What the Lidl-Trek era will look like

Lidl-Trek is on a mission to become the best road cycling team in the world. The team wears those ambitions proudly. And when Lidl joined the Trek road program as a title sponsor, they brought along the resources necessary to potentially make that dream a reality. 

But make no mistake: Lidl-Trek’s means to success will look very, very familiar in 2024 and beyond. The culture and philosophies that have defined the team since its inception won’t be changing at all.

Here’s the nitty gritty: For years, Lidl-Trek has been in the mid-table in spending, and has admirably outperformed those bounds. In fact, 2023 was the most successful year for the men’s team on record, with its most wins ever. It finished the season as the UCI’s No. 5-ranked team.

Now with a bigger budget at its disposal, Lidl-Trek is faced with the temptation to shortcut success by snatching up high-price riders and letting them loose in the most prestigious races of the year. A mercenarial mindset has worked for teams before. But Lidl-Trek’s leadership doesn’t see things that way. 

Lidl-Trek was built on the idea that a tight-knit culture and best-in-peloton rider development can create team success beyond the sum of its parts. Team general manager Luca Guercilena is adamant on this point.

“The name in front is more important than the name in back,” Guercilena says. “We don’t have stars, but as a team we are stars, because we are always combative and we ride as a team. We find the stars among the anti-stars.”

The team has succeeded thanks to a ground-up approach to program building. It begins with recruiting. Since 2020, former pro rider Markel Irizar has been Lidl-Trek’s head talent scout. He spends his time traveling to races to watch young riders compete. He meets with them, often in their homes, to evaluate their fit with Lidl-Trek in terms of their athletic potential and mindset.

Part of Irizar’s mission is education. He’s a Lidl-Trek diehard, having ridden for the road program since 2010. There may be no one better in the world to explain to riders and their parents what can be expected when they enter the fold. With bouncing energy and an easy grin, he exudes everything the team represents: Positivity, tireless effort, and single-minded dedication to the team.

“There’s a mentality here where we want riders to come here because they know they can improve as individuals, but it’s the team that counts,” Irizar says. “I try to explain that they are coming to a special place. I’m not gonna say that it is better or worse, but for me this team is special because I think it’s a family.”

Lidl-Trek’s big-money initiative will be empowering Irizar. He will lead the team’s newly-established development program, which is bringing in more than a dozen young men’s riders to ride a menu of second- and third-tier races that will help them build speed and race experience before they’re thrown into the deep waters of WorldTour racing.

The Lidl-Trek women’s team isn’t establishing an official devo team just yet, but it is also investing in young riders who might one day carry the torch. It recently signed five under-20 riders who have already shined on the world stage across multiple disciplines. 

Lidl-Trek will be selective when it splurges for big-name free agents. The new riders they bring on have to be a positive influence on their new teammates, as well. Case in point: Tao Geoghegan Hart, a Grand Tour GC contender who wants to win, yes, but who is also using his large platform for positive social reform, and is relishing the opportunity to be an open-minded leader within Lidl-Trek. 

“A new challenge is definitely exciting, to encounter different perspectives, athletes and cultures,” Geoghegan Hart said when he signed with Lidl-Trek. “That is one of my favorite things about cycling; the exploring and learning that we constantly encounter as athletes. With Lidl coming onboard as a new partner of the team, alongside Trek, who have owned the team for a long time now, it felt like a project I really wanted to be a part of at this moment in my career.”

To put together a roster of riders who are dedicated to the team, the team needs to show that it is dedicated to its riders. Lidl-Trek has strived to prioritize its rider’s mental and physical well-being. As an example, the team was among the first to make its women’s base salary equal to its men’s.

Guercilena and Irizar are also passionate that, as a development-focused team, Lidl-Trek feels like a nurturing home for young riders, even when great results don’t show right away.

“When we talk about athletes, you need to care about them,” Guercilena says. “Because you’re talking with a rider who has a family. And as a sports director who represents a team that is invested in him, you need to build a relationship.”

