A modest star: Grand Tour climbing genius Sepp Kuss on why staying under the radar works best for him

When a weary-looking Sepp Kuss rode up the sunlit Gran Via in Madrid last September 8 on the final day of the 2024 Vuelta a España, crossed the finish line of the stage 21 time trial and talked to reporters, rather than brush over the disappointment, his analysis of the below-expectations Grand Tour he had just completed was notably unsparing.

"There’s no excuses, really," the 2023 Vuelta a España winner said after finishing a lowly 14th overall a year later and having barely impacted on the GC battle to boot. 

"You can always say one thing or another, but at the end of the day, everybody has hurdles and problems or excuses. I just have to be better next time around."

Fast forward four months and after an equally long spell away from racing, Kuss will once again be tackling the Tour de France and the Vuelta a España in 2025. And he told reporters during the Visma team launch in Benidorm this week, his idea is to pivot his entire season on being able to fire on all cylinders come the summer. 

"My main goal is being the best I can be at those two races," the 30-year-old from Colorado said. "I'm not racing too much in the spring and I'm not always at my best at that time, so I want to use that as a base to build for the summer. The focus is going to be there."

Far from being a throwaway phrase at the end of a Grand Tour, then, that "just have to better" idea he mentioned in Madrid last September looks set to be a key component of Kuss' 2025 season plans.

Yet it's what, exactly, Kuss wants to do with his hoped-for return to much more stable top form this year that probably constitutes the most intriguing element of the American's upcoming campaign.

Two Grand Tours and a two-part plan

Albeit far easier said than done, the more straightforward-looking part of Kuss' 2025 plans is his desire to continue as a top climbing domestique for team leaders like Jonas Vingegaard.

That's something he has regularly achieved for much of his career, to the point where when it comes to Jumbo and Visma's Grand Tour successes both with the Dane and before that former teammate Primoz Roglič, Kuss' track record of being a key mountain helper is simply second to none.

"It's a role I like, a role that's a lot easier than being a leader in the race and a role I can do quite well," he points out at the Visma media day, and his deeply developed understanding of what that mission implies shines through, too, when he's asked about the addition of fellow ace climber Simon Yates to the Visma roster over the winter. 

The American does anything but bristle or get passive-aggressive at the possibility of a potential competitor to his position as top mountain domestique. Rather, given the way mountain racing strategies have changed in recent years, Kuss argues that Yates' arrival will help give the team an edge in the kind of terrain where a significant difference could made when it comes to defeating rivals like Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirate-XRG).

"These days, you need riders who can really accelerate at the right moment, you don't make such a difference at riding a [steady] hard pace any more. The level is so high now, you need really specific riders for specific moments," Kuss says.

It's beyond question that these crunch mountain stage duties come naturally to the American, to the point where he's been regularly touted in the past as the best climbing domestique in the world.

However, looking ahead it's Kuss' GC ambitions which seem harder to pin down, and if the waters in that area were already somewhat muddied by the difficult 2024 Vuelta, the high points of Visma's team presentation this January hardly made them any clearer either. 

Rather when it came to the moment where the star names of the 2025 team lineup were brought up in front of the media, Simon Yates was – unsurprisingly – one of those facing the usual round of softball questions from the MC alongside Vingegaard, Olav Kooij and Wout van Aert.

However, Kuss, despite having a sole Grand Tour victory in the Vuelta a España like Yates, was notably missing from their number.

Interestingly, Kuss later said he did not seem particularly bothered by the lack of attention, and – in fact – it turns out that Kuss' feels he operates most effectively when he's not being put in the limelight like the big team stars. 

"It's more comfortable being out of the spotlight, there are less expectations for sure from the outside," he later explained when asked about his absence from the team media presentation. 

"I have the same expectations or motivation for myself, but for the kind of person I am – I'd rather be out of the spotlight."

Rather than having designated leader's status, as he puts it, "when I've performed [led in a stage race – Ed.] it's never been when I knew up front that I'd be the one that performs."

He cites the 2023 Vuelta, which he won after infiltrating a first week break then staying up on GC, as a case in point. "It was never remotely on my radar to be a leader in a Grand Tour, but it turned out to be that way," he says.

"So I wouldn't say up front I'm looking for leadership in a Grand Tour or I'm looking for the opposite. It's just about showing up and doing the best version of myself and seeing what comes of that."

