Skylar Schneider (Miami Blazers) returns to the Ladies’s WorldTour and can race the 2025 highway season with Workforce SD Worx-Protime. With a one-year contract in hand, Schneider will work once more with Danny Stam, the sports activities supervisor for SD Worx-Protime who led the then-branded Boels-Dolmans Biking Workforce when Schneider raced from 2018 to 2020.
The 26-year-old Wisconsin native was simply 19 when she struck out from the US for the highest tier in Europe. Stam recalled that “she was always homesick”, and returned to the US after three years, however instructed him she would welcome a return to the workforce when she was prepared.
‘Profitable retains profitable, you must have sure qualities for that. I feel she may be of nice worth within the lead-out for Lorena Wiebes, however can even develop additional. When it comes to character she matches the workforce and I’m additionally satisfied that bodily she has the ‘engine’ to compete on the highest degree,’ Sturm mentioned in a press launch.
Schneider amassed 28 particular person podiums in 2024, seven of these stage or criterium victories. She scored one other pair of omnium wins, the total at eight-race American Criterium Cup sequence and the dash title within the ACC.
She instructed Cyclingnews that the whole 2024 season was distinctive as she switched from L39ION of Los Angeles to Miami Blazers, each operated by Williams Racing Improvement, and had plans to hitch the world’s number-one ranked professional girls’s workforce for the following season.
“I knew that I’d be transferring to SD Worx in 2025, so it was essential to me to spend one remaining season as teammates with my sister [Samantha Schneider] and representing Williams Racing Improvement. We completed rather a lot in 2024 together with profitable the American Criterium Cup particular person total, dash jersey and second finest workforce,” she confirmed to Cyclingnews.
In 2023 she received the Pan-American highway race, earned bronze at US Professional Nationals within the highway race and completed the yr with third at Tour de Gatineau. The final three seasons she has raced together with her older sister Samantha Schneider, and the 2 teamed up final yr to rake in 18 victories from their 36 podiums for L39ION of Los Angeles squad.
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“Ending the season on the rostrum with my sister in Doylestown was one of the best ways to finish an period of being teammates,” she instructed Cyclingnews about one her highlights from 2024, the place she and Samantha completed second and third, respectively, on the professional girls’s race on the Bucks County Basic.
“I am additionally tremendous proud about profitable the West Allis Cheese Wheel Basic through the Tour of America’s Dairyland as that is our hometown race the place all of our household, associates, and bakery clients come watch; it is the place each of my worlds collide.”
‘I like criterium racing’
Skylar Schneider and her sister opened a bakery/espresso store and particular occasion venue, The Bread Pedalers, close to their hometown in Wisconsin in 2022, and that gave the youthful sister an outlet from a lowered competitors schedule when she returned to the US the yr earlier than. That was one dream was actuality, however she admitted she nonetheless had a want for extra with a biking profession.
“As I used to be baking at evening, I watched all the girls’s races occurring over in Europe. Then it grew to become clear to me: ‘racing is what units me on hearth’, racing is what makes my coronary heart beat quicker. It grew to become clear to me that I needed to pursue my dream. I rode largely criteriums within the US, which gave me quite a lot of confidence,” Skyler mentioned.
“I attempted to get my foot within the door once more by performing some racing in Europe. I used to be chosen for 2 World Championships and received the Pan-American title. In some unspecified time in the future, it grew to become clear to me that I wished to go all-in. Then I contacted Danny Stam once more. I anticipated him to say no after I known as him in 2023, however he was glad to listen to from me. We made the plan to attend a yr and work in direction of 2025, which appeared like the very best method.”
Her resolution was not primarily based on an absence of racing alternatives within the US, as she emphasised that the various criterium sequence throughout the nation and a spring filled with smaller stage races has helped her improvement.
“I completely love criterium racing and imagine that it is the finest format of racing for the US to nurture and develop. I do know that the technicality and velocity of criteriums within the US will translate properly to the finals of highway races in Europe and I am wanting ahead to making use of these abilities.”
Schneider received her first set of highway nationals as a 12-year-old, taking victories within the highway race and criterium, and he or she additionally scored the double as a junior. Subsequent yr shall be her fifteenth season racing highway bikes. She has represented Workforce USA at a number of stage races through the years and brought half in two World Championships and the Pan-Am Championships. Subsequent objective? Assist her new workforce and work to qualification for the 2028 Olympic Video games in Los Angeles.
“I feel 2025 shall be all about re-learning the European fashion of racing and proving that I belong. I’ve lifelike expectations concerning how troublesome it will likely be, so am uncertain what races I will be doing, however stay up for each alternative,” she confirmed.
“At the moment, I haven’t got any particular targets aside from displaying as much as the races the place I am wanted and performing properly to contribute to the workforce’s success!
“Due to my background in using American criteriums, I’m good at positioning. I can even deal with brief climbs. I hope to experience a mixture of basic races and stage races.
“I feel each athlete desires of representing their nation at a house Olympics. I imagine making the 2028 Olympic video games in LA my greatest objective will hold me extraordinarily motivated over the following 4 years. It offers me sufficient time to develop and obtain quite a lot of ‘smaller’ targets alongside the best way. Shifting to SD Worx in 2025 is one large step in the best path!”
