With plenty going on out there events in pro cycling seem pretty tame in comparison. But here are twelve predictions for the cycling season ahead…
Who wins the Tour de France? It’s still the central question in the sport and if there was a way of knowing this today you could derive a lot of other answers to related results and beyond too. Now making a prediction in early January for events in July would be foolhardy if it involved, say, investing. But for fun here goes… and right now it feels impossible to pick a Tour de France winner, today best guess says a close contest between Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogačar but it’s a coin toss to pick between them. Many will have Pogačar first as he won so convincingly last summer and bossed the whole season but but go back a year with this logic you’d have picked Vingegaard a year ago. Since you’re reading wanting a name, well Pogačar then. What’s striking is that it’s already a two horse race in January which is a concern if one crashes or just gets Covid in summer so let’s hope the already-a-duel-scenario is hopelessly wrong and more contenders emerge.
Star riders will race less. Is it worth doing Dwars Door Vlaanderen if you want to win Roubaix or the Ronde? Loaded with hindsight but trends can start from random events. The prediction is some top riders will be submarine-like during the season, invisible for long stretches in part to avoid the crash risk. It’s nice if Jonas Vingegaard or Tadej Pogačar can win a week-long World Tour stage race but they’ve done it already so maybe just skip it to avoid disaster. This isn’t new, take Primož Roglic who has seen the full cycle, avoiding some races so as to reduce crash risk only to crash in the Tour de France where one conclusion was he needed to race more prior to hone his reflexes. But there’s another element to bolster the hypothesis: the congestion in top teams. Leaving a rider at home (or rather atop the Sierra Nevada or Teide) means someone else gets team leadership for a day or a week and so there’s a second win here for teams needing to keep their roster of riders content.
The sprinting spoils will be shared. Jonathan Milan is the most exciting prospect right now as the potential is all there, hulking power and he can do more too, watch for him in the classics as much as the Tour de France. Olav Kooij is on the up, very fast and versatile too, plus in a contract year. Biniam Girmay can win sprints and more too. Tim Merlier is a bit more of a specialist but should keep delivering while team mate Paul Magnier is promising too. Jasper Philipsen. And more. But because they’re all so good nobody will run away with the results this year and end the season as the top dog. Especially as the likes of Milan, Kooij and Merlier have to share resources with GC contenders at big races meaning they don’t get a full lead out train either. And even if Fabio Jakobsen can come back then he too will find team mates like Tobias Lund get a chance to ride the sprint train.
Women’s races get a rising audience. For all the pomp of the Tour de France Femmes, and the relaunch has been a success, the unsaid part is it’s seen some declining TV audiences (a peak audience in France of 3.3 million in 2022, 2.5 million for last summer’s Stage 8 thriller). But part of this can probably be attributed to the Olympics and summer sports-fatigue. Now back in its slot to take over when the men finish and the audiences will follow over and numbers pick up. The Tour matters of course but the trend should see more interest in the rest of the women’s calendar and this is where a lot of the growth will come. It’s not something to happen only during 2025 but the rise of women’s racing will start to displace some lesser men’s races.
XDS-Astana get relegated. They’re currently 4,717 points below 18th placed Cofidis. Win all three grand tours plus a Monument classic and they’d still be short, it sounds impossible? Actually not so. They’re not going to win a grand tour and they know it, but fourth place in ten 1.Pro races brings 1,000 points, almost as much as a grand tour and this kind of hustle can get them points galore. We’ll look at the numbers more closely soon. The idea is they’ve been on a shopping spree and signed a lot of good riders for this score often approach. But with this plan comes the problem, several signings are on one year deals and they’ll want to shine for their own reasons, namely to get a contract next year and this means riders treading on each other’s toes. Put simply the hypothesis is signing riders is necessary but not sufficient, delivering unity and performance is harder. The safer prediction to make would be it’ll be fun to watch this secondary contest as Astana have a chance, especially in case of a déconfiture at Cofidis which has lost its two top scorers and very reliant on Alex Aranburu and Emu Buchmann feeling at home from the start.
Arkéa-B&B Hotels get relegated too… but that’s the least of their worries. I’d rather not say it aloud but as this is a predictions post, alas the team looks doomed. The squad had to suddenly jettison several decent riders at the end of last year, like hot air balloonists throwing supplies overboard to stay airborne. The exit of these riders all but guarantees the team’s demotion but the question is whether they can survive beyond the year as if money is tight now this is a concern and what would happen upon relegation. The men’s World Team is the visible part but there’s a the women’s team and a a development team as well, it’d be a pity to see a structure that was trying to build up.
