever Tour de l'Avenir champion in 2024, so it's no surprise that he's tipped as an up-and-coming stage racing talent. He stepped up to pro level with Israel-Premier Tech last year with immediate success, winning the Tour du Rwanda, Tour de Taiwan, Circuit des Ardennes, and the under-23 Liège-Bastogne-Liège.

This year, his first full season as a professional, was a quieter one, but that was perhaps no surprise given the step up in level. In 2024, the Tour of Guangxi was his first and only WorldTour experience, while in 2025 he raced 39 days at that level, including a full spring Classics campaign and a Tour de France debut.

He's racing with the new-look NSN Cycling team next season, and with Derek Gee seemingly on the way to Lidl-Trek, the path seems clear for Blackmore to ride for his own results in 2026.

With three years of WorldTour racing under his belt, including three top-level victories plus national and European titles, it's easy to forget that Josh Tarling is still only 21 years of age.

Tarling has two wins at the Chrono des Nations, plus stages of the Renewi Tour and UAE Tour to his name – all time trial victories. His biggest triumph, however, came in May at the Giro d'Italia, beating Primož Roglič by fractions of a second on stage 2 in Tirana.

For such a talented rider, he's perhaps a quieter presence among the sport's elite than others at the top of their respective specialities, but Tarling looks set to be a top time triallist for years to come.

The best of the rest

That's that for our rundown of the biggest British standouts in the peloton, though that isn't to say that the talent ends there.

Twenty-two-year-old Max Poole may well be the next GC talent to step up at Picnic PostNL, with Onley heading for the exit. The 2024 Tour de Langkawi champion didn't win this season, but seventh place at the Tour of the Alps and 11th overall at the Giro d'Italia hinted at what's to come in future.

Ben Tulett, 24, is one of a small British contingent at Visma-Lease a Bike, joining Brennan, Simon Yates and Owain Doull at the team next season. Stage race victories at the 2023 Tour of Norway and at this year's Settimana Coppi e Bartali showed that he can win races just below the highest level; the next task will be to do the same in the WorldTour.

Imogen Wolff is another British talent at Visma, the 19-year-old having raced her first season with the Dutch squad in 2025. In 2024, she podiumed the junior Worlds time trial and finished fourth at the junior Tour of Flanders, while this season's stand-out result saw her take a stage at the Vuelta a Extremadura en route to fifth overall.

Samuel Watson's first year with Ineos Grenadiers was a success. The 24-year-old soloed to the British national title in Aberystwyth, won the 4 Jours de Dunkerque and the prologue at the Tour de Romandie. A top five at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad hinted at a future in the Classics, too.

Fenix-Premier Tech racer Millie Couzens is another one to watch. The 22-year-old became national champion in 2025, winning the under-23 time trial title and elite road title.