What's in a rider contract? 📝
An exclusive and in-depth analysis of the key terms, responsibilities, bonuses and structure of a WorldTour rider's contract
Hi Subscribers,
Firstly, thank you for your patience last week. The Giro d’Italia was an intense race to cover, and while I enjoyed it immensely, some time off from the Substack was certainly needed. Thank you for giving me that space.
Feeling refreshed and recharged, I’m back, and there’s a lot coming out this week, including transfer content, exclusive interviews, a few Next Rider Up stories, and Critérium du Dauphiné race analysis as we build towards the Tour de France.
But we start with this exclusive - an in-depth analysis on what goes into a WorldTour rider’s contract.
Thanks
Daniel 🫶
We’ve all signed work contracts in the past. They’re typically full of legal terminology and clauses designed to protect the employer rather than the employee. But what exactly is included in a rider contract?
Of course, standard boilerplate contracts are provided by the UCI, but there are also specific contracts for riders and teams that cover topics such as violations, codes of conduct, bonuses, and responsibilities.
This story takes you inside a top-level rider’s contract and reveals the essential details typically found in the 30-plus-page document.
We won’t disclose the identity of the rider or their team. I could do without any headaches from irate teams, but we’ll refer to the rider as simply ‘the rider’ and cite the team as 'the team’. The name of the paying agent - effectively the company that owns the team’s WorldTour licence - has also been removed from the story.
However, we can note that we’re discussing a significant rider who had major bonus clauses that were in effect within the last 10 years. We’ll break down the contract into sections, just as it appears in the actual document.
The start of the contract is very similar to ones that we’ve all signed before, with wording that lays out the main parties, key terms, and length of services. In this case, services are: “The provision of services by you as a professional cyclist in the team and all other services associated with and related thereto, as reasonably directed by the team management.”
The contract in question is a two-year deal, with an option of a third-year extension. We’ll explain how the third-year option works a little later.
The first main section of the rider’s contract outlines the fee the rider would receive. While I won’t disclose the exact figures, the rider has a base salary for season one, followed by an increase of €100,000 for the second season. The rider is paid monthly, and in arrears, for their on-bike services.
There is also a signing bonus, which is indeed very common for riders these days. In this instance, the rider received a bonus of nearly the same amount as their first-year contract, spread across two instalments. The first half was paid directly after the contract was signed, and the second payment arrived immediately after the Tour de France.
The contracts then directly talk about bonuses. Here, the rider is presented with a selection of incentives.