Kim Cadzow on finding her place, safety and disappointment with the media

Cadzow's decision to leave Jumbo-Visma after only one season surprised many, especially as she grew up idolising Marianne Vos. She still recalls her first race alongside Vos, when she was struggling at the back of the peloton. “She came all the way to the back because she just knew I would be there, picked me up and took me all the way to the front,” Cadzow said. “I was more petrified of dropping her wheel than anything else. I will always remember that.” 

That moment left a lasting impression, yet it was not enough to keep her at the team. The structure of Jumbo-Visma, she explained, felt too rigid for her. “It is a very calculated, almost robotic way of working. Many riders thrive in that environment, but I am not one of them.” 

Moving to EF, she said, gave her a sense of balance and belonging. “EF has incorporated a lot of fun into the cycling as well as structure that I can learn. When I got into cycling I was still a kid, and having a super regimented schedule of training and eating is our life, but if you do that day in and day out you will explode.”

For Cadzow the group dynamic is another strength. “It’s just really good because you get a bunch of people from all different nationalities. So there’s none of this one nationality sort of clique going on. It’s like a bunch of mis-fitted people who have all ended up in one place together.” 

She added: “To be honest, all the girls in the team are my best mates. I’m not saying that we don’t ever argue, because actually the people in the team have really strong personalities, but that’s one of our best traits. Everybody has an opinion and it’s weird and funky, but for some reason it works really well for us.”

Despite her young age, Cadzow is not afraid to speak out about the bigger issues facing cycling. One of those is safety, a subject no team can escape in her eyes. 

When Cadzow began racing in Europe, the switch from the individual world of triathlon to the chaos of the peloton was abrupt. Only in her second race in Belgium, Cadzow was shocked by the scale of the crashes, riding past blood on the road and wondering what she had got herself into. “There was honestly just blood all over the ground and it splashed back up onto my leg and bike,” she recalled. The race was even temporarily neutralised because there were no ambulances left to attend the injured. 

“I was thinking to myself, why am I doing this, this is a nightmare,” she admitted. Those early experiences left her questioning how safe the sport can ever be, especially when riders are expected to pick themselves up and carry on as if nothing has happened.

Safety has also been at the centre of the controversy at the Tour de Romandie Féminin, where the UCI attempted to introduce a test with GPS trackers. The eventual result was confusion, disagreement and ultimately disqualification for several teams.

Although she was not part of EF’s line-up in Romandie, her team was among those disqualified. For Cadzow, the frustration lay not in the technology itself but in the way it was forced into a WorldTour race without preparation. “It is nice, we do need to test them, but I think there is a time and a place. Taking it to one of the highest level races of the year and saying, 'Have a go at this,' is maybe not the time. Especially when the rules have not been clarified.”

That desire for recognition and respect also extends to the way women’s cycling is covered in the media. Cadzow expressed her disappointment at how quickly the conversation turns away from performances and towards controversy or personal angles. She used Pauline Ferrand-Prévot’s Tour de France win as an example. Rather than celebrating the first French rider to win the race, much of the coverage fixated on her body weight. 

“What she did was really amazing. She did it in a controlled manner, in a good environment. But the story was framed as she just lost too much weight. It became massive when it did not need to be.” 

For Cadzow, this kind of narrative not only overshadows great achievements but also contributes to unhealthy pressures already present in the peloton. “The media is more focused on making people against each other, 'This person said this, that person said that,' instead of what the actual problem in the story is.”

From finding a team that fits to speaking out on safety and media coverage, Cadzow shows she is more than a promising rider. She belongs to a new generation unafraid to address the sport’s challenges as well as its victories.

Catch the full Hotseat conversation with Kim Cadzow, only on Domestique.