This article was originally published in Rouleur magazine, Issue 137
In the book, Zen: The Art of Simple Living, renowned Buddhist monk Shunmyō Masuno draws on centuries of wisdom to show how to apply the essence of Zen to modern life. Each chapter contains a lesson: how to exhale deeply to eliminate negative emotions, to arrange your house to clear your thinking, to line up your shoes at night to bring order to your mind, to plant a single flower and watch it grow, to worry less about what you cannot control.
Demi Vollering, the most famous cyclist in the women’s peloton right now, has this book on her coffee table.
“Have you read it?” I ask the Dutch rider as she sits down on a plush yellow sofa next to Flo, her friendly, energetic Stabyhoun dog.
“One lesson per day,” she replies with a smile.
Demi Vollering is a woman of principle. She takes one lesson a day on how to be ‘Zen’, practices regular yoga and meditation, ensures she maintains a stringent commitment to her training programme, eats clean, limits her screen time. Her modern, minimalist apartment is littered with reminders that it is this commitment which has got her to where she is – the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift title, the two Vuelta a España and Strade Bianche victories and the Ardennes triple are all immortalised in photo frames and jerseys mounted on the walls.
“I’m a perfectionist,” she says. “I want to do everything right. If I give 99 per cent, I can’t be happy with that.”
We are speaking the day after a rare failure for Vollering at the 2025 edition of the Tour de Suisse. She lost the overall title to her former team-mate Marlen Reusser on the final stage, missing the Movistar rider’s last-ditch attack on the approach to the finish in Küssnacht, just a few kilometres away from where Vollering lives. We can call it a failure, because that’s what the FDJ-Suez rider sees it as. For her, winning is the expectation.
“I always want more, especially since this race is so close to home. But sometimes the body is just not working as you want it to. I think that’s also what makes us human. In the end, it’s not always working out. It’s part of the process.”
As much as Vollering is almost mechanically programmed to strive for nothing less than victory, she is also a free, deep thinker. She sees and understands cycling as far more than the number of watts she produces or her place on the podium; taking the wins and losses personally. It’s something that both helps and hinders her in bike races.
“I discussed with Jan, my boyfriend, yesterday that it’s really hard for me to give up. I can never do that, it’s not possible. I always keep going. Sometimes, that makes me really tired, because I push even when I’m not having a good day or I’m ill or injured,” Vollering says. “It’s not in my body, not in my system, to give up. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s that I’m scared that if I give up once, it will be easy to do the same again next time. Something, somewhere in my life told me that. It’s part of my personality.”
If we want to truly understand the level of resilience and grit that the Dutchwoman possesses, we must look to the 2024 edition of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift. After going into the race as defending champion and winning the time trial on stage three, Vollering crashed on stage five to Amnéville, losing the yellow jersey to Kasia Niewiadoma. She fought until the bitter end, however, attacking on the final day to L’Alpe d’Huez, trying to take back the time she had lost due to the incident. In the end, she finished as runner-up overall by a mere four seconds – it was a painful defeat to swallow. Afterwards, Vollering admitted she had been racing up the Alpe with a fractured vertebra in her back.
“I can’t think about that race too much. I am focused on the future, trying to win the Tour again,” she admits. “I know that last year I was in good shape and I had the yellow jersey around my shoulders earlier than I could have ever imagined, which gave me confidence. It was a big shame I lost it the way I did and that I was not able to get it back, but I’m trying to think back on the nice stages, and use it as fuel for the fire for what is coming.”
The 28-year-old clearly does not want to spend too much time reflecting – Zen teaches the value of being fully present in the moment. According to the book in front of her, by focusing on the here and now rather than dwelling on the past, Vollering can learn to experience life more fully and with greater clarity. She is happy to talk about FDJ-Suez, her current team, which she joined for the 2025 season, and why she is thriving with the French squad.