This opportunistic, below-the-radar attitude is a far cry from, say, Jonas Vingegaard's clear, already stated, ambition of winning the Vuelta next September and it would seem unlikely to judge by his words that Kuss will figure as joint leader next August.

Instead, when it comes to his 2025 GC goals, Kuss looks set to be taking his objectives on a daily basis. It's a strategy that's worked notably for him in the past, of course – and there's no reason why it won't work again this year too.

"I'll take every race in my stride and see where I can get an opportunity," he says. "I'm not looking to overtake anybody or anything like that, we have some super-talented riders. I'm going to help them first and see what I can get out of it for myself as well."

He readily agrees, too, when Cyclingnews puts it to him that he could have a 'free electron' role in the 2025 Vuelta to Vingegaard's more established position as team leader, before pointing out that the Vuelta itself has a race route that favours him in that position compared to the Tour.

"Yeah, yeah, it's possible. The Vuelta is a bit more straightforward than the Tour where have to get through the first week without losing time," he said.

"So in the Tour, say, if I want to be the best helper possible and take no risks, I'll just focus on staying safe. I remember 2021 when we started in Brittany it was absolutely crazy – so we'll see what this year is like, too."

Finding consistency

Yet for both goals – the climbing domestique role and the 'free electron' position – Kuss knows that quite apart from having top form, to operate effectively he needs much more stable condition than he was able to enjoy in 2024. So the question of how he manages that is one which is very much front and centre of his 2025 current objectives.

It's worth remembering though, that , Kuss' rollercoaster 2024 season was not at all helped by COVID-19, either, wrecking his chances of taking part in the Tour.

However, his promising victory in the Vuelta a España warm-up race in Burgos in August did anything but then culminate in further success in Spain, with his most notable ride in the Grand Tour he dominated two years ago arguably coming on the stage to Cordoba, where he played a crucial role chasing down a host of late breaks for teammate Wout van Aert.

But if being a top domestique was evidently within his power – as has been the case so often – last September, things went so badly for Kuss on the Vuelta GC front that after two weeks of racing, his title defence had already gone up in flames.

So what went wrong in 2024 that needs to go right in 2025? "I think my level was quite good last year at certain moments but I didn't have consistency at all," he says.

"Some days it was good, others it was far from that. Nowadays in cycling, you need each day and each week to build on, because if you miss a little bit then it shows immediately in the races – unless you have crazy talents like some guys."

Kuss team leader Jonas Vingegaard is one such standout figure of course. And as the American points out, the Dane's capacity to shine to the point of finishing second in a Tour de France last season despite the brutal setback of his Itzulia crash was testament to that - and to how much he could perhaps close the gap on Pogačar in 2025.

"It's going to be really exciting. He can take a lot of confidence from last year's tour coming to the race with less than ideal preparation," Kuss says. "He's already doing really amazing performances.

"We know how good Pogačar and the other guys are, but Jonas is really focused on doing his best and we're focused on seeing how we can do things differently or improve on the things we already do well.

"But you don't have to reinvent anything. We just need to focus on being there, being consistent, having fun together and having the right motivation."

Vingegaard may be operating on another level, then, but back in the realm of more ordinary mortals, Kuss himself has had to build up very conscientiously for the season. 

"I finished straight after the Vuelta but I didn't take too much time off compared to the year before, let's say, so I got back into training," he explained "Not doing anything special but just being consistent and building up a better base than I had in 2024, which is what I was missing at the beginning of the year."

"It wasn't the best season for me but until then I'd always had pretty good years, not much bad luck or illness, so I was happy to win at least one race. It was a shame to miss the Tour but not every year is an upward trajectory. You just have to learn to roll with the bad luck or normal setbacks when they happen."

That particular lesson, maybe, is Kuss' key takeaway from 2024: that even when you are seemingly moving steadily towards the pinnacle of your career, there's actually nothing to stop the ascent towards greater success turning awry, at least in the short-term.

But as Kuss says, too, when he's not been in the limelight is exactly when he's turned in his best performances, and you could argue that he's now back in that position again.

So, after the challenges of 2024, it could well be that in 2025 – despite going briefly back under the radar – the American will yet find himself crossing the finish lines of races like the Vuelta next September on a far more upbeat note once again.