Updated October 23, 2026 09:17AM
Jolanda Neff joins the growing mini-trend of off-road champions taking their talent to the WorldTour road peloton.
Neff, 33, is heading back to the pavement to join Fenix-Premier Tech in 2027.
“I’m really excited to join Fenix-Premier Tech, a team that unites mountain biking, cyclocross and road racing at a world-class level,” Neff said.
The Tokyo Olympic mountain bike champion is the latest in a growing list of off-road stars exploring what their engines can do inside the road peloton.
Cycling has had a long history of cross-discipline pollination, and the latest iteration has been roadies crossing over to gravel to explore new possibilities in the booming dirt-road race scene.
At the same time, some major off-road stars are coming back to the road.
Neff’s move comes with an important distinction because she isn’t hanging up the mountain bike.
Fenix-Premier Tech offers a structure to allow her to keep her irons hot in road, cyclocross, and MTB.
Courtney pivots to WorldTour
Pauline Ferrand-Prévot led the way for this latest MTB-to-road pivot.
The Frenchwoman returned to road racing with Visma-Lease a Bike in 2025 after stampeding to Olympic MTB gold in Paris.
She promptly won Paris-Roubaix and the Tour de France Femmes. Some comeback. Of course, the former road world champion already knew her way around a peloton.
Kate Courtney is the latest cross-over story.
The American mountain bike world champion won the 2026 U.S. road title and joined FDJ United-Suez in July, turning an experiment on skinny tires into a new career chapter in the WorldTour.
Another top move comes from Axelle Dubau-Prévot — the younger half-sister of Ferrand-Prévot — who is joining SD Worx–Protime on a two-year deal.
She broke out in gravel in 2024-25 and was picked up by EF Education-Oatly, where she raced a mixed program and hit 10th at Liège-Bastogne-Liège in 2026.
Lines are blurred between lanes
The men have plenty of company in the multi-lane discipline craze.
Mathieu van der Poel, Wout van Aert, and Tom Pidcock made crossing disciplines part of their superstar identities.
Of course, nothing is a guarantee even for the world’s most gifted racers. Van der Poel has won world titles in cyclocross, road, and gravel, but he is still chasing mountain biking.
Alan Hatherly joined Jayco-AlUla in 2025 and combined WorldTour racing with his mountain bike ambitions. The idea was to up his overall depth and skillset by pushing into unfamiliar territory.
“I was always interested in road racing and testing my full potential as a cyclist,” Hatherly told Velo in an earlier interview. “I want to keep learning and growing as an athlete. This was the ultimate challenge for me at this point in my career.”
Is this a new trend?
Of course not. Cyclists have been switching lanes ever since people were paid to race bikes.
Taylor Phinney — who raced track and road in his pro career — recently came out of retirement to try to revive USA Cycling’s bid to field a men’s team pursuit squad in track cycling in the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games.
Cadel Evans went from winning MTB World Cups to becoming Australia’s first Tour de France winner.
Traditionally, salaries were much better on the road, but that’s not always the case, especially for the headline off-road stars.
This latest cross-over boom is also fueled by a chance to chase prestigious Olympic medals and world titles in multiple disciplines.
Rule changes could fuel even more crossover
What’s different these days is the flexibility offered from top teams.
In the past, road teams were often reluctant to see their Tour de France stars race over roots and mud for what was perceived as a risk to road ambitions.
That’s changed and several teams are embracing multi-discipline, cross-pollination racing programs.
A recent decision by the UCI to allow points to count across disciplines in team rankings will also give teams an incentive to allow more riders to experiment and compete on any surface.
Neff’s future teammate Puck Pieterse — who won a Tour de France Femmes stage and the elite XCO world title in 2024 — is another rider switching lanes smoothly between road, gravel, cyclocross, and mountain bike.
And all with the full backing of her team.
For Neff — who twice won the Swiss national road title and hit top 10s in world championships and Olympic road racing earlier in her career — the move is her latest challenge.
“I will pour my heart and soul into becoming a better rider in every aspect, as well as sharing all my experience with other riders,” Neff said. “I have always admired how this team puts a strong focus on women and on creating professional structures for them, as well as developing young riders with a long-term vision.”
Gravel remains the favored escape route for roadies right now.
But for ambitious off-road champions, the road is looking just as good coming the other way.