'We lost three experienced riders, and replaced them with really young riders' – Can Lidl-Trek's changed Classics core do enough for Mads Pedersen at the Tour of Flanders?

Mads Pedersen, Jasper Stuyven, Tim Declerq, Toms Skujiņš, Edward Theuns, and a fairly locked-in rotation of riders like Otto Vergaerde, Daan Hoole and Mathias Vacek. They would speak of trust, unity and experience, riding as a unit built over several years and many races, and that strength was reflected on the road.

Fast forward to 2026, however, and a number of team changes and badly-timed illnesses means that Lidl-Trek men's squad have been shuffling through various iterations during the cobbled Classics so far. When it comes to their potential line-up for the Tour of Flanders on Sunday, for example, there isn't that obvious core squad that there used to be, rather a jigsaw involving drafting in the strongest options from a younger, less experienced cast of riders.

It's of course far from unusual for teams to rotate line-ups during the Classics, nor odd to see young riders getting their starts. But Lidl-Trek's close-knit cobbles line-up has definitely been one of their key assets over the last years and this spring they're without a big chunk of that foundational component of the team.

Jasper Stuyven departed the team for Soudal-QuickStep over the winter, Daan Hoole went to Decathlon CMA CGM, and Tim Declerq retired. Losing those three was significant enough, but then serious illness in Paris-Nice also ruled Toms Skujiņš out of the whole spring.

Suddenly, of the seven-rider team that helped Mads Pedersen to a runner-up spot in Flanders last year, only three are here in Belgium this time round.

Lidl-Trek did of course make some replacement signings over the winter, but a lot of their budget likely went in the direction of star acquisition Juan Ayuso, rather than like-for-like Classics replacements - not that there is realistically any substitute for a rider like Jasper Stuyven.

New arrivals Max Walscheid and Mathias Norsgaard have been drafted into the Classics line-up, but the team has also looked to much younger riders, like Jakob Söderqvist and Tim Torn Teutenberg, which naturally gives their formation a different shape. It says a lot that while Mathias Vacek was the rookie last year, he's now one of the most experienced components for these races.

Starting the year, there wasn't any initial concern over the team's strength for this Classics season, but the first races soon opened up a conversation about what the team would need to do for the bigger events to come.

"We did only Opening Weekend before there was this discussion, because in Opening Weekend it was not super good, for different reasons, a bit of bad luck, and then we didn't have any results," Lidl-Trek DS Grégory Rast told Cyclingnews earlier this week, before admitting that the team have been lacking the numbers and effectiveness of previous years.

"Now with the first race in E3, we were not there with numbers which we were in the past, and we didn't really nail the run-in to the most important points. But nevertheless, we still had two guys up there, when in the past we had probably three."

That's been plain to see, so there was really no other way to assess the situation so far in E3, In Flanders Fields and Dwars door Vlaanderen, but that doesn't mean it was unexpected for Lidl-Trek.

"I mean, it's not a huge surprise, because to replace a rider like Jasper Stuyven is not easy," Rast said. "I think we give the chance to young riders now, they need to learn, and they will step in, hopefully soon."

Those young riders who have been drafted in, notably Söderqvist and Teutenberg, are very strong riders, even for what they lack in experience. The Swede is the reigning under-23 time trial world champion, whilst Teutenberg is a winner of Paris-Roubaix U23. The latter has finished all the Classics he's started this year, peaking with 12th in Ronde van Brugge, whilst Söderqvist was DNF in Ronde van Brugge and Dwars door Vlaanderen.

Relying on riders like these two is clearly a different proposition to the veterans they've counted on before, but Rast is facing that with pragmatism rather than disappointment.

"At the moment of course it's realistic, we have riders like Tim Teutenberg, he's young, he needs to learn the Classics, and Jakob Söderqvist as well, so this a bit the difference," he said. "We lost three really experienced riders, and we replaced them with really young riders, so it's not really surprising."

As a result of this morphed core, and indeed Pedersen's long hiatus with injury, Lidl-Trek's approach to these Classics have been different. With their younger riders less able to make it deep into the race, the team have focused on doing work earlier, when their riders can still be there, and gambling a bit more later on.

So far, the results have been positive, particularly considering Pedersen's condition, saying himself that he's lacking that top-level punch after primarily seated training with a broken wrist in the last few weeks. We haven't seen Skujiņš shepherding Pedersen into the final 50km, for example, but the Dane has adapted well, all the same and ridden to fourth, ninth and tenth in his 2026 one-day races to date.

Is there anything major that's a challenge for the team right now? Rast didn't point to anything particular, more than just a more intangible changed dynamic.

"It's just really small details that you need to make right in the right moments to be there when you want to be there," he said. "And these things, they're still missing a little bit, but I think the power is there and they're on a really good way."

It is not the iron-clad squad we saw in 2024 and 2025, and the team are making no bones about the fact that they haven't replaced the riders they've lost, then. But it's far from being a difficult situation at Lidl-Trek.

Who will be in the line-up on Sunday?

Lidl-Trek are yet to confirm their squad for the Tour of Flanders, but based on the provisional start list and the riders who went on recon on Thursday, the team looks set to comprise Pedersen, Theuns, Walscheid, Teutenberg, Soderqvist, Søren Kragh Andersen and Mathias Vacek.

On paper, that is certainly not a team lacking in power, but like the races we've already seen, what seems to be missing is a rider who can go deep into the final. This is perhaps something you can get away with less in Flanders, which is notably more difficult.

The rookies will be put to work early, whilst Theuns will be the experienced road captain and will be expected to go a long way into the races. Walscheid will offer horsepower and positioning strength early on – less so once the bergs start – whilst Pedersen can likely look to Kragh Andersen and Vacek to be his final helpers as and when the racing really kicks off.

Pedersen is not at his very top form, but he's going well post-injury, and the team are making the most of the riders they have, even if that means a different approach to last year.

Pedersen and his team are avoiding being bullish about what he can do on Sunday, and perhaps replicating that second is a bit of a big ask given all the circumstances, but they're also not writing themselves off prematurely.

"I think we need to really stick together as a team," Rast said. "I mean, Mads finished ninth in E3 – in the past he was already happy when he was top 40. Only last year he was on the podium for the first time."

"He's on a really good way, the team did not a bad job, to make that clear, and if we keep going in this direction we will be there."

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