It is safe to say that this year’s pre-season press conference was like no other for Britain's Simon Yates. After all, for more than a decade, Yates was often the star attraction with his Jayco-Alula team, as he was their most accomplished Grand Tour rider. But this year, as a new member of the Visma-Lease A Bike team, his own star is overshadowed by those of Jonas Vingegaard and Wout van Aert, the team’s long-time leaders. Despite that, Yates couldn’t be happier
At 32, Yates came to a career crossroads during the 2024 season, as nagging health issues once again hampered his results. Although the decision to leave the Australian team — the only professional organisation he had known — did not come easy, he eventually embraced the idea of change and welcomed the opportunity to move to the powerhouse Dutch squad.
“I was very comfortable at Jayco and I think the team was happy with me as well, but I was having a lot of problems with sickness or injuries,” Yates explained to Rouleur at the presentation in the team's hotel outside of Alicante, Spain.
“Every time I would start to get into the rhythm of things I would get sick again and fall apart, and there just came a time when I felt that I just needed a change. It was never about motivation, it was just doing the same thing, year in and year out, and then the setbacks, and often similar setbacks. There came a point where I asked myself, ‘can I keep doing this for another three or four years or is now the time to change, while I am still young enough to win the best races.’ I just thought that if I had another year with setbacks, I may have wasted that opportunity, and I didn’t want to do that. I didn’t want to have any regrets.”
Yates, along with his twin brother Adam, have long been household names in professional cycling. As under-23 riders, the two were considered among the most talented riders of their generation and were recruited heavily in the pro ranks. Signing for the Orica-GreenEdge team in 2014, the two more than lived up to expectations, as both would win the young rider competition in the Tour de France and Simon would win the Vuelta a España in 2018. But Adam opted to move on in 2021 to Ineos, and has since joined UAE Team Emirates in 2023. He has ridden to new career highs, something Simon hopes to replicate by joining the rival Visma squad.
“We are very close and I talked with Adam of course. As soon as the proposal came through to work with Visma I asked him what his thoughts were,” Yates said. “I wouldn’t say that seeing Adam’s progress at UAE was my motivation to change teams, but it gave me confidence. He obviously stepped up a level, and I am hoping for a similar improvement.”
Yates finished fourth in the 2023 Tour, but a frustrating 2024 season finally made him decide to leave his Jayco-AlUla team after more than ten years.
Like Adam, who leads the UAE team in certain races but rides in support of Tadej Pogačar in the Tour de France, Simon will be the team’s GC leader in particular races before lining up with Vingegaard in the Tour.
His main objective as leader will come in the Giro d'Italia, but the team is planning to come with a three-pronged charge that includes sprinter Olav Kooij as well as the multi-talented Van Aert. “It’s going to be quite nice having multiple goals this year with Wout van Aert and Olaf, so I am looking forward to it,” Yates said. “I have been closer to that top step in the Giro than the Tour, and maybe with a couple of small adjustments I can make the necessary improvement.”
Yates nearly won the Giro in 2018, only to be upstaged by Chris Froome, after wearing the pink leader’s jersey for 13 days. And although he shies away from the expression, he also admits that he has some unfinished business with the Giro, which he calls, “the purest of races”.
Come July, however, he will shift to support mode for Vingegaard, who hopes to return to the top step of the podium in Paris, after the two-time winner saw his chances compromised last year in a horrific crash at Itzulia Basque Country. But even in a supporting role, Yates knows that he can still have opportunities of his own in a three-week race like the Tour.
In making the move to Visma, however, Yates’ primary goal is simply to up his game. It is something that, in his early thirties, he knows does not come easily. But he signed with Visma to do just that.
“The team thinks I have a nice margin to improve across the board. We will see if that comes true, but I am hoping that with the new philosophy, the nutrition, the training and all, that we will see a real improvement,” he said. “There was nothing major, but they [Visma staff] saw room for improvement and I have to trust them.”
Yates hopes that a combination of small changes will bring marked improvements in 2025
Although he has nothing but positive remarks when it comes to his former team, he does see differences with the Dutch squad. “The biggest difference here at Visma is the attention to detail. Don’t get me wrong, I had a fantastic time with Jayco. I have no regrets. There was a lot of freedom at Jayco, but there was a lot of responsibility on the riders to prepare properly,” Yates said. “I would organise my own training camps and altitude camps, but the responsibility was on me. Sometimes, however, we missed out on the smaller details, when to do this block of training, when is the right moment to implement this nutritional strategy, smaller details like that which, in the end, can make a big difference.”
Yates understands that his new team comes with tradeoffs, but they are tradeoffs he is willing to make. “Here I will have to give up a bit of that freedom, but I have this incredible support structure. This is a team that knows how to win the biggest races. Here, I have come to a team that has this structure [for Grand Tours] and knows how it works. In the end, I wanted to make the change.”
