Alexis Magner (née Ryan) and Heidi Franz will be the anchors of the Continental women’s team Cynisca Cycling for the 2025 season, with the US duo among six new additions to the squad that returns just five riders.
The American team’s third season next year will be missing three riders who have accumulated the most results, including multi-discipline veteran Lauren Stephens, who won the 2024 Pan American Road Race and the U.S. Gravel Championships. Also missing from the squad are four other US riders and five international riders, including Irish road and time trial champion Fiona Mangan and Canadian time trial champion Mara Roldan, who is moving to team dsm-unternehmeninch PostNL.
While the team stated in a press release that the focus for next season is on developing North American talent in a global racing calendar, Magner and Franz will have an immediate impact on the results list and act as mentors for new talent.
“I am delighted to begin a new chapter in my career by joining Cynisca as team leader and captain. “This team is bursting with talent, and I hope I can play a big part in taking this talent to the top of women’s cycling,” Magner said in a team statement.
“During my time as a professional racer, I have had some of the best riders in the history of women’s cycling as mentors. My biggest goal for this new chapter is to pass on my knowledge of the sport to the next generation.”
Magner is one of the winningest women in U.S. criterium racing, racing for L39ION in Los Angeles for the past three seasons. In 2024 alone, the 30-year-old posted 21 top-10 finishes in 27 races, including the Salt Lake Criterium in Provo and back-to-back wins at the Athens Twilight Criterium.
Magner began her twelfth season as a professional and spent six seasons with Canyon-SRAM. Her best season with the German team was in 2018, when she won stages at the Tour Cycliste Féminin de l’Ardèche and Drentse Acht van Westerveld, while at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, Ronde van Drenthe and a stage at the Giro d’Italia Women on the Podium landed.
Franz also has extensive experience in international racing and has enjoyed success as an all-rounder in hilly terrain for five teams, including Rally Cycling and DNA Pro Cycling. She finished second overall at the Joe Martin Stage Race in 2022 and achieved top-10 finishes at the Ceratizit Festival Elsy Jacobs and the Tour de Gatineau the next year.
“I am confident that this is a team I can contribute to and have fun and grow with. “I’m still developing as a rider and I’m really grateful to have the support of this team to help me get stronger,” said Franz about her move.
Last season, riding for Lifeplus Wahoo, Franz placed fifth on a stage of the Women’s Tour Down Under, took two second places at the Rás na mBan in Ireland, won the Nordic Gravel Series in Jyväskylä and placed third at the UCI Gravel World Championships 17th place overall.
Other new teammates include Irish U23 road national champion Caoimhe O’Brien, 24-year-old Belgian Febe Poppe and two Canadians – Kaitlyn Rauwerda and Katja Verkerk.
Rauwerda, a 24-year-old who rode for DNA Pro Cycling for three seasons, won a stage at the 2023 Vuelta a Colombia Femenina. Verkerk, who turns 21 in December, won the 2024 Canadian Gravel National Championships, scoring on the road Top 5 finishes at the Canadian Criterium National Championships and the Gastown Grand Prix.
Five US riders return to the squad: Kayla Davis, Tess Edwards, Allison Mrugal, Chloe Patrick and Claire Windsor. Patrick is the reigning U.S. U23 national criterium champion and won six elite and national U23 track and field championships in 2024.
Cynisca Cycling squad 2025
- Kayla Davis (USA)
- Tess Edwards (USA)
- Heidi Franz (USA)
- Alexis Magner (USA)
- Allison Mrugal (USA)
- Caoihme O’Brien (IRL)
- Chloe Patrick (USA)
- Febe Poppe (BEL)
- Kaitlyn Rauwerda (CAN)
- Katja Verkerk (CAN)
- Claire Windsor (USA)
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