Kirsten Frattini

Kirsten Frattini is the editor of Cyclingnews and a long-time road cycling reporter whose work combines on-the-ground race coverage with detailed tactical analysis across men's and women's professional racing. She focuses on World Championships, Grand Tours and major stage races, using rider voices and race dynamics to explain how results are shaped. Her coverage stands out for sustained attention to women's cycling, junior and under-23 talent, and the governance and ethics issues that sit behind the sport.

World Championships road races and time trials

Frattini is heavily involved in coverage of the UCI Road World Championships, filing news, race reports and analysis from elite, junior and under-23 events.

Her recent work from Montreal includes reports on Giulio Ciccone reflecting on Italy’s medal hopes, Ben Healy’s all-out ride, Juliette Berthet’s view on French depth ahead of future Super Worlds, and a mass crash in the women’s road race that took down defending champion Magdeleine Vallieres and Paula Blasi. She also writes tactical previews, such as her piece on Remco Evenepoel and Wout van Aert’s aggressive approach to the men’s road race and the role of Paul Seixas and the French team in making it a long, demanding course. Beyond the elite races, she profiles emerging specialists in pieces on junior women’s time trial contenders and under-23 men’s road race standouts like Ashlin Barry, treating youth categories with the same detail and seriousness as the senior fields.

Her Worlds coverage blends live race description, rider quotations and course analysis to show how conditions, tactics and team strategies shape the outcomes.

Grand Tours and stage race analysis

Frattini covers Grand Tours and week-long stage races with an emphasis on general classification narratives and the human stories behind results.

At the Vuelta a España she has produced final GC standings reports, noting how Enric Mas secured overall victory and how the top 10 remained unchanged on the final day. She follows that with in-depth analysis of key protagonists, writing on Primož Roglič’s hard-fought runner-up finish, Tobias Halland Johannessen’s long-awaited win, Wout van Aert’s three-week campaign to erase a past disappointment, and Mas’s pathway to overall success.

Her stage race reports extend to events like the Tour de Luxembourg, where she has detailed Pepijn Reinderink’s breakaway stage win and Marijn van den Berg’s long sprint victory, and the Tour of Slovakia, where she chronicled Paul Magnier’s dominant stage performance. Earlier in her career she produced daily race coverage from North American events such as the Tour of California and USA Pro Challenge, along with WorldTour races like the Grand Prix Cycliste de Québec, giving her a deep archive of stage-by-stage reporting. Across these races she consistently ties stage results to broader GC implications and uses rider comments to explain how tactics, form and race circumstances intersect.

Women’s racing, development and governance

Frattini has a long track record in women’s professional cycling, having overseen women’s content strategy and race coverage before moving into senior editorial roles. Her writing regularly spotlights women’s road races, from Tours like Gatineau to integrated events where men’s and women’s races share formats, as in her coverage of the Eneco Tour’s alternating prologue starts.

She covers milestone events such as the first women’s Paris-Roubaix and the rebirth of a women’s Tour de France, treating them as part of a wider arc of growth in the sport rather than isolated novelties. Her work includes forward-looking pieces on junior and under-23 women, such as profiles of riders like Tsige Kahsay Kiros animating junior road races and columns by Magdeleine Vallieres reflecting on the impact of winning the rainbow jersey and the pressure that follows.

Frattini also reports on structural and governance issues, co-authoring articles on the updated UCI Code of Ethics aimed at protecting abuse victims, and investigations into allegations of bullying, fat shaming and abuse linked to team ownership in women’s cycling. She has written on transfer markets, rules and broadcasting requirements for the Women’s WorldTour, treating contracts, media packages and sponsor return on investment as core parts of the beat rather than peripheral concerns.

This combination of race reporting and policy coverage marks her out as a writer who follows women’s cycling at every level, on and off the road.

Long-term race reporting and editorial leadership

Frattini has been reporting for Cyclingnews since 2006, starting as a North American correspondent before moving through production and women’s editorial roles into senior management. She became women’s editor in 2018 and deputy editor in 2023, taking on responsibility for content strategy, race coverage and the growth of women’s professional cycling while continuing to file stories from major races.

In December 2025 she stepped into the role of editor, becoming the first woman to lead the masthead and overseeing editorial operations, budgets, racing and events scheduling and contributor commissions across multiple regions.

Alongside these duties she still produces news, interviews, features and investigative work, including reflections on controversial news stories and milestone events across her two decades covering the sport. Her portfolio spans WorldTour races, Spring Classics, Tours de France, World Championships and Olympic competitions, and she has written both solo pieces and co-bylined analyses and investigations with colleagues.

The continuity of her race reporting, from early coverage of events like Tour de Georgia and USA Pro Challenge through to current Grand Tours and World Championships, gives her work a long view on how professional cycling and its structures have evolved.