Trek’s WorldTour cycling team has a new title sponsor, Lidl. After joining forces with the Lidl supermarket chain, the team has transformed from Trek-Segafredo to Lidl-Trek.
The 2023 USA road race champion, Quinn Simmons of Durango, is part of the new Lidl-Trek era. it. A lot is changing at the surface level of the program. There’s a new name, new kit, and a whole new set of ambitions thanks to even greater resources now available to the team.
The team formally introduced itself Wednesday at a Lidl store in Bilbao, Spain, where the 2023 Tour de France will begin on Saturday. With the biggest race in road cycling as a backdrop, Lidl-Trek signaled its intentions: To win at the highest levels the sport can offer.
And yet, deep down, the team said not much is changing at all. At the top, Lidl-Trek will still be led by general manager Luca Guercilena. And the team will operate under the same philosophies and values. At its core, Lidl-Trek says it is a team that puts rider development and a family atmosphere first.
“Over the years, we’ve invested a lot in young riders who are developing at a high level,” Guercilena said. “Loyalty to the team has been fundamental to reaching our potential. That will never change.”
With Lidl as a partner, Lidl-Trek will be able to realize its vision at a scale that the program never could have imagined before. The goal is to be the most successful team in the peloton, no matter where and when they line up.
The team has always prioritized rider development and 2019 World Champion Mads Pedersen, recent Tour de Suisse winner Matthias Skjelmose, and inaugural Tour de France Femmes best young rider Shirin van Anrooij are examples of its successes. As Lidl-Trek, the road program will double down on its commitment to young riders by creating a development team for the men’s team, and adding Under-23 racers to the women’s team.
“Our foundation will always be investing in riders that fit our mentality while always keeping an eye on young generation,” Guercilena said. “This is why we’re creating a development men’s team and investing even more into young women’s riders.”
The men’s development team will be based in Deinze, Belgium, where the Trek Factory Racing service course is located, and consist of 14 riders competing at the UCI Continental level. Accommodations will be made for the young riders, including an option to stay at an apartment in Girona, Spain. The Lidl-Trek women’s team will add five young riders to its roster. All of the young riders will take on a carefully-curated schedule of races to help them gradually acclimate to WorldTour racing.
The team said it’s road program has always taken a judicious approach to veteran signings. Free agent riders not only need to fulfill an open role on the squad, but they need to fit culturally, too. Guercilena prizes loyalty, the team said, and developing riders in a family atmosphere is another good way to make those riders stick around.
But Guercilena isn’t blind to the realities of the sport, and the increased financial support with Lidl as a partner will help the team keep its roster intact. It will also allow it to strategically pursue free agent cyclists and increase its firepower wherever and whenever necessary.
“We’re very thankful for the financial support of a great company like Lidl in addition to Trek,” Guercilena said. “Not only can it help us keep our riders, but we will be able to increase the level of the whole team and pursue our biggest goals.”
Lidl-Trek is also aiming to embody the bicycle company’s ethos, “ride bikes, have fun, feel good,” right down to its new kits and bike schemes.
The Trek road racing program has always had a unique vision of what it wanted to accomplish, and how. The Lidl-Trek era will take that experiment to a whole new level.
“We are building up an ambitious team with the goal to achieve the highest ranking in the world,” Guercilena said. “No excuses. This will be a big task, and we are all ready for it at Lidl-Trek.”
Lidl-Trek is heading to the Tour de France with an experienced team and coming off a highly successful weekend at the various national championships: the team’s eight Tour riders have a combined 23 participations in the biggest bike race in the world, with road captain Tony Gallopin alone accounting for 10.
The team also have two riders who have never raced the Tour, Juanpe Lopez and Mattias Skjelmose. And two riders who had their debut only last year: Simmons and Alex Kirsch.
Skjelmose, who just like Kirsch and Simmons won a national road race this past weekend, will be Lidl-Trek’s general classification leader. The young Dane won the Tour de Suisse and will try his hand at the GC in the Tour. The team is fully committed to supporting Skjelmose over three weeks and protecting his overall ambitions. Riders like Jasper Stuyven and Kirsch can do amazing work on the flatter stages, while Juanpe Lopez and Simmons can do the same on the climbing days. Tony Gallopin’s experience will also be key to its success.
Lidl-Trek will also go stage hunting, notably with Pedersen and Giulio Ciccone. Jasper Stuyven and Simmons will also have their chances to go for glory on certain stages.
With Skjelmose, Pedersen, Ciccone, Stuyven, Lopez, Kirsch, Gallopin and Simmons, the team said it is arguably fielding its strongest TDF squad in many years, calling it, “a perfect beginning for the new Lidl-Trek chapter.”
The team will premier their new Lidl-Trek kits in front of the cycling-mad fans in the Basque country, as the Grande Boucle departs from beautiful Bilbao in northern Spain Saturday to start the Tour. The route is very balanced but also relentless: expect there to be never more than two days in a row where the GC riders aren’t going head to head. The fireworks will start as early as stage 1, with 3,300 meters (10,000 feet) of climbing on the menu and the first yellow jersey on the line.
The first major mountains arrive early, on Stage 6 (Col du Tourmalet) and Stage 9 (Puy de Dome). The second week has a combination of hilly stages and mountain stages and will start to shape the GC battle.
In contrast to all the climbing the riders will have to tackle, there’s only 22 kilometers of time trial in the 2023 Tour de France, at the start of the final week. From there, there will be a sprint stage and two final mountain days before the traditional procession in Paris.
