EF team happy to be underdogs in battle of cycling's big beasts

While World Tour giants like UAE Team Emirates-XRG and Visma-Lease a Bike flex their financial muscle at the Tour de France, EF Education-EasyPost team boss Jonathan Vaughters is happy to be chasing in a different kind of pack.

Live Tracker | Watch LIVE on DStv

"I would laugh if we called ourselves the wolf pack," Vaughters told Reuters, in reference to rival team Soudal Quick-Step's famously aggressive branding.

"Maybe we're like the dachshund pack," he added, pointing to his rider Ben Healy's "sausage dog" by the team bus before the start of Wednesday's 11th stage.

The metaphor is a light-hearted one, but the economic truth is brutal.

EF Education-EasyPost have a budget estimated at less than $25 million, which puts them in the bottom third of the 2025 Tour teams, dominated by defending champion Tadej Pogacar's UAE Team Emirates-XRG (around $65 million).

Vaughters said competing against cycling's financial behemoths is a constant battle in a sport that lacks regulatory parity.

"Professional cycling is one of the few high-level professional sports left in the world that does not have some sort of financial fairness regulation," he said. "And that makes it exceptionally difficult for the middle or the smaller teams to exist."

Still, EF has managed to do more than just exist.

Helped by their bright pink jerseys, they've been visible, creative, and successful. The team claimed a stage win and won the King of the Mountains (polka dot) jersey last year. This year, they won a stage through Healy, who snatched the overall leader's yellow jersey after Monday's 10th stage.

"Last year we won the polka dot jersey. Last year was good, too. People forget we had the yellow jersey one day last year, too. They forget about it. I don’t know why," Vaughters said.

"But actually, that's an example that those two, three really big teams kind of overshadow everything."

STRATEGIC APPROACH

EF Education-EasyPost are accountable to a sponsor that views cycling as a measurable marketing tool, not just a passion project.

"EF isn't the sponsor that is just here because the owner likes cycling and writes the cheque or whatever," Vaughters said.

"EF is here because they view it as more efficient marketing than if they purchased other forms of marketing, okay? So we're actually held to a very high standard when it comes to marketing metrics."

That drives the team's strategic approach with EF often avoiding the general classification and sprint battles dominated by big-budget squads, opting instead for opportunistic breakaways and high-impact moments.

"What we try to do... is we basically have to come in and think, okay, well, how can we create (a moment)," Vaughters said.

"You can't do the same thing every single year. You can't say, 'well, what worked when we were Garmin (more than 10 years ago) will work now'. There are certain cultural things that we keep intact, sort of the lighthearted spirit - the fact that we take the work very seriously, but we don't take ourselves that seriously."

It's a culture EF prides itself on — a contrast to the hyper-serious image of other teams.

"We take our work every bit as seriously as Soudal," Vaughters said. "But I would laugh if we called ourselves the wolf pack."