Sponsorship has flooded in, team budgets expanded, rider pay soared and real gains have been made in safety, ethics and institutions. Today riders enjoy longer contracts while teams have become multi-decade franchises, some are even outlasting their founders. And yet…
Pro teams are brittle, what looks strong today could snap tomorrow. First EF the other day and now Visma-Lease A Bike are reportedly looking for new sponsors. Others are having doing the same in private.
We’ve started the first year of a three year promotion and relegation cycle. As a result the urgency and desperation is gone. Keep an eye on two things instead: financial health of the World Tour teams and the jostling teams in the second division.
Here the the UCI points tables for the women and like the men’s tables, their tucked inside a PDF on the UCI’s website so this blog post isn’t a gripping read but just puts all the scales on one page for reference.
The women’s rankings system changes for 2026 and copies the same scales as the men but with fewer races on the calendar and stage races that often have shorter durations, there are less points on offer during the season.
Do rankings and points matter in cycling? Demonstrably not as they’re hard to find. You need to get to the regulations page on the UCI website then scroll to road races and find the right PDF to download. Manage that and 87 pages into a 400 page document come the badly-formatted tables.
Anyway this blog post is just to put the UCI points scales all on one page for handy reference during the year. So if you want something to read today… try something else.
Caja Rural get the last wildcard invite to the Tour de France and the Unibet Rose Rockets are left out. It’s a surprise but once you look at the trend it shouldn’t be a shock.
The route of the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes has been unveiled and it’s actually a much better Dauphiné route than we’ve had in recent years with a real start in the heart of the ancient Dauphiné province. So the name change will need a while to sink in.
Here’s a stage-by-stage look followed by some notes on the wildcard invites, TV schedules and possible contenders.
Tadej Pogačar is the new “Global Brand Ambassador” of Ku Coin, a cryptocurrency exchange. He’s not the first or last athlete or celebrity to front for a crypto company.
This company has been on European warning lists, fined in Canada and the US. It’s also been in the news lately after being linked to a massive financial scandal in South-East Asia.
Some predictions for 2026. Yes Pogačar is there, but inside the crystal ball there are foolhardy glimpses of sprinting, TV coverage, scandal and even bidons for the year ahead.
This year’s edition is harder than ever with fewer stages for the sprinters and more climbing. Here’s a preview including the likely finish times in case you need to set your alarm clock.
Ten riders to watch in 2026. Some are picked as tips for their raw talent, others to see what paths they will go down and the stories this tells about their teams and the sport.