Strong performance from our team at Amstel Gold Race

Lawyer, cyclist – is there anything Clara can’t do? She had passed the bar exam and was just starting her career as a lawyer when she began to race bikes. This was during the pandemic so she was working remotely which she didn’t enjoy at all. When a continental team based in Canada invited Clara to race with them for the 2022 season, she didn’t hesitate. She turned pro the following year.

But Clara isn’t finished with academia yet. She began a master’s degree in sports law at the same time she started racing. For Clara, both school and cycling offer an outlet from each other and she finds it energizing to have different areas of focus in her life.

Last year, in Clara’s first race as a pro at the Vuelta Extremadura Féminas, she won the queen of the mountains jersey, finished second on the queen stage, and was second on the overall podium. She also raced the Tour de France Femmes and wrapped up the year with a podium at La Périgord Ladies.

The 2024 season will be her second as a professional racer and though she’s still learning the ins and outs of the sport, Clara’s innate climbing talent is undeniable. She has already grown so much in her nascent cycling career, but she is motivated to keep learning and improving.

Magdeleine was about eight-years-old when she learned to ride a bike without training wheels. That Christmas, she got a new bike and the following summer her dad took her on a nine-day, 1,000 kilometer bikepacking trip. She credits her dad – and that trip – with creating her passion for cycling that has guided her life ever since.

Growing up in Sherbrooke, Quebec, Magdeleine rode with her local club. She raced mountain bikes, cyclocross, and road bikes as a teenager. She also learned how to track stand and to this day cannot resist the urge to track stand when she waits at red lights. As much as she loved racing in Quebec, Magdeleine soon realized that if she wanted to continue to compete and grow as a rider, she needed to go to Europe. She earned a spot with the UCI’s World Cycling Center program where she spent two seasons soaking up every opportunity she encountered.

At just 22-years-old, Magdeleine has already raced big stage races like the Vuelta a España Femenina, the Giro d’Italia Women, and the Tour de France Femmes, and one-day races like Strade Biance and Amstel Gold. She is still learning where her strengths lie but it’s clear that her enthusiasm for cycling will help her go far.

Lukas Nerurkar is only 19, but has already won stages of the Giro Next Gen and Orlen Nations GrandPrix and finished sixth on GC at Spain’s O Gran Camiño. That one was against the pros. Lukas joins them in the WorldTour this year.

Racing runs in his genes. Bike racing was never the most straightforward choice for Lukas however. He grew up in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where his dad – Olympic marathon and 10,000-meter runner Richard Nerurkar – moved their family after he had hung up his racing flats. He’d always trained in Africa and loved the atmosphere. Lukas’s mom Gail was a runner too. His sister Almi was soon bounding in their footsteps. She became a runner as well. But as soon as Lukas started riding bikes, he knew that cycling was the sport for him. When he was a kid, he and his dad would escape Addis Ababa’s clogged streets and ride up into the hills above the city.

Lukas just loved going farther and faster.

He has been doing that ever since. When he was seven, Lukas’s family moved back to England and settled in Brighton, where Lukas started racing with the Preston Park Cycling Club. He stayed with this local team all the way through the youth categories. By the time he was 16, he was ready to step up. He joined VC Londres in London and soon caught the eye of the racers in the club, who introduced him to Trinity, a British Continental team. There his talent blossomed. Over the past two seasons, in races all over Europe, Lukas has made a name for himself on the under-23 circuit. Now, he is ready for the WorldTour. A punchy climber, he is confident that he has what it takes to compete with the best. O Gran Camiño proved that. But Lukas knows that he still has a lot to learn. He will stay humble, but never lose his competitive fire. After all, he is Girona’s town-sign sprint and chess champion.

Marijn van den Berg started cycling when he was seven. His dad would take him and his older brother out on the roads near their home, which was just outside the Dutch city of Utrecht, where Marijn still lives. For a while, Marijn wasn’t sure if he had much talent for racing, but he enjoyed getting the most out of himself on the bike. He rose through the ranks, riding for Dutch teams, before moving to France in 2021. That season, he had a breakout year, winning eight races with the juniors, including two stages of the Tour de L’Avenir. He is a strong sprinter who can get to the finish of hard-fought hilly races.

