2013 World Tour Rider Age and Nationality

There are 507 riders from 43 nations registered with the 18 UCI World Tour teams for 2013.

The average age of a rider is 28 years and 2 months. The oldest rider is the 41 year-old Jens Voigt (Radioshack) whilst Vacansoleil-DCM’s Danny Van Poppel is the youngest pro aged 19.

Here’s a look at the 2013 peloton in numbers. There’s a look at rider age, the “oldest team” and also analysis of how many pros come from each country and more.

Let’s start with age. As mentioned the average rider age for 2013 at the start of the season is 28.2, the same value as last year. Here are the 18 teams as ranked by average age:

Last year’s gerontocracy was Lampre but now the label is passed Team Saxo-Tinkoff. The Danish squad has a majority of riders over 30 – including Alberto Contador. But Radioshack is next thanks to several ageing riders. Here are the ten oldest riders riders in the World Tour:

Rider Team Date of Birth Age Today Jens Voigt Radioshack 17/09/1971 41.3 Chris Horner Radioshack 23/10/1971 41.2 Stuart O’Grady Orica-Greenedge 06/08/1973 39.4 Alessandro Petacchi Lampre-Merida 03/01/1974 39.0 Danilo Hondo Radioshack 04/01/1974 39.0 Matteo Tossato Team Saxo-Tinkoff 14/05/1974 38.6 André Schulze Euskaltel-Euskaltel 21/11/1974 38.1 Julian Dean Orica-Greenedge 28/01/1975 37.9 Nicki Sorensen Team Saxo-Tinkoff 28/01/1975 37.6 Bert Grabsch Omega Pharma-Quickstep 19/06/1975 37.5

In fact some of these riders are so old that they distort the average age. The mean average of all the riders is over 28 but the modal average is 27 or put another way Radioshack’s 40-somethings, lean as they might be, help to fatten the tail of age distribution.

Lean, mean and Julian Dean

Note Julian Dean in the top-10. The New Zealander is set to retire in a few days but still counts for now. On his exit Radioshack’s Andreas Klöden will enter the top 10. Dean’s departure will also rejuvenate Orica-Greenedge’s average age, moving the number to 28.2 and placing them below Movistar and above BMC Racing. These riders all have plenty to offer whether in talent or experience. But at the other end of the scale are the new arrivals and youngest riders. Here’s the top-10 of youngest riders:

Rider Team Date of Birth Age Today Danny Van Poppel Vacansoleil-DCM 26/07/1993 19.4 Carlos Verona Omega Pharma-Quickstep 04/11/1992 20.2 Bob Jungels Radioshack 22/09/1992 20.3 Jay McCarthy Team Saxo-Tinkoff 08/09/1992 20.3 Alexey Lutsenko Astana 07/09/1992 20.3 Joshua Edmondson Team Sky 06/07/1992 20.5 Luca Wackermann Lampre-Merida 13/03/1992 20.8 Emilien Viennet FDJ 06/02/1992 20.9 Lachlan Morton Garmin-Sharp 02/01/1992 21.0 Nikias Arndt Argos-Shimano 18/11/1991 21.1

Note Jens Voigt was ranked as the world’s top amateur and had won the Peace Race before Danny Van Poppel had learned to stand on his tiny feet. Also several of last year’s top-10 oldest riders remain in the top-10 for 2013 but all the top-10 youngest riders for 2012 (Démare, Hepburn, Elissonde, Markus, Durbridge, Haller, Kelderman, Rathe, Van Keirsbulck and Moser) have been replaced by newcomers. There are 57 riders born in the 1990s, some 11% of the peloton.

National Representation

Now it is time to look where the riders come from. Here are the top-20 nations as measured by the number of riders in the UCI World Tour:



Outside the top-20 we have Austria, Lithuania, Norway and Slovakia with four riders; Belarus, Czech Republic, Japan, South Africa and Sweden with three; Argentina, Costa Rica, Ireland, Ukraine, Venezuela all have two; Brazil, China, Croatia, Eritrea, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Morocco and Uzbekistan have one rider.

Do you speak English?

Italian riders make up 13% of the peloton, although ask an Italian where they’re from and often they’ll state the region first rather than the country. As much as the sport might be spreading around the world “Old Europe” dominates with Italy, France, Belgium and Spain accounting for well over half the World Tour peloton. But 92 riders come from English-speaking nations and the peloton’s prime language these days is English. Germany often has a reputation for quality products and it certainly knows how to manufacture its cyclists. It has just 24 riders but Germany looks likely to finish the year with the most wins thanks to the likes of André Greipel, Marcel Kittel, John Degenkolb and Tony Martin.