After announcing his retirement and undergoing two heart surgeries, Peter Sagan is racing on the road again.
It's news that has come to the surprise of cycling fans worldwide. This week, at the Tour de Hongrie, the three-time world champion is back in the peloton, riding in the red hue of a team called Pierre Baguette.
Pierre Baguette? Yes, Pierre Baguette, a Continental team from Slovakia, albeit with a misleading French ring to its name.
For the team's founder, Boris Horváth, Sagan's name on the start list was no surprise. In fact, it's the fruit of a plan hatched six years ago. Then, when Horváth first thought about starting a cycling squad, he did it with one aim in mind: "To have Peter Sagan," he says.
Naturally, as a Slovak founding a Slovak team, Horváth aspired to enrol the country's greatest ever cyclist. "I had no plan B," he tells Cycling Weekly. "We went step by step, and every year, we've been getting bigger and bigger, stronger and stronger.
"Six years ago I really didn't know Peter. I just had it on my mind. I met him in Gran Canaria on a camp in 2020, during Covid, and I stopped him in training and started talking to him. [I did it] again, again, again, again. I helped him with some things and we became friends."
Two years later, Horváth started up his team, then made up of just 10 riders, all from Slovakia. He then upped the commercial deals in 2023, bringing on sandwich manufacturer, and now title sponsor, Pierre Baguette.
"They've been on the market about 26 years," he says of the Slovak company. "There are two owners – one of them is a cyclist. Three years ago, I wrote to him saying I wanted to make this project. When we started, they didn't fully believe in it, so at first they didn't give us any financial support, just baguettes and sandwiches. After one year, they saw that everything I thought had happened, so we made a small deal, and this year it's bigger."
With the funds in place, Horváth began laying the foundations to sign Sagan.
The best way to do this, he decided, was to set the team up with some of the former world champion's favourite people. He brought in Peter's brother, Juraj, as a sports director in 2023, before adding Ján Valach, another sports director, who had previously followed the Slovak from team to team.
"The base point of my idea was to create a family for Peter, not a team that will put pressure on him," Horváth says. "The only way to do this was to take Juraj and Ján and make him smile and have fun in cycling again.
"Peter believes these people. Honestly, I'm just a guy who loves cycling, but I don't know anything about big cycling. I want to change Slovak cycling, I want to help, but I don't know what to do. Without Juraj and Ján, I would not be able to give the conditions to Peter to race today."
At the end of last year, Horváth's dream became reality. Sagan signed a one-year contract with Pierre Baguette, a deal, the team founder says, that was "not easy to make". Does it cost a lot to have a rider like him in the squad? "The answer to this is a point of view," Horváth laughs. "If you are a millionaire, this costs not a lot. If you are an ordinary man, it's a lot."
Already, he's seeing returns on the investment. "In one day, we got about 2,000 followers on Instagram," Horváth says. The 12-time Tour de France stage winner has also brought new sponsors to the team, including his personal bike partner, Specialized, and, crucially, his fame.
"It's important for the marketing," Horváth says of Sagan's presence. In the next few years, the founder hopes Pierre Baguette will be able to step up to Pro-Continental level. "We want to grow, and you need strong partners," he explains. "Unfortunately, at the end of the day, it's only about money. The partner wants visibility of their name, and [signing Sagan] gives us everything for this."
Still, Horváth is keen to underline, this is not the reason he signed Sagan. "For me, the most important thing is the emotion," he says. "For the guys, this is a miracle. They're riding with a three-time world champion. This is the emotion. The most important thing for me is that Peter gives emotion and gives the cycling community something back."
What about results? Are there any expectations on the 34-year-old, a serial winner throughout his career? "Right now, nothing," says Horváth. "He's just back from injury, his heart, so right now we are just friends and having fun. We have no expectations, no results."
Looking ahead, what Horváth really wants is to tie Sagan down to Pierre Baguette long-term. The former road world champion’s focus this year is the Paris Olympics, the cross-country mountain bike event, for which he is yet to qualify. Afterwards, Horváth hopes, he’ll sign up for another season on the road.
"Nothing is definite in this world. But that's my goal, that Peter stays in this project, not just for one year or two years, but stays here," he says. "I think it's a miracle that there's a guy like this on a Continental team."