Tour wildcards are make-or-break. In French there’s the phrase un choix cornélien to mean a difficult choice or a dilemma. Which teams get invited to the Tour de France? There are two wildcards and three realistic picks between Tudor, Total Energies and Uno-X. Tudor with Julian Alaphilippe and Marc Hirschi look like a compulsory pick (and the company is sponsoring ASO events) so which squad gets the last pick? TotalEnergies look the weakest squad but they won a stage last summer with Anthony Turgis; Uno-X supplied “animation” but do they merit repeat invites? Both teams could be in peril without an invite, they crave the big audiences of July. The easiest solution would be to take an extra team but that only solves this question for a year, beyond that Q36.5 are on the up and so on. In short there’s a crunch coming for teams in the second tier and it applies to those wanting to start the Giro and Vuelta too.
Safety remains a contentious topic, divisive even. Jonathan Vaughter’s Twitter rage at Christian Prudhomme shows this, it was more of personal attack rather than enquiring about the substance. Only a tweet rather than a sermon but it highlights suspicion and distance rather than cohesion: people who ought to be on the same page appear to be reading different books. With teams, organisers and the UCI holding different ideas on the ways forward any progress will be slow here, and probably fraught at times too.
You know the maillot jaune, now get ready for the carton jaune as yellow cards will prove controversial. New for 2025 is the system of yellow cards where along with fines and other penalties, yellow cards can be issued. They won’t be brandished by a commissaire towering out of the sunroof, instead they’ll just get reported in the post-race bulletin (a document that’s often hard to find, even unpublished by organisers). Get two during a stage race and you’re out. So a sticky bottle here, a sideways drift there in a sprint or even sitting up to celebrate a team mate’s win and potentially that’s it, addio, adieu, adiós as a rider can be sent home. Crucially it’s not automatic and supposed to be brandished only for relating to safety but as it’s subjective expect debatable decisions.
Calendar reform is finally unveiled. This has been promised for years and always seems to be around the corner, only for each time things to stay the same. 2025 will finally see the plans unveiled. Pro cycling does have a jumbled calendar of events, confusing labels and more, so who would be against reform? Only once the fixes are announced then preferences get revealed and the plans should prove controversial as there are bound to be winners and losers.
Staying with the politics and admin David Lappartient remains at the UCI…at least until the autumn. The International Olympic Committee will pick a new president in March and cycling’s multitasker is a candidate but he won’t make it. He’s obviously good at the behind-the-scenes ways to woo a selectorate, that’s how he beat Brian Cookson to become UCI President in the first place. But the IOC is more way more political and there are several declared candidates already, including one with the implicit backing of the current chief. If so he’ll see out his current term as UCI President which comes to an end this September… but will he decide his work is done and make way for someone else? Some of this depends on whether the calendar reform prediction comes true.
Trying to think of tech changes and there’s not much in the pipeline, no 13 speed or some emerging trend. One observation is that if last year was the year of 165mm cranks, this year is the season of gigantic waterbottles. The move to ever higher amounts of carbohydrate consumption in races means this is also de rigeur in training too. Only riders can’t post soigneurs beside the road or have a scooter following them with a box full of bidons. So look for team-issue bikes fitted with cycle-touring bottle cages to fit one litre more bottles, at least for training. The humble 500ml bidon still lives on for racing but the musette is probably on its way out, there’s no less need for cotton bags these days as staff hand up bidons with energy mix and gels taped to the bottle.
Finally we’ll see rider retirements… with a difference. Most continue in the sport until they can’t get a contract any more even if the results tail off – see Sagan or Froome – but the prediction here is for big names to walk away from the sport because they’re done, even if teams are queuing for their services brandishing fat contracts. See Grace Brown last year, she won in Liège and became Olympic and World time trial champion and quit, taking her rainbow jersey with her for the year, although at the age of 32. Expect to see more of this from younger riders who feel they’ve got all they wanted from the sport including financial security so they can leave early. But we’ll see if this happens in 2025 or if it’s more for beyond.
Plus some race predictions:
MSR – MvdP
PR – WVA
RVV – Pog
LBL – Pidcock
Giro – Ayuso
TdF – Jonas
Vuelta – Pog
Worlds – Pog
Well, the calendar isn’t that complicated, apparently!
