The 2022 junior world champion from Weiler-Simmerberg, Germany, will join our squad starting in 2027. Emil is excited to take on the biggest races with his new teammates and prove he is a winner. He loves our team's free-flowing, aggressive style and wants to make the most of every chance that he and the squad can create.

"I really like to race offensively, and that's EF Education-EasyPost's style too," Emil said.

"I want to start winning. That's my main goal – to win again, in breakaways, racing aggressively. I'm not a guy who likes to sit in the bunch all day and wait for the last climb. Watching the Tour de France this year, the team was really good, and I want to contribute to that. I'm still young, and I think I have some talent; I showed it in the juniors. I think I'll get more opportunities here. I'm really looking forward to it."

Emil is a punchy rider who can get over hard climbs and leave his rivals behind in the final kilometer of tough races. He likes the Ardennes and flat-out days over difficult terrain in stage races. When others tire, he keeps his kick. Emil has a mean turn of speed.

“Emil is a huge talent,” EF Pro Cycling founder and CEO Jonathan Vaughters said. “He was junior world champion and, at 22, already has three years of WorldTour racing in his legs. He was knocking on the door of his first professional win this season. I think he is going to flourish in the years ahead. He is an aggressive racer who really fits into our team’s style. We’re going to give him every opportunity to show his skills and strength.”

Emil really comes into his own in the hardest races.

"For me it's good when it's difficult," he said. "In the juniors, I was more of a sprinter, a bit more of a classics rider, but I've turned a bit more into a climber type – hard one-day races suit me, and stage races with a tough climb at the finish. But my goal should be to get back that explosiveness, because I love going in breakaways, and if I'm in a group that comes to the finish, I'd love to be able to win the sprint out of it. My fatigue resistance is quite good, so it's good for me when we have to push the whole day."

Some of that strength was honed on snow. Until he was 18, Emil didn't know if he wanted to be a cyclist or a cross-country skier. He did both. He grew up in the foothills of the Bavarian Alps, near the Bodensee, by the border with Switzerland and Austria. His winters were spent on skis; his summers, on mountain bikes.

"In my village, there's a club that does cross-country skiing in winter and mountain biking in summer, and my father was kind of the coach, the guy who went along with the kids," Emil said. "It all came from there. I did a lot of cross-country ski racing when I was younger – until I was 16 or 17. For a while I wasn't sure whether I wanted to become a skier or a cyclist, but with less and less snow, cross-country skiing got more complicated. With the bike, you just go out and train – even if the weather's bad you can still ride. When I was 13 or 14, a friend who also did mountain biking asked me to come to the road club, so I started doing both — though I didn't ride much on the road until the juniors."

Emil's first road years were a great success. In 2021, he won the German junior time trial title and finished second at the Course de la Paix and third at Aubel-Thimister-Stavelot, among other excellent results. Then, in 2022, he won 12 races, including the junior world road race championship, the Course de la Paix, and the German junior road race title.

As a pro, Emil proved that he can be a consistent WorldTour teammate, and recent results, like his second on Stage 5 of the Volta a Comunitat Valenciana and fourth at the Bretagne Classic, hint at big professional victories to come. 

Emil is going to get after them in his own style. He doesn't thrive in a rigid environment. He is a mountain man who still likes to go ski touring high in his home Alps, and he just took up paragliding. Last year, he added a trip to Unbound Gravel to his calendar and finished eighth at the great American dirt race. He also won the German gravel championship in the Eifel. He still rides mountain bikes when he can and would love to do more off-road racing in the future if it fits with his racing schedule.

"I really enjoy the variation of not only riding the road," Emil said. "Don't get me wrong, I love riding my bike, but for my head it's easier if I can change things up sometimes. If I can train on a gravel bike, and race on gravel now and then, I get some freshness in my head, and I think I benefit in both disciplines. I hope I can do some gravel races next year – that would be really cool and motivating."

This winter, Emil will train hard to get into winning shape on his home roads near the Bodensee. He is still finding new routes.

"I really like to explore," he said. "I don't need it to be somewhere far – a place two hours from my home can be just as beautiful as Canada. I love finding a nice road and just seeing everything, even near home, where I still find roads I've never ridden. And of course, if you're in really good shape and you feel you can be up there, that's cool too. You have to remember what you're doing it for. Cycling can be really hard, but it can also be the nicest thing on earth."

For Emil Herzog, nothing's nicer than winning bike races. Welcome to the squad, Emil. Next year is going to be great!