Flung into last year's Vuelta a España as a last-minute substitution for Picnic PostNL's ill leader Max Poole, just a glance at the subsequent results sheets shows how keenly Kevin Vermaerke followed what was likely the only instruction on the Picnic team bus message board each morning: 'Get into breaks.'
But whenever Vermaerke did get into a breakaway at the Vuelta – no fewer than six in nine days, five of them over 100 kilometres long – there was one thing about all of them that hardly ever changed, he said at December's off-season training camp with his new squad, UAE Team Emirates-XRG.
"I mean obviously I wanted to win a stage there and that was the goal and you know I think you get to a point in the Grand Tour where everybody's tired, everybody's on the limit, and you kind of have to mentally want to be in those breakaways," Vermaerke told a small group of reporters including Cyclingnews.
"And so yeah, once you find yourself in a few, I think it gets easier. You have the momentum and you find yourself in the break each day.
"But unfortunately, I always found myself up against someone that was a little bit stronger and" – and he gestures at his new colleagues around the plush Benidorm hotel, also sitting in armchairs talking to journalists – "usually from this team."
By that point in the 2025 season, probably all that was lacking from Vermaerke's imminent deal with UAE for 2026 was the official announcement he was moving on after five years at Picnic-PostNL. But you can't help thinking that for all the North American was surely frustrated at not getting a stage win and first pro victory under his belt, Vermaerke would simultaneously be reassured, too. Because if the UAE riders in those breaks were making him lose, they also provided relentless evidence that he was heading in the right direction career-wise in 2026 – towards their team. Or as that old cliché puts it: 'If you can't beat them, join them.'
Not just the Vuelta
But it wasn't just the Vuelta. Opting to move on from Picnic-PostNL had already been on the table as far back as January 2025, Vermaerke said.
"I kind of had already made the decision that I wanted to change things for next year [2026] and I was speaking to a few teams. I really wanted to go to a top team where I felt like I would get the most out of myself with the resources and the personnel that they have."
"And you know it happened that UAE was as interested in me as I was in them and from then on the conversation went pretty quickly and I had a call with [UAE head sports director Joxean Fernández] Matxin and discussed goals and objectives and so on.
"We really aligned on everything, and from there it was pretty quickly signed and done and gave me a bit of peace of mind.
"I had quite a few injuries last year and knowing the move coming up gave me some motivation to just keep plugging on."
It's notable that plenty of his reasons for being in UAE are to do with having a clear leader, unlike in Picnic in many races, but it's also because he can combine working for others with moving up to a much higher level on his own account as well.
"I think I have a good programme of a few one-week WorldTour races where I can help guys like Almeida, Del Toro, Pogačar," he explained.
"But I have a kind of 50/50 calendar where half the time I'll be doing that and half the time I'll be doing other races that we'll go to with two or three leaders and the opportunity to go for myself and try and get a win.
"Because I think the next step in my career is kind of getting that breakthrough first pro win and then hopefully building from there."
It turns out the presence of one of the US' most successful current pros, Brandon McNulty, at UAE offered him another reason to sign on the dotted line. Indeed, when it comes to acting as an inspiration, Vermaerke instantly responds: "For sure. What he has done is incredible."
"He's really one of the best riders in the world, and we all saw what he did in Montreal last year" – winning the Canadian WorldTour race alongside teammate Tadej Pogačar – "and his palmares is really impressive and we were on the same junior team, LUX Cycling, back in the day too."
"But just, you know, having another American on the team is always really nice, and yeah, I'd love to kind of hopefully follow in his footsteps, too."
The move into UAE in some ways is an obvious one, given their hugely successful status, the way they've worked so well with McNulty – who was on a leading US ProTeam, Rally UHC, before moving up a league to UAE in 2020 – and the considerably higher level of resources they enjoy compared to Picnic PostNL. Furthermore, the fact that Vermaerke hadn't actually won a race yet, despite coming close on many occasions, suggests that it was time to move. But was it a case of something being unfulfilled or more that he's reached the end of a particular journey, he was asked.
"I think a bit of both," Vermaerke said. "I mean, I felt like I had kind of maxed out my time there, and I think in order for me to keep growing and take the next step in my career, I really needed to push myself into something new.
"A team like UAE provides not only the material support and the resources that Picnic doesn't have, but also the competitive environment is something that I experienced with Axel Merckx' team" – Hagens-Berman-Axeon, where he raced from 2019 to 2020 – "at U23, with guys I'm teammates with like Mikkel Bjerg and João Almeida, some of the best U23s in the world.
"That really brought the whole level of the team up, and I think that's why UAE is so so competitive. It's just everybody's pushing each other in a really healthy way, and that's something I think will help me get the most out of myself."
Heightening the challenges
The heightening of the challenge just to get into the Grand Tour team of a squad like UAE could daunt some professionals. In fact the cases of riders deliberately opting to drop down through the unofficial hierarchy to be more assured of a spot in a Grand Tour is far from uncommon.
But for Vermaerke, what matters now is the opposite. By making it more difficult to be selected for such events, he expects to have to push himself harder, which should make him a better rider across the board. It's certainly a gamble – with a higher level of expectations, he could find himself floundering. But he thinks that at this point in his career, the game is worth the candle rather than risking making up the numbers in the peloton- as he personally had the impression was the case with Picnic.
"Something I'm very grateful to Picnic for is I was able to do all the Grand Tours already and most of the Monuments. So I've done those big races.
"But most of the time we went there and I was one of the better guys on the team and we lacked a true leader that can win those stages or go for a podium in the Grand Tour.
"So sometimes I felt a bit directionless and now switching over to a team like this, just making a Grand Tour team is way harder than any other team and I think since I've had those experiences in the Grand Tours, I see myself in the next step."
Which is? "Maybe not doing one Grand Tour this year, but trying to go back to the drawing board and finding the confidence in my race craft to start winning those .Pro or .1 races, and then you know, kind of earn my way up into the Grand Tour team."
By taking a couple of steps back, in other words, in the pecking order, eventually Vermaerke hopes to go three steps or more forward. At Picnic, had he stayed, by the sound of things he'd likely feel he was standing still.
"Picnic's track record speaks for itself in terms of riders that have come from U23s or the development ranks and then taken the next step there and kind of made a bit of a name for themselves," he explained.
"That's something they've kind of built their name around."
"But I think the track record [also] speaks for itself in terms of guys who have left the team, and maybe you need to go somewhere else to take those final few steps to really find yourself and take that next jump in the WorldTour."
"So that's the spot I've found myself in now and you know maybe Oscar Onley as well," though Vermaerke was speaking before Onley was confirmed as moving from Picnic to Ineos Grenadiers.
As the most successful squad of 2025, UAE Team Emirates are in a very different place. Essentially, the bar literally could not be higher for Vermaerke and the targets could not be clearer. As such, it's the definitive opportunity to prove himself and rather than be intimidated by it – as some riders can be – he's embracing it with both arms.
"Matteo [Jorgenson] said it really well a few years ago when he went from Movistar to Visma. He spoke about how you reach a point where you feel established in the WorldTour and it is going to be my sixth season in it, next year [2026].
"But, I've always been feeling like I'm searching for something a little bit more, and I think coming in a team like this where I have the best coaches, best nutritionists, best teammates, and you know they're going to give me a race program where it's up to me to ultimately use those tools to prove myself. That's what I want to do.
"The sky's the limit and I'm not going to say this is my definitive goal or I want to do this or that. But I just want to get the most out of myself and then see where I end up.
"At least then you can have no regrets, you truly knew what your potential was. So I think this is the best place for me to find that potential."