(And the second tier of races is pretty obvious to identify, too)
Ive heard a lot of stuff along the line “can Pogačar repeat 2024” and I find it amusing. Pogačar in 2024 wasn’t some out of nowhere performance. It was part of a steady progress since 2019. And 2024 will simply be a season in that progression. Tadej is 26. He’s just entered his best years. Riders usually peak in their late 20s and early 30s. Even a bit later for GT riders.
I think Pogačar will be even better in 2025. My predictions:
MSR Pogačar
RVV Pogačar
PR MvdP
LBL Pogačar
Lombardia Pogačar
Giro A. Yates
Tour Pogačar
Vuelta Pogačar
Worlds Pogačar
I also think Pogačar will take Amstel and Fleche.
I think he could improve too, the second year of working with his new coach should bring some refinements. But staying lucky and healthy is a big ask so just repeating last year’s results is seems hard.
I had the same thought. Pogacar had incredible good luck in 2024, hard to imagine things falling perfectly into place two years straight.
Luck isn’t a thing. What you call luck is the outcome of many things, most which are under our control. The reason Roglič can’t stay upright is because he lacks very tangible skills, not because he has bad luck. The reason Pogačar has has one serious accident in 6 years as a professional is because he has those skills.
I’m not saying things can’t go wrong for anyone, of course they can, but Pogačar didn’t win on luck in 2024. He won on power, positioning, bike handling, team strength, tactics, intuition, etc.
As someone who turned off Strade Bianchi two minutes after Pogacar’s attack, I hope he is at the very least forced to find new ways to win. If he just solos off the front of the peloton in race after race, I’ll be watching a lot more junior and U23 races this season.
Rafal, that is a fascinating philosophical position you’re taking. So there’s no such thing as luck? I suppose you decide when you get ill or stumble on the sidewalk. Or maybe it’s all fated and predetermined? I’m intrigued…
I would suggest that one of the most brutal things about bike racing, is that there’s so much that is out of each riders’ control…there are 195 other riders in the peloton, and a mistake by just one of them can end your season if you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time. You can minimise the chances of a bad outcome through good positioning, bike handling skills etc of course, but you can’t eliminate the possibility of something going wrong (see WvA in 2024 for example).
Was Pogacar unlucky to be caught up in a crash in Liege in 2023 that resulted in a broken wrist? Or did he just lack the skills like Roglic?!
I can’t agree with Rafal, unless one takes it as a deliberate hyperbole to stress their point (which, alas, it doesn’t look like).
Luck of course matters a lot (which is why a palmarés makes more sense when a whole career is over, and also why the palmarés itself isn’t often enough to weigh a cyclist in historical terms). That said, it’s just as obvious that the chances you play against are way different depending on your skills.
OTOH, I wouldn’t define “incredible luck” Pogi’s 2024 season, either. Scroll through the whole peloton and one season with no major negative issue, while not extremely common, is also far from being astonishingly rare.
So, just a fair share of good luck, to me.
Even more so as any single athlete can be deemed more or less lucky depending on how accident prone he or she is.
For Roglič crashing just a couple of time with lesser consequences could be a “lucky” scenario, whereas others can sail through several seasons without ever crashing hard, which means that when they do… they may have been “unlucky”…
^__^
I think you guys misunderstand.
I already acknowledged that things can go wrong for everyone. And I also stressed that MOST (ergo: not all) things are under control.
The distinction is subtle, but its important. Bad things can happen to any rider. But there is no LOGICAL reason why the odds of those things happening to any rider in a particular race should be any different. In fact, the odds should be identical for any rider that a random bad event happens to them.
Saying that a rider has bad luck because his career is full of accidents is silly. The reason that some riders have more accidents isn’t a random act of chance but a result of them not having some skills or not engaging in the kind of behavior that allows them to avoid accidents. My point that no rider has bad luck stands. Its not bad luck, its bad riding which raises the probability of bad things happening. Even Pogacar at LBL probably had himself to blame by not being positioned well, but bad positioning isn’t something that he usually is guilty of.
@Rafal
You’re mistaken from a statistical POV. The fact that the odds are the same once you take skills and so out of the picture doesn’t imply that no rider can be “unlucky”.
Hyper-simplified model ->
Imagine playing heads and tails. The fact that any long enough series of flipping the coin will indeed *tend to* a 50%-50% distribution doesn’t imply than any given real series, even relatively long ones, will be exactly a 50%-50% distribution in any given moment of its length.