“I feel really in my own place,” Vollering smiles. “Last year was a strange year because I wasn’t sure if I was going to leave at one point. There were a lot of mixed feelings. This is my fresh start, everything has been new and refreshing – it’s really good times with the girls. They really like to work with me, which gives me a lot of energy and I know they appreciate me as a human being and as a cyclist. That was something I needed; a little reward from the people around me that they like to work with me.”
There has been a visible shift in Vollering’s demeanour this season compared to 2024 when she was part of SD Worx. While she is reluctant to discuss her experiences with her former team in detail, it doesn’t take an expert in body language to understand the tensions that were swirling around the Dutch outfit at races towards the end of last year. There was first the controversy surrounding why none of her team-mates waited to pace Vollering back to the peloton after her crash in the Tour, then she went on to directly compete against Lotte Kopecky at the Tour of Romandie, despite the two being teammates. Rather unprecedentedly, the pair let the road decide who would win the final WorldTour stage race of the season, either due to not receiving instruction from their sports directors for one to work for another, or ignoring them altogether. Any perceptions of team unity went out of the window, and Vollering’s dejected manner at the end of races showed this was taking its toll.
In contrast, as part of FDJ-Suez, Vollering is supported as the unquestioned leader – the likes of Juliette Labous and Évita Muzic have been loyal domestiques for the Dutchwoman at every time of asking, helping her to wins in both Strade Bianche and the Vuelta so far in 2025.
“I think at one point it was so normal in SD Worx to win, that now in FDJ it is refreshing when we win. Everyone is so happy and stepping up. The riders have grown so much because they feel like they have a chance of winning, and that is nice to see,” Vollering explains. “Now they go to the start line with a goal and we have really figured out as a team how to race together – not just with me, but with a number of different riders.”
Vollering comments that she has also noticed a step up in professionalism from a sporting side on FDJ compared to SD Worx.
“We have a lot more stuff – it’s still new for FDJ and they have to learn things, but they are open to that. I have the feeling that they have a bit extra to give. We have more time for a massage, for example, or on the mechanic side, they listen to you more,” she says.
“With the two performance coaches, we really think everything through, discussing more about the equipment, gears and tyre pressures. We discuss more about the equipment we use, while before I would just trust Danny [Stam, SD Worx team manager] and I didn’t always know. Before a race now, we get a schedule of what equipment we are riding and if you don’t agree we can talk about it. They also do a really good job with the commercial side, social media and everything. They dare to do things differently than everyone else.”
Above all, Vollering stresses that she feels empowered to be her truest self as part of her new team, something that appears to have been lacking in other seasons.
“They really see me as a person. In the past I was a bit struggling because I had a feeling I could not be myself which was challenging for me,” she reflects. “I think maybe it’s the French culture. They are okay with showing more emotion and talking about experiences. That makes it easier – they accept me.”
Vollering’s appreciation for what her FDJ-Suez team give her in terms of being comfortable in her own skin stems from an understanding of what it’s like to feel the opposite way. She admits there was a moment last year where she reached the point of questioning whether she had a place in cycling at all: “I think last year, at the end of the season after the World Championships, I had a hard moment. I was lucky at that time because my parents and my youngest sister were in Switzerland and we had a good time together. It was almost life-saving for them to be around me then. I don’t know how it would have been if I was alone. I needed them around to see that they still loved me as much as before,” Vollering says.
Her voice cracks and her eyes become shiny as the FDJ-Suez rider recalls these dark memories. This is who Vollering is: someone who isn’t afraid to wear their heart on their sleeve and speak honestly. Deep conversations about life, acceptance and change don’t scare her, they help her to process it all. She believes that being open and honest about difficult subjects is a responsibility she has to the next generation – cycling is a sport that has long been shrouded in darkness and whispers. Vollering wants to bring the light.
“I know I can help a lot of people by being open with my stories and experiences. If I can help one girl by being honest about my hormones during the menstrual cycle, for example, that’s enough for me. It’s not difficult to show my emotional side because that’s who I am. I care a lot. It would be hard for me to try and act like I’m made of stone. It doesn’t suit me. Why would I try to hide my emotions? I can’t.”
