At some point, the final race is over. For most professional cyclists, this moment comes in their mid-30s – right in the middle of their lives. What follows is as varied as the different types of riders in the peloton: some remain loyal to the sport and simply switch sides. Others completely reinvent themselves within the cycling world. And some deliberately seek to distance themselves because professional cycling has left them burnt out. Things get interesting where these paths cross.
Changing teams in professional cycling
Hardly anyone embodies perseverance quite as consistently as Fabian Wegmann. His career did not end by choice: when his last team, Stölting, disbanded after the 2016 season, the three-time German champion found himself without a contract. Instead of dwelling on it, the Münster native made the most of his free time, obtained a licence from the UCI as a sporting director and also qualified as a coach. He initially worked for the Tour de France organiser A.S.O. as a race official.
Today, Wegmann can be found in the lead car at almost all major German professional races. He is the sporting director of the Deutschland Tour and helps organise Eschborn–Frankfurt as well as his home race, the Münsterland Giro. In 2024, the Cyclassics in Hamburg were added to his portfolio, where he succeeded Roland Hofer, who retired at the age of 80. A nice touch: Wegmann himself won the Frankfurt classic – the route of which he now helps to plan – in 2009 and 2010.
His job is a balancing act between the riders’ wishes, the regulations imposed by the authorities and safety requirements. He showed that he still hasn’t lost touch with his inner racing driver during the 2025 Tour of Germany: for the stage through the Teutoburg Forest, they had “included every possible climb”.
The sprinter who became the national coach
André Greipel has also stayed on, albeit after some hesitation. When the most successful German professional cyclist (158 victories, eleven Tour stages) retired from the Münsterland Giro in October 2021, an offer was already on the table: sporting director at Lotto-Soudal. Greipel turned it down, feeling it was too soon. Instead, he helped a bicycle manufacturer with development and equipment testing and, above all, spent time with his family in the Cologne area.
Then, in 2023, came the surprising turn of events: of all organisations, it was the German Cycling Federation – which Greipel had publicly criticised shortly after retiring for breaking its promises – that appointed him team manager of the elite men’s team. Since then, he has been coaching the national team at World and European Championships and has a say in the selection process. At the same time, he has obtained an agent’s licence to help young riders secure contracts. A conflict of interest? Greipel does not see it that way, but there have certainly been critical voices within the peloton.
The new arena of professional cycling
Whilst Wegmann and Greipel have followed traditional career paths as officials and coaches, Rick Zabel has pioneered a whole new career path for former professionals. Although he never matched his father Erik’s sporting successes, by the end of his career he was one of the most popular German cyclists of all time. The reason: even whilst he was still competing as a professional for 13 years, he built up a second source of income through podcasts and social media. In an interview with TOUR He later admitted that, in the end, telling stories had made him happier than racing itself.
Since his retirement, his side job has turned into a full-time project. Since May 2025, the podcast “Ulle & Rick”, which he co-hosts with Jan Ullrich, has been released every Thursday. His book “On the Road” went straight to number two on the SPIEGEL bestseller list. And in his YouTube series “Rick Needs a Job”, he spent a year trying out a different profession every week, including as a footballer for 1. FC Köln, on the ice with the Kölner Haie, and in the kitchen of a Michelin-starred chef. But he can’t do without racing entirely: at the Eschborn–Frankfurt 2026, where he himself finished second in 2017 as Alexander Kristoff’s lead-out man, he was at the microphone as a TV pundit. On Instagram, cycling posts have been appearing more frequently again of late.
Avoiding the risk: Tony Martin
Tony Martin has taken a step further away from professional cycling. The four-time time trial world champion ended his career in 2021, a year before his contract was due to expire, citing the serious crashes he suffered that season as one of the reasons. He said he had asked himself whether he wanted to continue taking the risks associated with the sport, and criticised the fact that safety at races had not improved despite all the discussions. His farewell, however, was all the sweeter for it: in his final race, he won another World Championship gold medal with the German mixed relay team.