In 2022, his first season in the WorldTour, he earned a number of top-ten places. In 2023, he put to use all that he learned from his rookie season, taking wins at Trofeo Ses Salines - Alcudia and stage wins at the Tour of Poland and La Route d'Occitanie - La Dépêche du Midi. He earned the sprinter's jersey at Région Pays de la Loire Tour and La Route d'Occitanie - La Dépêche du Midi.

Marijn is still looking to learn all that he can and race for results every chance he gets.

Mikkel Honoré loves to light up races in EF Education-EasyPost pink. The Dane is a very versatile rider. He has the horsepower and skill to shepherd our GC captains through a racing peloton during the hardest grand tour stages. A great climber with a strong finishing kick, who can hold his own on the cobbles, Mikkel has sprinted to stage victories at the Tour of the Basque Country and Settimana Internazionale Coppi e Bartali—two of the hilliest stage races on the calendar. He is consistently at the front of the biggest races and always ready to do his turn for his teammates. We count on Mikkel to be there for us at crucial moments in grand tours and attack the finales of the great one-day races. He’ll go for more victories himself.

Mikkel lives in Switzerland, near the shores of Lake Como. He loves to travel and always has a book with him on the bus. Reading takes him away from the bubble of racing and training. He enjoys philosophy and novels and will always read up on the places where we race to better understand the people who live in the countryside that we pass through.

Mikkel is a great basketball fan. He and his wife will go watch a game together whenever they get the chance.

Ben Healy is one of the best young bike racers of his generation. Born and raised near Birmingham, the 23-year-old is proud of his Irish roots and honored to wear the Bratach na hÉireann colors as the Irish road race national champion.

The 2023 season was Ben’s breakout year. After winning the GP Industria & Artigianato and a stage at Coppi e Bartali, he finished second at Brabantse Pijl and second at the Amstel Gold Race. And then he went and won a stage at the Giro d'Italia with a 50-km solo.

Results like that are a testament to his tenacity.

Ben blazed his own way to the pro ranks. He was riding at his local track by the time he was five years old. Growing up, he was there every Sunday morning to train and race. But his first love was mountain biking. That meant hucking himself off the established track for a young bike racer in Britain. Ben dropped out of the academy and decided to go it alone.

Racing mountain bikes and road bikes on smaller teams, he soon had stage wins at the Giro Ciclistico d’Italia and the Ronde de l’Isard to his name, as well as Irish road and time trial championship titles. In 2019, Ben became the youngest ever winner of a stage at the Tour de l’Avenir.

And now, he has shown that he can go toe-to-toe with the best bike racers in the world in the sport’s greatest races.

Ben loves getting in breakaways and surprising his rivals with his daring attacks. He is as aero as anyone in the peloton and is always looking for the latest edge.

Last to go will be his flowing black locks. Away from the races, Ben likes big cities and hanging out with his friends from art school.

He is an explosive climber, who wants to find out what he can do over the course of a grand tour. So does the rest of the world. The only thing that’s for certain is that Ben Healy is going to keep racing his own way.

Owain is one of just two Welsh speakers in the peloton and became the first Welsh-speaking athlete to win a gold medal at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

While he loves to explore new places on long rides, his favorite place to ride is in the Peak District — preferably on a sunny day. For Owain, setting goals and giving his all in their pursuit is deeply satisfying. In the moment that a race kicks it up a notch, he finds motivation in reminding himself that the outcome will be worth the effort. Owain, the runner-up in the 2019 edition of Kuurne-Bruxelles-Kuurne, loves racing the Classics and Grand Tours. When Owain is not on his bike, you’ll find him overseeing 5 Rings, his coffee company named for the Olympic rings.

James loves the places that his bike has taken him, the people he has met because of cycling, and the life lessons he’s learned through the sport. But what does he love most about cycling? Racing.

While James has achieved strong results as a GC rider, especially in 2021 at the Tour of Slovenia and the Tour of Norway, his favorite races are the Ardennes Classics. He is also a keen student of cycling history and finds pride and motivation in thinking about the riders who have come before him. James finished his first grand tour at the 2022 Vuelta and is excited for more.

Through the year, he lives in England’s Peak District. When he is home, James resets by taking his dogs for long walks on the moors and riding with old clubmates. His racing and training schedule is very busy, but whenever he has time, James hitches a trailer to his bike and goes bike packing.