Professional cycling was faster than ever in 2025. After the quickest Tour de France in history in July, by the time the men's WorldTour season reached its denouement at the Tour of Guangxi, the story was much the same – a record-breaking average season speed of 42.9 kilometres per hour.
Just what does it take to keep up with those speeds and compete for victories? "Adapt or die" is how one former Grand Tour winner, Jai Hindley, puts it simply.
So it's not an illusion that men's pro bike racing, since the COVID-19 pandemic, has witnessed a drastic shift. Everyone is quicker, riders are becoming more professional at younger and younger ages, more risks are taken, and the general standard of the peloton's racecraft is rising: put it all together and the pace of racing continues to accelerate remorselessly.
Hindley joined the WorldTour in 2018 with Sunweb, meaning the lead-up to his prime age of now 29 has encapsulated this shift in speeds to the full. So he's lived it, won the Giro d'Italia along the way, and he is now trying to keep up with the quickest as he heads into an important contract year.
'It never gets easier, you just go faster'
The Australian describes the acceleration as all-encompassing, not just at the biggest races, as he sits down to speak with four journalists at Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe's media day back in December.
Almost as famous for his one-liners as he is for winning the Giro, Hindley approaches the subject with a degree of humour. But his words are serious, and his prediction about the future generations of racers is stark.
"It's not only the Grand Tours that are more brutal, it's everything. Everything, every race is harder than the last," Hindley says before quoting an icon of cycling, three-time Tour de France winner Greg LeMond, to sum it up the best.
"As LeMond said, 'It never gets easier, you just go faster'. It's really like that – you feel the sport is evolving rapidly. The races are getting more and more fast, and it's not getting any easier, that's for sure. So adapt or die, basically."
The number one rider in the world's status as an already all-time great highlights that too, with Tadej Pogačar's almost complete domination of the entire calendar making it impossible to miss any percentage point if you want to compete.
For someone trying to win Grand Tours like Hindley, improvement year on year, month on month, week on week, is paramount. But with such intensity comes a price, one that this next generation of riders will pay as the need for speed reaches its limit, Hindley predicts.
"I think you just have to be completely focused in the key moments," says Hindley to the question of just how one keeps up. "It's changed a lot.
"I think careers will also not be so long, probably eight to nine years. I don't expect guys will be able to ride or live at this intensity for 10 to 15 years like it was in the past.
"Everyone is doing everything to the absolute limit and yeah, it's a pretty brutal sport, but honestly, if you want to compete and you want to be in the mix, then you have to be at your absolute best and not 1% less, otherwise you won't be there. Like I said, you either adapt and do everything you can, or you're left in the dust."
A fourth place he desperately needed
Hindley finished fourth at the most recent Vuelta a España, his best result at a Grand Tour for more than two years, and while he narrowly missed out on the podium by 30 seconds behind Tom Pidcock, he notes how, in this time of constant evolution, he really needed that placing.
He's one of just 12 active Grand Tour winners in the peloton, but a pink jersey four years ago buys you little in a sport that is moving on as quickly as cycling. Even on his own team, with Red Bull bringing in more leaders like Remco Evenepoel, Hindley was at risk of losing his place in the hierarchy.
"If I'm being totally honest, I really needed a good result at a Grand Tour again," admits the Australian. "It had been a while since I had actually done something, maybe since 2023 – the Tour in '24 was a rough one, and then I obviously crashed out of the Giro in '25, so personally, I really needed that for myself.
"It was really nice to be back at the pointy end of a Grand Tour, and pretty competitive, especially in the last week. I took a lot of a lot away from that, let's say, and I think there's still more to come."
Even with that internal threat, though, Hindley is taking it as a positive and only sounds hungrier for more heading into 2026. Having roomed with Evenepoel at training camp in December, he definitely seems to have taken it as more of an exciting opportunity than a hit to his standing as a GC leader at Red Bull.
"In the end, you can be the worst team in the world where you can have all the opportunities that you want, but then it depends on where you find the balance," he says.
"I think being in one of the best teams in the world – or a team that is trying to be the best team in the world –also gives you a lot as a rider, it just totally depends on your perspective.
"If you're pessimistic, you can think like, 'Oh, fuck, there's all these guys here now, I'm not going to get my shot,' or you can think, 'OK, all these guys are on board, now I really need to step up my game and be as consistent as possible'. So I'm pretty optimistic."
Staying hungry as cycling reaches new pinnacle
That step up to his game, shown again in the Vuelta, is one that relates to this rapidly changing standard at the top of cycling. Hindley is well-aware that the level he was at when he triumphed in the Giro in 2022 and the peaks he reached when he came second at the Giro two years before that will no longer cut it if he wants to go on winning.
"I think it could have been the same level, if not better. The level is just going crazy. I think since COVID-19, you probably also saw it," he says.
"It's just the evolution of the sport was probably heading in this direction anyway, but I think COVID-19 was a real accelerator for that, and we're in a pretty special era of cycling as well.
"If I look at the guys who are winning most of the races, you've got arguably one of the best cyclists of all time as the number one rider at the moment, and if you want to compete with him, then you also need to be your absolute best. It's pretty remarkable – I think we take it for granted sometimes, how impressive some of these guys are."
Impressive nonetheless, Hindley isn't demoralised by the domination of riders like Pogačar and his UAE Team Emirates-XRG squad that won a record 95 races last season. Staying in the sport and competing at the top – as he has done for much of the past seven seasons – requires the hunger to stay the same.
Crashes have set him back from that previous pink jersey-winning glory, but the Vuelta was a real flash of just what Hindley could still do, and he'll get another chance to show that off by returning to the Giro once again in May.
He'll be Red Bull's co-leader alongside Giulio Pellizzarri, with whom he had great synergy at the Vuelta, with the young Italian also finishing in the top six on the general classification. Highs like that make all the sacrifices worth it for the 29-year-old.
"Everyone has their own setbacks, and you just have to deal with them. It's part of being an athlete and also a professional cyclist. In the end, it's not all going to be sunshine and rainbows," says Hindley.
"You really have to love it, I would say, and you really have to motivate yourself and be hungry for it more than anything – because if you don't have that hunger and you don't have the drive, then it's just not gonna happen.
"It's cut-throat out there. You know what I mean? It's not easy, but it's also worth it, I would say, for the highs that you can get and that you can work towards."
And if there was ever a question of Hindley's drive and motivation, just know that as long as he can be riding a bike as a professional instead of earning his way by sitting at a desk or laying bricks, then he will be doing everything he can to do so. It's not quite as good as his 'I'm not here to put socks on centipedes' line from the Giro in 2022, but Hindley wasn't short of his usual wit even as early as December in anticipation of the new season.
"I think you have your moments as a professional cyclist, but in general, it's better than working at the office, isn't it? It's better than laying brick. I mean, man, I really love it for me," Hindley tells the four journalists in front of him with a laugh.
"Okay, sometimes you think, 'Fucking hell, what am I doing?' But in the end, your worst, absolute worst day on the bike, is still better than your best day at the office, 100%. It's an awesome sport, and it takes a lot away, but it also really gives you a lot. For me, it's given me a lot in life. So I've got a lot of love for cycling."