These days, Martin is an entrepreneur rather than a racing cyclist. He is working on his own brand of children’s bicycles, li:on, and acts as a brand ambassador for a helmet manufacturer. By his own account, he still manages to get on his bike once or twice a week for at least three hours. He says he has never given a comeback a second thought.
Gone, yet back again: Kittel and Dumoulin
The break was even more drastic in Marcel Kittel’s case. Germany’s record-holding stage winner at the Tour (14 stage victories) terminated his contract with Katusha-Alpecin in May 2019 and announced his retirement shortly afterwards. He had lost all motivation to continue pushing himself to the limit, he said at the time. Added to this was the birth of his first child, whom he did not want to watch grow up solely via video calls. Kittel enrolled to study economics in Konstanz, spent his afternoons in the library and, in 2021, published a book in which he writes candidly about the existential crises behind his great victories.
Nevertheless, the sport has never really let him go. Since 2021, he has been analysing the Tour de France for the Dutch broadcaster NOS, and he has been a brand ambassador for Rose Bikes for years. And since the start of this season, he has made a definitive return to professional cycling: as sprint coach at ProTeam Unibet Rose Rockets, he is working, of all people, with his former rival Dylan Groenewegen.
Tom Dumoulin has taken a similar path. The 2017 Giro d’Italia winner and time trial world champion pulled out in January 2021, in the middle of a training camp, because he was no longer sure whether he wanted to be a professional cyclist at all. He described the decision as a relief, as if a heavy rucksack had slipped from his shoulders. Although he returned and won Olympic silver in Tokyo, August 2022 marked the definitive end: he felt he’d run out of steam. Afterwards, Dumoulin travelled the world, including a mountain bike trip to the Himalayas.
Today he is back in the thick of things, initially as an outspoken expert, and soon in a position of responsibility: from 2027, Dumoulin will take over as director of the Amstel Gold Race. This season, he is working his way into the role alongside long-serving race director Leo van Vliet. In doing so, he is following in the footsteps of Fabian Wegmann, albeit via a considerably longer detour.
Far, far away: goats, cattle and canvases
And then there are those who have actually left. Thibaut Pinot was one of the most popular French riders of his generation, finishing third in the Tour de France in 2014 and winning the Giro di Lombardia in 2018. He never considered the pressure placed on him in France as the eternal hope for the nation to be a price worth paying in exchange for giving up his home. When he retired in 2023, he explained that he was now ready for real life. This life is being lived out in his home village of Melisey in the Vosges, on a farm that he and his partner have rebuilt. His goats became famous, but now he wants above all to expand his cattle breeding business.
Taylor Phinney was even more consistent. The American, son of two Olympic medallists, two-time track world champion and 2012 Giro d’Italia leader in the pink jersey, turned his back on professional cycling in 2019 at the age of just 29 to devote himself to art. Following his serious crash in 2014, he had taken up a paintbrush whilst in rehabilitation; at some point, art simply won out. Since then, Phinney has been painting, making music and building mountain bike trails around his home in Girona. His paintings, a blend of abstraction and calligraphy, have little to do with cycling. However, he hasn’t strayed entirely from the sport in recent years, as his wife, Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney, is one of the top female professional cyclists.
The return of the dropouts?
Phinney, of all people, provides the latest twist in this story: encouraged by USA Cycling, he is training on the track again and aims to secure a place in the four-man team for the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. Tony Martin would probably advise him against it; comebacks never end well, says the former world champion.
Perhaps that is the real insight: retiring from professional cycling is rarely a clean break. Those who stay on simply take on a different role. Those who leave often need some time away to rediscover their passion for the sport, as Kittel and Dumoulin demonstrate. And even those who have swapped the racecycle for the big screen eventually feel that tingle of excitement that cycling brings again.
Leon Weidner
Editor