Despite still being very much in her early twenties, 2024 marks Pfeiffer’s sixth year in Team Picnic PostNL having joined in 2019, growing year-on-year as both a rider and as a person.
It was almost destined that Pfeiffer would get into the sport of cycling. Her dad was a former racer, which sparked her mum’s interest and Pfeiffer and her brother soon followed suit when they were old enough. When she was four, her family lived in Herne Hill, so they could go to the velodrome there with her track bike. She started racing at around the age of six and hasn’t looked back since.
Cycling wasn’t Pfeiffer’s only sport and she devoted between the years of three to 16, to do ballet, which was the biggest thing alongside cycling. She also did cross country, trampolining, dancing, and ice skating but she laughs “none of it was serious, I just wanted to try some things.”
Looking back on her very early years with the team, the analytical and reflective Pfeiffer is her own harshest critic.
“I knew it would be a tough jump out of juniors and difficult with finishing my school in first year, and I also had a few injuries after that, so I think it’s been a bit more of a gradual progression.”
That gradual progression has snowballed more recently with 2023 Pfeiffer’s most successful season yet; as she vaulted into the consciousness of the wider cycling public after fantastic displays in the classics where she took the for the team win at Brugge-De Panne, Dwars door de Westhoek and Binche-Chimay-Binche, plus reclaimed the British national title. However, 2024 was not short of highlights either. Pfeiffer delivered a remarkably consistent classics season at a high level, securing multiple top results for the team, capped by an emotional third-place finish at Paris-Roubaix. She maintained her strong form, successfully defending her British national title, finishing second overall in the Baloise Ladies Tour, and achieving fifth place in the Olympic Road Race. Her season ended on a bittersweet note with a crash at the Tour de France Femmes, which forced her to withdraw after helping her teammate Charlotte Kool to two incredible stage wins in the opening days.