5 years can deliver a global of exchange, particularly in sports activities. In ladies’s biking on my own, the duration between 2019-2024 has observed the start of the Excursion de France Femmes, which is now the largest race at the calendar, building up in professionalism and salaries rising in opposition to the €1 million mark, and a complete new technology of riders emerge.
However for one rider, Rosa Klöser, the previous 5 years have observed her take an not likely trail from using the Copenhagen trip right through her PhD in Inexperienced Delivery via to victory at gravel racing’s largest tournament – Unbound Gravel 200, and now into UCI Girls’s WorldTour.
Whilst you might know her on account of her battle again from a puncture and wonder dash triumph in Emporia, Kansas remaining June, when you watched the new 3 Problem Mallorca Femenina races that kicked off the 2025 ladies’s street racing season in Europe, it’s possible you’ll observed Klöser’s title at the get started listing.
Alternatively, whilst using for her new group Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto, the German is competing in probably the most first street races of her existence, indisputably on the skilled stage, after a exceptional upward thrust into biking’s peak department.
Klöser describes becoming a member of her local Germany’s peak ladies’s group as “a dream”, however one who wasn’t even imaginable for her to dream of 5 years in the past, having come to the aggressive aspect of the game overdue right through the COVID-19 pandemic after her town motorcycle was once stolen.
“It must have been late 2020 that I was on a road bike for the first time in my life. Then at the start of 2021, I bought a nice road bike and went out on the first longer rides. But still, the first local race I’ve ever done on the road was in 2022.”
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Klöser beams as she recounts her early moments within the recreation, paying giant credit score to her time in Copenhagen’s native racing scene 3 years in the past when it was once “really more like a hobby” than a role choice. However she additionally highlights a commute to “cycling’s Mecca”, Girona the place she first attempted gravel and met professional Piotr Havik, who was once inspired along with her stage as a newcomer and inspired her to pursue racing the off-road self-discipline.
“I took his advice, then fast forward to 2023 and I did my first gravel races, almost by myself, very unprofessionally, with just me and my boyfriend going to the races. But it went really, really well,” stated Klöser.
“I went on to score multiple podiums in the UCI Gravel Series. From there on in, my professional cycling career started, because that was the first time I got in touch with sponsors who were keen to support me in the sport.”
Klöser confirmed lots of attainable in those preliminary UCI races in 2023, incomes podiums at the back of Marianne Vos at Gravel Grit ‘n Grind and Carolin Schiff at Millau Grands Causses in addition to a top-five end at the back of Gravel One Fifty winner Pauliena Rooijakkers. After netting twenty eighth on the UCI Gravel International Championships in Italy, received by way of her now-teammate Kasia Niewiadoma, the 28-year-old German confirmed this was once only the start. It best were given higher in her 2d season.
“In 2024 I had a way more professional setup for races, but still very much focused on gravel,” she remembers. “Then I managed to win arguably the biggest gravel race in the world, Unbound Gravel, as a little bit of a dark horse to some.”
Klöser nonetheless could not rather consider the place she’d ended up when talking in December, with that not likely upward thrust all coming in any such condensed duration.
“It’s been huge progress and to be honest with you, I never expected it. My main focus was my PhD when I started cycling, so if you had asked me if we would be having this interview in 2022, I would for sure not have believed you.
“In the event you had informed me that I am sitting right here as of late with you as a Canyon-SRAM WorldTour rider, I do not need believed you. So yeah, it is mind-blowing and in truth, a dream come true for me – however perhaps a dream that I did not even know that I had in 2022.”
Rosa Klöser sprints to victory at 2024 Unbound Gravel 200 elite ladies’s race (Symbol credit score: Existence Time)Combining street and gravel racing going ahead
With a thrilling sprint win after 327km of gravel-induced Flint Hills pain in the bank, Klöser’s deal to join Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto only fully came to be after her natural instinct to be inquisitive again took over. Three weeks exactly after Unbound, she put away the gravel bike, entered German road nationals on a whim and finished ninth, mainly behind WorldTour riders.
“It is honest to mention that I used to be indubitably increased during the victory at Unbound. Canyon as a biking logo, they are in point of fact giant in gravel and are making an investment closely in it. They do have already got the GRVL CLLCTV, their person gravel squad,” stated Klöser.
“However with me, I used to be all the time curious from the beginning of my brief biking profession about street racing as neatly, with it being a lot more strategic, extra about groups and every now and then having objectives for some riders no longer all the time to win, however to give a contribution.
“When I talked to Canyon about becoming part of their gravel team, at the same time, I was actually just signing up for the German road nationals, to do some road racing just out of curiosity. I went there, and it actually went really well. I was in the final selection in the race and of course, Canyon-SRAM was present because of the team’s German riders.
“That was once roughly my first contact level with the street racing aspect of the group. I feel the theory emerged that in truth, there are numerous synergies that shall we perhaps use and that it is usually a in point of fact great, dare I say, experiment to make use of me in each capacities.”
For a team with a history of supporting multi-discipline goals, be that Zoe Bäckstedt in the cyclocross field or Chloé Dygert on the track, Klöser was confident Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto were the perfect fit.
“It is a group that all the time, from after I began racing in 2022, in point of fact stood out to me on account of their very special approach of running with cyclists,” Klöser said. “They are very open-minded and they have got all the time had new approaches like Zwift Academy to choose new skill, but in addition with riders previously who’ve mixed other disciplines.
“They are giving me the opportunity to combine gravel racing with road racing and I think if we look at both disciplines, the gravel and the road, we can actually see that there’s a lot of synergies and gravel is becoming way more professional.”
“For me, definitely, it’s not a secret that you will find me at the start line of Unbound again hoping to defend my title. The team has also been super supportive in allowing me to prepare well for that and have this goal in mind,” Klöser stated.
“I’m hoping long-term to do some of the more technical, gravel-style road races like Strade [Bianche], or [Paris-]Roubaix would of course be a dream to participate in.
“I feel I will be informed such a lot from the ladies, from their street racing smartness. However I am hoping that I will deliver my giant gravel engine to the street races as neatly and toughen them in addition to imaginable.”
She may not have taken the conventional path, however, Klöser didn’t take long at all to become one of the stars of gravel racing, so don’t be surprised if she’s soon making a rapid rise up the road ranks.
Klöser will be back on the gravel soon, though, after kicking off her road season in January, with her first race coming at X Santa Vall as part of the Gravel Earth Series this coming weekend.
Klöser along with her new teammate and compatriot Antonia Niedermaier on coaching camp in December 2024 (Symbol credit score: Pohlmann_photo/Canyon-SRAM)