Being so transparent with her feelings doesn’t come without its challenges, however. There have been times at the end of races where Vollering has come across as hot-headed, making comments to the media which, as she admits, could have been more thoughtfully worded.
“Directly after the race in interviews, sometimes I say on camera that it was my own mistake and I look to myself as to what I did wrong, but maybe I should have spoken about what we did wrong as a team,” Vollering reflects. “I can be too open and put the blame on my shoulders and the media goes crazy afterwards so I regret it. But on the other hand, like when I told my story about having a bit of a panic attack during stage seven of the Tour, I was insecure about whether I should post it but I got so many good comments from people who thanked me for talking about it. I was surprised about the big reaction to this, which was a bit eye-opening. It’s a big problem that we still speak so little about, so I was happy I did that.”
Keeping her inner circle tight and trying to avoid spending too much time consuming social media and news articles is something that Vollering believes is crucial to maintaining the positive mental state she has found herself fostering so far in 2025 as part of FDJ-Suez.
“I remember at the Tour last year I was seeing Kasia saying things like I didn’t congratulate her after the final stage when I did. I even went to her boyfriend and said well done. I can get annoyed about these things but I know it’s also the media that are trying to create rivalries, so I try to remember to just stay true to myself,” Vollering says.
“I think it's really important that you have a good circle of people around you, with family and friends who see you as you are. They know whatever people are writing or saying about you, that’s not true. It’s important they are there for you because in the end, that is what matters most: having your own little world with your people who know who you are. It’s important to remember that I am a person with feelings. You need to find the balance, like coming back to normal life here in Switzerland, surrounded by the calm nature, going for a little walk with Flo, that makes it fine again.”
Another lesson that Masuno teaches in Zen: The Art of Simple Living, is to appreciate the small things. He encourages us to find joy in simple, everyday moments like enjoying a cup of coffee or watching the sunset. It’s about fostering gratitude and a deeper connection to the world around you. As Vollering sits with the picture-perfect backdrop of the Swiss Alps behind her – snow-capped mountains and glittering lakes spanning far into blue skies – stroking her dog and sipping a carefully homemade flat white, it’s clear she embodies this principle whenever she can. Tonight, the Dutch rider will go for a barbecue with Jan, her partner, and light a campfire, enjoying the rare slow moments in a life which, for Vollering, moves at one hundred miles per hour. It’s all about finding equilibrium in the chaos.
“I want to be that role model for a lot of young girls who are coming into cycling, or just generally helping them to create a balance in their lives,” Vollering says. “I think it’s much more than having big palmarès, but using my voice to make the women’s sport much bigger, getting people outside and excited to do things like go for a little walk, a little run, a bike ride, appreciating the small things in life.”
It’s true that Vollering is a born athlete, and winning her second yellow jersey at the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift this summer is something she clearly desperately yearns for. This gets her out of bed in the morning to go out training and complete brutally tough interval sessions. However, she knows that life has to be about more than just victories – what happened at the Tour last year is proof of that. There is so much Vollering can’t control in bike racing – crashes, mechanicals, comments from other riders – but the 28-year-old can control how she lives her life outside of it. Dedicating herself to learning the art of Zen and finding peace in the everyday is one part of this, but so is ensuring she has a mission much bigger than what she does on two wheels.
“I think it is important for me to have something next to cycling too. I have seen the power of taking care of yourself and going outside and I’m grateful I had that when I was younger. Kids developing themselves and their dreams, training towards a goal, it’s an important part of life, especially these days where young people get isolated by social media, phones and technology,” Vollering says.
“Simple things can do so much good for you – having a walk in the forest, making friends, going to a sports club, can do amazing things for both physical and mental health. I think sometimes we get a bit lost in this world and what the whole point is. In my eyes, the point is to feel good in your body and mind. Everything goes better for you then.”
