'Throwing in the towel is unthinkable' - Picnic PostNL rider’s career left in limbo by mystery injury

The 29-year-old Team Picnic PostNL rider has not raced properly since last June. His last appearance came at the Copenhagen Sprint, after he had already abandoned the Giro on the road to Tagliacozzo. Since then, a persistent and still unexplained physical problem has kept him off the bike. Not just out of competition, but almost out of cycling altogether.

The issue began during a solo training camp in Spain before the 2025 Giro. Welten felt a nagging pain in the lower left side of his back. At first, he treated it like the kind of discomfort riders often pick up during heavy training blocks. A visit to an osteopath seemed the obvious solution. When that did not help, he tried another. The pain remained.

At the Tour of Turkey and during the opening week of the Giro, it was still manageable. Annoying, but not limiting. That changed on the first real mountain stage.

“On the first climb of the day, I felt something in my left leg that I did not recognise,” Welten told WielerFlits. “It felt as if my leg was asleep. It did not go away, even when I started riding more easily. In the end, that is why I did not make it to the finish.”

At first, Welten feared a vascular issue, a problem not uncommon among professional cyclists. Tests showed a slight irregularity in his pelvic artery, but specialists ruled it out as the cause. What followed was a long and frustrating search for answers. Osteopaths, therapists, manual specialists, orthopaedic experts and several MRI scans all produced theories, but no clear solution.

Doctors found a small bulge around one of his vertebrae, something comparable to a minor hernia. The problem is that the scans do not show nerve compression. In other words, the images do not explain the intensity of the symptoms.

Welten has undergone multiple epidural injections, but none brought real relief. Surgery has been discussed, yet that route carries its own risk because doctors do not know exactly what they would be trying to repair.

The most confusing part is how specific the problem is. In daily life, Welten can function almost normally.

“If I go for a two hour walk, I have no discomfort,” he said. “But if I go out on the bike with my girlfriend to get an ice cream when the weather is nice, I am quickly reminded that it was not a good idea. The sleeping, tingling feeling comes back almost immediately.”

For now, Welten is waiting for the outcome of another test. Because his symptoms only appear on the bike, doctors tried to recreate them during testing at home, using an improvised stationary bike setup. If that does not provide clarity, the search will continue elsewhere.

There is a chance the answer never comes. Welten knows that. But accepting it now is not an option.

“I refuse to resign myself to it,” he said. “To say now that I am pulling the plug, that is simply unthinkable to me. Suppose it does not work out. Then I want to be able to look myself in the mirror in ten years and say: Bram, you really did everything you could. Then it is what it is, and I can accept it. But until then, that is not the case. Right now, I have not made peace with it.”