Dispatches: My race against time to get a contract for 2026 ⌛️
No agent, no problem. Tom Portsmouth shares his experiences after struggling to find a ride for next season
Hello there, I’m Tom Portsmouth, a professional cyclist for the ProTeam outfit Wagner-Bazin-WB (formerly Bingoal-WB).
My career to date has been focused on attacking, making racing entertaining, and taking my chance to feature in the race. Through those efforts during the early breakaways, I’ve achieved multiple podium appearances and was featured on your TV screens in half a dozen high-profile breakaways, including those at Dunkerque, Circuit Franco-Belge, and the Baloise Tour.
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I had a successful season in promoting myself. I infiltrated the breakaways to get my name and my team on the screen. Why? Because 2025 was a contract year for me. As a solo rider representing myself in the competitive professional cyclist market, I had to find a unique selling point and understand my own worth. I believe I fought hard, both on and off the bike, in the quest for a professional contract for next year, just like many other riders. I also write regularly on my Substack account, and I offered to write this article to share the lessons I’ve learnt as my own rider agent.
So, I should probably start with why I don’t have an agent. Which is a good question. The TL;DR is that most agents I contacted (and would have been willing to work with) were saturated to breaking point with riders in the same predicament.
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