There has never been a better time to become rich from cycling, with an estimated 65 millionaires racing the world’s biggest races. But away from the heights of the Grand Tours and the Monuments are 178 third-division men’s UCI Continental teams, stacked full of riders trying to work their way up the ladder and veterans looking to extend their careers, all riding races with next to little fanfare. Million-Euro contracts are not a pipedream, but an impossibility – many of them essentially pay to race.

Cyclingnews has spoken with managers, riders and agents across the globe to understand the working conditions of male Continental riders in 2025. The third-tier is the breeding ground of many young talents – 17 professional teams now have their own Continental teams which operate as development squads – but there remains an overriding sense of desperate athletes, many of them students or working part-time jobs, being preyed upon, sucked into the trap of being promised a world that doesn’t exist.

“So many teams say that they have plans to be a [second-tier] ProTeam, but most of it is nonsense,” said one rider who wished to remain anonymous. “It comes from people who seem like legitimate businessmen, giving their speech to young riders who haven’t had the life lessons to know anything different. I often feel like riders are exploited for the love of sport and sold a dream that isn’t a reality. It’s really unfair.”

This article was published by Cyclingnews in September 2025. You can read the full article here.