Alexis Magner (neé Ryan) and Heidi Franz will anchor the Continental women’s team Cynisca Cycling for the 2025 season, with the US duo among six additions on the roster that returns just five riders.
Absent from next year’s third season for the American team are three riders who collected the majority of results, including multi-discipline veteran Lauren Stephens, who won the Pan-American road race and US gravel championships in 2024. Also absent from the roster are four other US riders and five international riders, including Irish national road and time trial champion Fiona Mangan and Canadian time trial champion Mara Roldan, who moves to team dsm-firmeninch PostNL.
While the team said in a press release that the focus for next season is to develop North American talent on a global calendar of racing, Magner and Franz will bring immediate impact for the results sheet as well as serve as mentors for new talent.
“I’m extremely excited to start a new chapter in my career by joining Cynisca as a team leader and captain. This team is bursting with talent, and I hope to play a big part in ushering that talent to the pinnacle of women’s cycling,” Magner said in a team statement.
“During my time as a professional racer, I have had a few of the best riders in women’s cycling history as my mentors. My biggest goal for this new chapter is to pass along my knowledge of the sport to the next generation.”
Magner is one of the winningest women from the US criterium circuit while racing for L39ION of Los Angeles the past three seasons. In 2024 alone, the 30-year-old scored 21 top 10s out of 27 races, including the Salt Lake Criterium in Provo and back-to-back wins at the Athens Twilight Criterium.
Entering her 12th season as a pro, Magner also spent six seasons with Canyon-SRAM. Her best season with the German team was in 2018 when she won stages at Tour Cycliste Féminin de l’Ardèche and Drentse Acht van Westerveld while adding podiums at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, Ronde van Drenthe and a stage in the Giro d’Italia Women.
Franz also has a wealth of experience from the international racing, having success as an all-rounder on hilly terrain for five teams, including Rally Cycling, DNA Pro Cycling. She was second in the GC at Joe Martin Stage Race in 2022 and the next year she had top 10s at Ceratizit Festival Elsy Jacobs and Tour de Gatineau.
“I feel confident that this is a team I can contribute to plus have fun and continue developing with. I’m still coming into my own as a rider, and I’m really grateful to have the support of this team to build from strength to strength,” Franz said about her move.
This past season racing for Lifeplus Wahoo, Franz took fifth on a stage at Women’s Tour Down Under scored a pair of runner-ups at Rás na mBan in Ireland, won Nordic Gravel Series- Jyväskylä and was 17th overall at the UCI Gravel World Championships.
Among the other new teammates are U23 Irish road national champion Caoimhe O’Brien, 24-year-old Febe Poppe of Belgium, and a pair of Canadians – Kaitlyn Rauwerda and Katja Verkerk.
Rauwerda, a 24-year-old who raced 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 and on the road she had top 5 finishes at Canadian criterium nationals and Gastown Grand Prix.
Returning to the squad are five US riders – Kayla Davis, Tess Edwards, Allison Mrugal, Chloe Patrick and Claire Windsor. Patrick is the reigning US U23 national criterium champion and in 2024 she won six elite and U23 national track championships.
Cynisca Cycling roster 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)
