Baptiste Veistroffer raced more days than anyone in 2026. His holiday is 2,500km through Cambodia and Vietnam

Baptiste Veistroffer will spend his off-season enjoying a 21-day bikepacking trip through Cambodia and Vietnam, covering around 2,500 kilometres with his bags strapped to the bike. It follows a season in which the 26-year-old raced more days than any other rider in the professional peloton.

The Frenchman logged 86 UCI race days in 2026, ahead of his Lotto Intermarché teammate Liam Slock on 83. Tadej Pogačar raced 44, Mathieu van der Poel 45 and Paul Seixas 48. Veistroffer says the real figure is higher, because it leaves out the Belgian kermesses he rode that are not on the international calendar.

His programme was set out last winter, but it grew during the year because he stayed healthy and kept accepting extra races.

“When the staff suggested adding a race to my schedule, I almost always said yes, because there is nothing I love more than racing,” Veistroffer told La Dernière Heure. 

“I see every race day as a chance to try something if I’m given the freedom, or to learn if I’m there to support a leader.”

Veistroffer opened his season on the first day of the WorldTour at the Tour Down Under on 20 January and closed it at the Tour of Guangxi on 18 October, the final race on the calendar. He and his coach planned it around blocks of racing that usually lasted about a month, with training in between.

Veistroffer was working as an engineer for the French Navy and racing triathlons until Decathlon offered him a professional contract in 2023. 

When he spoke to Domestique in February, he said the switch suited the way he races. “The skill is different, but also for a breakaway rider it’s quite the same,” he said.

That interview came days after his first professional win, on stage 2 of the Tour of Oman, where he spent 183 kilometres in the break and held on up the climb to Yitti Hills. It was his third breakaway of the season, after he was caught 2km from the line on stage 3 of the Tour Down Under. 

His roommate, Taco van der Hoorn, had picked out the stage for him. “The day before, he told me this is the perfect stage to try a break and that’s what I did,” Veistroffer said.

He kept the celebrations quiet. “I was happy, but it’s more inside me,” he told Domestique. “I was super happy but it’s only the start, you know. I don’t want to stop here.”

He also said then that he would attack in Grand Tours if he got the chance, and in July he made his Tour de France debut ands become one of the heroes of the race. 

He spent 144 kilometres alone on stage 5 and took the combativity award three times. The effort caught up with him later in the summer. 

“After the Bretagne Classic I really noticed a kind of nervous fatigue,” he told La Dernière Heure, though he says it passed quickly. Lotto Intermarché extended his contract by two seasons in August.

Thirty of his race days this year were in Asia, including the Tour of Hainan and the Hong Kong Cyclothon. He says the racing there is less controlled than in Europe, and he crossed Thailand by bike last winter before deciding on Cambodia and Vietnam this time.

“I already want to get back on my bike, but my coach told me it was important to take a proper break,” Veistroffer said.