Cian Uijtdebroeks’s autumn move to Movistar, his second mid-contract transfer in as many years, caught many by surprise. But the Belgian insists that the decision was easy to make – for one simple reason: Visma-Lease a Bike had reneged on their guarantees to him. “It was not possible to ride the Vuelta [a España in 2026 with Visma] so we said, ‘If after the injuries I’ve had you want to take it more chill, OK, but in 2026 there needs to be a Grand Tour. If you want to develop me as a Grand Tour rider, I need to go to Grand Tours, in my opinion’. They could not promise it to me.”
Uijtdebroeks, 22, is impatient for success. Winner of the 2022 Tour de l’Avenir – the U23 race that signposts future Grand Tour stars – the Belgian finished eighth in his maiden three-week race, the Vuelta a España, in 2023 aged 20. That prompted a controversial multimillion euro move from Bora-hansgrohe to Visma, with the Dutch team signalling their intention to make “Cian a future leader for our team.”
He started but failed to finish both the Giro d’Italia and Vuelta in 2024, and lower back pain hampered his 2025 season – although he did win the Tour de l’Ain and finish second at the Czech Tour in August. When Visma sat down with Uijtdebroeks in September to discuss their plans for the forthcoming season, he was disappointed to find out that his place in the team’s pecking order had slipped – and considerably so; it wasn’t that he wasn’t been offered a leadership role at a Grand Tour in 2026, but he wasn’t even guaranteed a ride.
“That was hard for me because my ambitions are to go as high as possible in the GC and co-leadership wasn't possible,” he tells Rouleur and a few other members of the press at Movistar’s team launch in Valencia in mid-December. “For sure if Jonas [Vingegaard] is on top of his game then you try to help him, try to put pressure from under him let’s say, but this was not an option. I also understand the other side: they have guys like Jonas and they want to fully support them, and I am also not a rider who will be able to position you the best – I need to be positioned. I understand if they want to do two or three of the Grand Tours with Jonas, and then the spots become smaller with Simon Yates and Matteo Jorgenson also. I understand their point of view but for sure it was a disappointment after being injured for so long. We started the talks with Visma to state our ambitions of me and my manager and how we and they see it. We had a different way of looking and in the end it was actually not so hard for both parties to make a decision to separate.”
With Visma and rider in agreement that Uijtdebroeks should seek new employers, his agent, Alex Carera, began offering the young rider to most of the WorldTour. “We spoke with a lot of teams,” Uijtdebroeks confirms, “and it happened really quickly.” Joining Movistar, he believes, was an agreement that suits both parties: the Spanish team need a second GC rider to lighten the load on Enric Mas, and he requires a team who will support his lofty ambitions.
While Isaac Del Toro (in green) has flourished at one of the world's best teams, Uijtdebroeks has been forced to seek pastures new.
“I trusted that I will always get opportunities and I will always go to a Grand Tour, but in the end it was just me speaking with the management and the feeling I had with them which was such a calm feeling,” he explains. “I spoke with them in 2020 or 2021 so I knew [team manager Eusebio] Unzué and I was just so relaxed. I always felt like they highly trusted in me and in the goals I want to achieve. That made me follow my heart and go with them.”
No team in cycling had had more Grand Tour podiums than Movistar, who in its previous guises were known as Reynolds and Banesto: 15 wins, 14 seconds and 13 thirds. But they are someway off those heady days now. What are Uijtdebroeks’s first impressions? “They build the training, nutrition and program around the goals of the rider,” he says. “I can also share my goals and my thoughts and that’s insanely important for me. To be motivated, to go for your goals, to have a little bit of input, this is something that I missed a bit in the last few years and what I really find here.” That’s in stark contrast to what he experienced at Visma. “The big difference with Visma is that the Dutch culture is really strict,” he says. “Visma is a team with a typical philosophy, a training and racing philosophy that works for a lot of riders but doesn’t work for everyone.”
Budgets were bigger at his two previous teams, especially at Bora who are now majority-owned by Red Bull. But Uijtdebroeks doesn’t believe he’s at a comparative disadvantage. “What they [Movistar staff] have done with me in the last few days with the aero testing… it’s really how it needs to be,” he says. “Two days ago we were on the track and what they did was really good and really professional, looking at measurements in different kinds of [time trial] positions. If you want to become better you cannot do it with one aero test – you need to be training every week, two or three times on the bike, and you need to do a lot of aero and wind tunnel testing. This is what I find here and also that they want to come along on this project with me and that’s just great.”
Uijtdebroeks will first lead his new team at a variety of winter and spring stage races, before targeting the Ardennes Classics. “My goals and the team’s goals are the same: we want to shine in those races,” he says. Then attention will focus on the summer and a debut in the Tour de France. “We will go all in for the Tour,” he says. “For me, [success] is fighting for the highest possible GC in every race, and just developing myself. I’ve never done the Tour, so I have no clue what it will give, but we need to be up there from day one in the team time trial until the last stage and then we’ll see where it ends. If it’s top-10, top-five, whatever, we don’t know, but we are going to fight. Our goal is to be on the podium in the future and we’re going to start working from now.”
