Riding bikes is almost a requirement to be in the Borghesi family. Letizia and her younger sister grew up hearing stories from her dad about his wins as a U23 racer and Letizia thought to herself, “I could do that.” She started racing as a 12-year-old and hasn’t looked back. Her parents still ride and you’ll often find them at Letizia’s races, having driven their camper van from their home in the mountains of northern Italy to support their daughter.

In 2022, Letizia earned a pair of top ten finishes in the spring classics. She continued her growth the following season with top ten results in both one-day and stage races. Letizia has raced the Giro-Tour double for the last two years, enjoying demands of back-to-back stage races. Her biggest result to date is her 2019 stage win at the Giro d’Italia where she spent the day in the breakaway before sprinting to the stage win.

Growing up in the mountains of northern Italy, Letizia is happiest when she is outside. She adores her home region of Trentino and you can often find her hiking to the nearby lakes when she’s not training on the road. She earned the silver medal in the 2022 Italian gravel national championships, her first ever gravel race, and has since also raced the gravel world championships. In the off season, Letizia enjoys competing in the local cyclocross races. Given her experience in cyclocross, it’s not a surprise that her favorite races are the cobbled classics because she loves the steep climbs and is used to the harsh weather conditions.

Letizia completed her bachelor’s degree in sports science and she is currently studying for her master’s degree in biology/nutrition.

Kim came to cycling via triathlon, a sport she took up as a teenager. When she grew tired of constant running injuries, she made the switch to cycling and has loved every minute of it.

She excels both in time trialing and on long climbs. Kim came to Europe to race for the first time in 2022 as the New Zealand U23 time trial national champion and placed fifth that season in the Mont Ventoux Dénivelé Challenge. Last year she got her first taste of stage racing and finished third on the queen stage at the Tour of Scandinavia.

With climbing and time trialing, Kim appreciates how they are straightforward disciplines. Still new to the sport, racing a TT or a climb means she doesn’t have to worry too much about tactics and can focus on pedaling and pushing herself to her limits, something she loves to do.

In 2024, Kim’s goal is to continue growing as a rider through racing and learning from her teammates.

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.

Clara Koppenburg brings strength, experience, and her ever curious, energetic mind to EF Education-Cannondale. The 28-year-old German has been a pro for a decade and still loves to learn about her sport.

In 2014, she was offered her first professional contract just a few months after she had ridden her first races. Her athletic background helped. When she was a kid, Clara rode horses, played tennis and basketball, and skied, both alpine and cross-country. A talented runner, who raced all the distance events on the track, she studied sports science, which she loved, because she could earn half her credits by sailing or rowing or doing other outdoor activities with her friends from class. Although her dad worked for a professional cycling team, Clara never considered riding bikes herself.

Then, she went on a trip with him to a race in Colorado and realized that cycling was a lot more intense than the off-road jaunts to cafés and ice cream shops that she’d done with him. Inspired, she decided to start training and was soon off to the races.

She just loved pushing herself to her limits. She has since won the Setmana Ciclista Valenciana - Vuelta Comunitat and finished second at the Tour Cycliste Féminin International de l’Ardèche. In 2023, she was second at the ReVolta.

Clara is a talented climber, who wants to focus on stage racing for the coming seasons. She lives in her beloved Black Forest, just outside of Basel, and enjoys spending time on the wooded climbs that she knows so well, spending evenings swimming down the Rhine with friends all the way to Basel’s city center, and trying out some difficult new recipes in the kitchen. She is already famous for her vegan banana bread, which is one of her favorite pre-ride snacks.

Whatever you picture when you think of an accountant, you’re probably not imagining Nina Kessler. Yet the 35-year-old earned her undergraduate degree in business economics and enjoyed her years in accounting before she made the leap to becoming a professional cyclist, although – luckily for us – she doesn’t plan to return to bookkeeping anytime soon.

Nina began cycling as a child. She used to ride with a club near her house and when she got a pink bike as a seven-year-old, that sealed her love for the sport. She branched out from road cycling and raced mountain bikes and on the track, but when she felt she was spread too thin across so many disciplines to reach her potential, Nina chose to focus on road racing.

The Dutchwoman is an experienced sprinter, though these days she often prefers to be a road captain. She has over 500 days of road racing experience and has learned a thing or two as a result. She prides herself on being able to accurately read a race situation and guiding her teammates through the finals of a race.

Away from the racing season, you’ll still find Nina surrounded by cycling. Not only does she compete recreationally in beach races in the winter – think mountain bikes with big tires and low pressure racing along the Dutch coastline – her parents are soigneurs in the Netherlands and her siblings are big fans of the sport. In fact, they are her biggest supporters.

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.