Gunnar Holmgren answers the phone from Girona, Spain, feet zipped into recovery boots after a training session. It’s a familiar scene for a rider who has spent years bouncing between Europe and home, chasing marginal gains.
This season, however, comes with a sense of reset.
Holmgren is back with the Pivot Cycles – OTE program after two years away, returning to a team he raced with from 2020 through 2023.
“Yeah, I rode for them for four years before,” Holmgren said. “And then, yeah, I’ve had two years away, but we’re back now.”
The move feels less like a change and more like a return.
“It’s kind of like a big family,” he said. “It’s a familiar environment that I know I can perform in, so I’m pretty excited for this year.”
A tough 2025 and lessons learned
Holmgren’s 2025 season never fully came together. Injuries stacked on top of each other and clarity came late.
“It was a little rough,” he said. “I think I had a couple of injuries. One kind of masked the other and it’s hard to figure out what was actually going on.”
The underlying issue took most of the season to identify.
“Just forcing things kind of aggravated the other injury, which were a couple bulging discs in the lower back,” Holmgren said.
By the time it was diagnosed in September, the damage to the season was already done. Still, once he addressed it, results followed quickly.
“I started working on the injury for one week and then I had my best race to date in Lenzerheide,” he said. “Then Lake Placid was a really good race and then so was MSA.”
Those late-season performances mattered to Holmgren, even if they did not shift his contract situation.
“To go through the whole season and figure out the injury and then put in some solid performances at the end of the year when all contracts are being finished up and having that overlooked is a little disappointing,” he said.
Leaving Trek and choosing the next step
Holmgren’s exit from Trek Factory Racing was announced late, but not unexpected from his perspective.
“I knew for a while before the announcement,” he said. “Everyone’s on contract, so I just thought the new year was a good time to announce it.”
Leaving a factory team stings, he admitted.
“Trek’s a factory team. It’s one of the biggest teams,” Holmgren said. “I just feel like I never got the chance to perform at my best and maybe management was a little impatient. I’m proud of the year I put in….
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