Let’s say that the series are the athletes and let’s call heads “no negative event” while tails are “negative out of control race events”. It’s easy to see that while most athletes in the long term will tend to have a balanced set, yet it’s perfectly possible that some athletes are luckier (or unluckier) than others, whether in a specific season (which is even quite probable) or even – sometimes – considering their whole careers.
That said, I’ll agree that many events which are considered sheer bad luck can be seen as depending on skills, materials, organisation etc. And let’s not forget that ugly word, “resilience”, i.e. the ability of going through unfortunate events better than most do.
We shouldn’t forget, either, that many of those skills etc. are subject to positive or negative change through time, sometimes unexpectedly, also because there’s a strong body-mind factor which makes many of the related situations self-reinforcing.
I can see both sides to this and teams have spent a lot on risk management of late from recruitment to resources; plus a stronger rider might crash less because they’re not on/over the limit for a descent etc.
But equally what Fabian Cancellara once called “unluck” just happens too.
Gabrielle,
I just can’t agree with you. We ate talking about a large enough sample now that any skewing towards heads or tails should be smoothed out.
But more fundamentally, the heads or tails of a coin flip results (almost entirely) purely from chance. Bike racing is far more layered and complex than that. Pure chance is a small part of the bigger picture.
Saying that a rider has bad luck necessitates a belief in something supernatural.
Bike handling, ability to ride in a large group, the ability to see the road ahead, intuition derived from years of experience, individual and team positioning are a much more logical explanation than luck or curses. Cycling fans have a habit of believing things that don’t bear out in data, like the curse of the rainbow jersey. I understand the romanticism of those sorts of beliefs, or trying to use them as an excuse when your favorite rider suffers another self-inflicted wound. I’m not religious so I dont go to church, nor am I superstitious and hence I don’t believe in any riders being unlucky. Roglič really needs to develop some basic racecraft, his luck would miraculously improve.
@Rafal
Hard to grasp, I know, but you actually need to be religious in order to believe that «luck» (a significant degree of out-of- control disorder in random events) is not a thing.
In fact, that sort of belief is what took place of traditional religions in conforting human mind!
About the luck vs skill debate: of course both components are true, they’re not mutually exclusive. It would be possible to quantify this. For each rider we would need the number of crashes over a given period, and some measure of exposure (nb of races, or of kms raced). If all riders had the same propensity to crash (i.e., hypothesis that only luck plays a role), then the nb of crashes adjusted for exposure should follow a Poisson process (named after the statistician who came up with it). This model says that the variance in nb of crashes equals the expectation (mean nb of crashes). If this was verified, then one could say that only luck matters. If the variance was greater (which I think is likely), it would mean that the propensity to crash is itself variable from one rider to the next (most likely due to skill). It would be possible to quantify the proportions of variability attributable to each.
Thomas: this could be interesting to see. Is Roglič more prone to crashing, or just bias as we notice it more etc, likewise Geraint Thomas.
The UCI is keeping a crash database in conjunction Ghent University and this logs details of each incident (location, weather, rider error, course issues etc)… but not sure they name individual riders.
OK, I’ll try and ask.
The thing about random variability is that it is real: even if all riders had the same skill level they would not all have the same number of crashes. This is not due to observation bias, a matter of noticing crashes more when they involve notable riders (even though such bias may exist as well).
+1 to gabriele’s comments. Indeed on:
“yet it’s perfectly possible that some athletes are luckier (or unluckier) than others, whether in a specific season (which is even quite probable) or even – sometimes – considering their whole careers.”
I’d make that much stronger: “It’s _entirely probable_ that some athletes are ‘luckier’ and some ‘unluckier'”. I.e., over seasons and many riders, luck will regress to the mean of 50:50, but within that large data-set of events there just will be – completely by chance – some who are well below the mean, and some well above.
And to add to the example of heads vs tails – in the real world of cycling, the sequencing of those events can create very different outcomes, even if the overall balance normalises after a number of events – ie a rider with a lot of tails (aka crashes) in the early part of his career, will likely have a very different career path to a rider whose share of tails come later on.