That patient philosophy behind the development team reflects Lidl-Trek’s overarching ethos on success. 

It’s easy to think of a sports team as a web of transactional relationships. The riders get paid a salary to ride fast. Sports directors make money to put those riders in the best position to win. And winning helps Guercilena keep his job as the head of the whole operation.

Plenty of teams across sports have won big by bringing together groups of people whose selfish interests happen to point in the same direction. But those ecosystems are fragile. As soon as one person perceives their teammate’s goals as antithetical to theirs, the the team dynamic quickly collapses. 

True team sacrifice ensures that riders are invested in one another. It’s a form of success that can weather any storm.

“When we talk about scouting, we talk about the family atmosphere and what the team provides, rather than simply what the rider can do and what they will earn,” Guercilena says. “The relationship is more than a contract. We offer support to riders, and don’t make any crazy promises, because we don’t even know if a young rider is going to step in and race.”

Pro cycling is admittedly a cutthroat business. It’s hard enough that riders have to compete every single day to maintain their hold on a select few WorldTour roster spots. Very often, the teams they ride for are struggling day-to-day. Every offseason starts up a brand new carousel of leadership changes, folding sponsors and program restructuring across WorldTour squads, making it harder for riders to know where, or if, they’ll be riding the following season.

Trek has been one of the most consistent presences within the chaos, wholly owning its road program since 2014. Trek’s steady commitment to racing has helped its team culture mature and become self-sustaining.

“We are not concerned about the future, we have a very good future,” Irizar says. “I think that we are not stressed to make the highest performance straightaway. We can go step by step. That’s why our philosophy with young riders is, ‘OK, no rush.’ We let them grow physically and mentally, step by step.”

Lidl-Trek’s team culture is not for everyone, and that’s OK. For a pro rider, it’s one thing to be told that they are valued for more than their on-road success; it’s another to take those words to heart. World-caliber athletes have intense competitive instincts. It’s not easy to willingly sacrifice personal glory for the betterment of a team.

As a mid-table squad, Lidl-Trek’s athletes-first approach had the benefit of enticing riders to stay in a welcoming team culture even when they had offers to make more money elsewhere. On occasion, riders left for the bigger paycheck, but Lidl-Trek’s management is steadfast about practicing what it preaches.

“I think that with us, we care about people a lot,” Guercilena says. “Sometimes we don’t squeeze their hands, which can be good or bad. If you care about the person, then if you are successful, some will leave for more money, and then you lose. But we truly believe in our motto that we are a team. So if you are here, it’s because you love the team. It’s not just because of economic reasons and self interest.

“Mads [Pedersen] and Jasper [Stuyven] are great examples. They really love the team. And they’re a big part of the team. And they are evaluated for what they bring to the team, not just their results.”

There’s no single right way to build a successful sports team, but Lidl-Trek is confident that its approach at least touches at the heart of road cycling, a sport where individuals stand atop podiums, but almost always with the help of teammates who sacrificed for them in silence.

It takes enormous speed to win a race, but incredible depth and teamwork to sustain winning across seasons. And if there’s anything to take away about the dawning Lidl-Trek era, it’s that it’s being built for the long haul. In a fickle sport, the program has maintained continuity unlike anyone. And after a long, deliberate build, the team may be on the precipice of greatness. 

“Now that we have more resources, the philosophy is not gonna change,” Irizar says. “We are going to have more pressure, of course. We have more expectations. But we are ready for a challenge, because in the end we have a winning mentality. And we like to win, and we like to race, and we are competitive. In the end, the DNA is the same.”

To this point, time has been the team’s greatest resource. Every new season — every training camp, race start, and win — Lidl-Trek has refined its approach, reinforced its team-first mentality, and become stronger on a fundamental level that isn’t always visible, but has peeked out on the sport’s biggest stages with increasing frequency over the years.

Lidl-Trek isn’t a finished product yet, and it certainly won’t realize all of its goals overnight. But every day it’s getting a little closer.