Being Isaac Del Toro, by Alessandro Autieri for alvento magazine
The climbs in Ensenada, Mexico, don't start from any definite point you can work out in your head, they just suddenly appear in front of you. With the wind at your back blowing from the sea, the road goes along quietly as you might expect, then at some point it changes its mind, rears up, narrows, climbs toward a horizon which, until then, had not bothered to reveal itself. The landscape here seems to seep into your veins and that is perhaps why Isaac Del Toro grew up with it almost inside him, the way your own language develops inside you, without you noticing it, as you learn all its miscellaneous features and inflections. As he rides up one of those hills that have no name and are not signposted, he looks like a boy rediscovering his native tongue after spending too much time away.
The scene we are envisaging could be from today, tomorrow or ten years ago. It doesn't matter. What matters is imagining Del Toro riding up the road on his bike in his own peculiar way that is neither elegant nor ugly, just natural. The asphalt rises up in front of him, seemingly for his benefit, for him; this has always been the best of all possible worlds: a dream, something to be done, a possible path into the future. Every now and then he looks back, not to check who is following him - there is no one there, he has dropped everybody on the climb - but to make sure the world is still there. Then he gets back into his rhythm, as if it were the only thing he really knows how to do. And perhaps it is.
He won the national title around here on his home ground in 2025: the 16th and final victory of an extraordinary season, remarkable for somebody of his tender age and for the way he won these races and lost a few others; like the Giro last year, which, more than anything, pointed towards a rosy future rather than a wound destined to leave a mark. He's more than just a bike rider, a great young talent and a familiar name on the cycling scene both in Europe and Mexico. Del Toro has always been a young man who climbed without worrying about where he was heading. "I am not like those young riders who win everything as juniors," he said in an interview he gave to Marca in 2024, shortly after his breakthrough in the pro ranks.
"I only became really fast and competitive later on." He is not saying that because it sounds good or heroic, it's just the simple truth. And while you watch him dancing on the pedals or listen to the singsong sound of his voice, you realise his approach encompasses everything: hunger, desire, fear, promise, defeat, and possibility.
To really understand him, you have to go back to the cracks in his story, not the victories.
Ensenada is not the first place that springs to mind for the origin story of any bike racer: cycling in Mexico is like a photo that fades as soon as you see it, dissolving so subtly it seems to be just a mirage on the horizon.
For Del Toro, bike riding was not a plan; it was a means of escape. He used to look at photos of his father José - a former cyclist - in his bike gear and wanted to try and be like him: mountain biking, cyclocross and then road cycling. A way to get out of the house, to breathe, not to think about the illness that ran through his family like an underground current. "Not many people know," so his father said, the day after the podium ceremony for the 2025 Giro d'Italia, "that Isaac had to fight a severe bone disease when he was a boy. He had tumours everywhere, even a hole in his jaw." Nobody helped Isaac break through, not even the Mexican federation, unaware they were dealing with such a great prospect. "The National Commission for Physical Culture and Sport always talks about the millions and millions it spends, but I don't know a single rider who is funded by them. I struggled a lot with my son but never got any kind of help." And then he also noted: "Most of Isaac's teammates could not carry on riding, because no one ever helped them out. Mexico is the only country that sells a yearly UCI licence; in other countries the licence is permanent: that's why the UCI knows nothing about Mexican riders."
When Isaac broke his femur in 2022 he was 19 years old and based in Italy, competing in cyclocross competitions and improving race by race, away from everything and everyone. He was not expecting to get injured and soon realised that cycling is a profession that can break you before you even get started. "When I broke my femur I thought it was over. I was really scared." He had only just begun to show glimpses of his potential with A.R. Monex, a team with San Marino roots but a Mexican identity, founded by the Acevedo brothers and led by Piotr Ugrumov, which aims to launch the best Mexican talents in Europe. And yet, from that hospital room with its flickering neon light, and window overlooking an empty parking lot, something clicked. Nothing mind-blowing, just a definite decision: to stay where he was and keep on trying, starting all over again from scratch.
In 2023, at the age of just over twenty, he won the Tour de l'Avenir ahead of Pellizzari - the pair of them seems destined to compete against each other for a long time to come - riding so effortlessly it looked almost insolent. It was not the victory of a talent destined to win, but rather revenge by somebody who has learned, little by little, to ride fast. "I am not super talented. I have to work hard every day to improve." That is something he often says, not in order to sound modest: it is his work ethic.
In 2024 he turned professional and immediately made his mark, but it was in 2025 that the world really took notice of him. He developed, surprised people and won races. Before winning almost all the races on the Italian autumn calendar, Giro dell'Emilia included, he really came to the fore in May-June: he wore the pink jersey at the Giro and wore it as if it were a responsibility, not a trophy. There was no celebrating, no theatries; none of the arrogance of somebody who thinks he is the absolute centre of attention. There was just a young man who realised that the pink jersey is more of a burden than it might seem and that every day in pink is another day to prove to yourself you are not letting anybody down. "Fatigue does not scare me. Not improving scares me." A phrase that says more than any wattage data. He lost that Giro at the very end, but it has helped him mature. And of course people are now making that comparison, as inevitable as death and taxes: he's the new Pogačar, the next Pogačar, Pogačar’s successor.
That's easy to say for people watching, but devastating for a rider, because Pogačar’s brand of cycling is playful, exploratory, inventive. He is a young man who seems not to know fatigue, or rather: he knows it, but he treats it like an old friend. He attacks whenever, wherever, however he wants. He is a talent that seemed to be the complete package from the very start, destined to make history. He is the best rider ever. Del Toro is not: his brand of cycling builds, shapes and absorbs. He attacks only when necessary, and he does not necessarily have to attack so far from the finish line. His brand of cycling bides its time and makes mistakes. It's the kind of cycling that learns, "I do not want to be the new anyone. I want to be myself." It's not some kind of manifesto; it's just his way of telling us who he is. And when they ask him about Pogačar, he does not hide behind platitudes: "I want to race alongside Tadej to learn as much as possible."
Not to become like him, but to understand what it means to be you, racing with the best. It sounds simple, but it is not, because in modern-day cycling, where every young rider is assessed, measured, compared and categorised, saying I want to learn takes courage. It is a way of saying: I am not afraid of not yet being what others want me to be.
You can see that when you watch him on a climb; he doesn't try to take control; he tries to work out what is happening. You can see who he is by watching him ride in a group: he doesn't take up space, he just studies the situation. You can understand who he is by watching him at the finish line: he doesn't explode with joy, he lets himself go. You can understand who he is by watching him give an interview: he doesn't put on a show, he thinks. You can understand who he is by watching him develop: every month, every race, and every mistake. And when we go back to Ensenada, to that road that goes uphill without letting us know where it is going, we can see that everything begins and ends here. It's not just any climb. It's the first. It's the last. It's all the climbs he will ever ride. It's the place where Isaac Del Toro became who he is today: a rider who doesn't want to be Pogačar, doesn't want to be a phenomenon, and doesn't want to be somebody's successor. He wants to be Isaac Del Toro. And for now, the way he rides, the way he makes mistakes, the way he learns, and the way he wins - and how often - is more than enough.