To Rafal – I don’t see that referring to luck in any way invokes the supernatural? What people refer to as luck can be thought of as the outcome of a confluence of a number of factors, outside of a given individual’s control… In a bike race, there are 196 moving parts, aka riders (plus other external factors like race vehicles, omi-opi signs etc), and any individual rider is only in control of one of those parts (they can perhaps have influence over another 6 parts, being their teammates, albeit that doesn’t always help as WvA found out when Benoot took out his front wheel in DDV)…I agree that riders can minimise or mitigate the impact of these other moving parts, by positioning well, staying attentive, using skills to avoid crashes (see Axel Zingle) etc, but it doesn’t eliminate the risk of something bad happening that is outside the rider’s control…across 50+ race days in a season, that’s a lot of risk that is undertaken by each rider, so I don’t think it’s unreasonable to refer to as ‘lucky’, any rider that escapes incident for a long period of time…
To Thomas & Inrng – The data would be very interesting for individual riders. My perception of Roglic in his early days, was that he was a terrific descender, because of his win into Laruns, and me not knowing too much else about him. But that perception gets shaped over time by other high profile events (and indeed, commentators reminding us of these), primarily being his high profile crash exits from the TdF & Vuelta…but does that mean he crashes a lot? Or is it simply that his crashes have a bigger impact on the races we watch and so we notice them more?
Rafal – THAT would be the best season ever if Tadej wins all of those!
Yes, it will be
Are you Majka? You seem to have the inside info. Any betting tips you want to share?
Are q36.5 getting an invite to la doyenne then?
Well, it looks pretty much probable, don’t you think?
Well lotto and the new incarnation of bingoal are already listed on the start list
iPT have an automatic entry, but maybe they are not taking this up. I think asp would like Tudor (alaphillipe) so id say q36.5 invite is in the balance.
But the Classics have a lot of teams, and more invited teams, normally, much more than GTs…
(or has this been changed recently?)
A picture paints a thousand words
McNulty and his ilk will be making serious bank for less race days, given your prediction.
Sad in so much as the US youth cycling is wanting for more American WT winners.
Funny you should mention more and bigger bottles. I saw an Instagram story today posted by UAE’s Julius Johansen’s gf, Tusnelda Maria Svanholmer, showing them out for a ride. He had four bottles on, two behind the saddle. I did a double take to check he was on a road bike.
Women’s racing. I (used to?) prefer it as it was unpredictable and basically mayhem. As the distances and professionalism have increased it has become more and more like men’s racing-lite. Same old predictable tactics – early squabbles, break goes, break brought back, favourites battle out win. Less left in the bunch than the men as the ability spread is still great, but nonetheless getting too scripted. Plus, in the UK at least, Marty MacDonald commentating, which is horrific to endure for more than 10 minutes.
My sense of 2025 is that Pogacar is only just coming into his prime.
Big riders riding less is interesting. Already MvdP rides very little, and this has obviously proved very successful. If he doesn’t ride the Tour so he can demoralise some mountain bikers, which races will he actually do? Sanremo, E3, G-W, Flanders, Roubaix, Amstel, Liege… the Worlds..?! 7 races days?!
I just read an interview with Niels Vandeputte, CX rider from Alpecin. Apparently Van der Poel does not like warming up for CX races. He doesn’t go to the bus, he does no recon. Basically he just gets out of the lambo, puts race gear on and goes to the start line stone cold.. And then he just rides everyone off his wheel 🙂 Haha, what a legend.
Sorry but that’s got lost in translation somewhere. In his last CX race (or one before) he said on tv he’d done three reccy laps, mostly with vanderputte following (which those of us who are particularly sad🤣) saw on screen!
PS Another excellent commentary on the year ahead. 🙏
Sorry but that’s a bit of an urban myth i think. I was at Zonhoven and the biggest cheer early on was the moment the crowd saw MVDP on the warm up laps. You knew instantly either, 1 – he was out there warming up, or, 2 – someone had fallen on the run down into the sand pit.
Likewise at Diegem my young son, who races ans is a massive fan, waited for ages outside the ADK bus for an autograph (but he went straight from the bus out the back to the start….but he was there with the guys for a good while). He doesn’t just turn up and ride the race.
I just read that Vingegaard has yet to start an Elite World road race championship, although he did ride the U23 race in 2018. I can’t imagine (nor think of) another two-time TdF winner never having even started Worlds in the modern era.
Just goes to show the level of specialisation post Lemond, Indurain, Armstrong*, Froome etc.
As for prediction, I predict Pogacar will not start Paris-Roubaix, nor win MSR. I’m picking someone other than Pogacar/MvdP/WVA to win MSR, and WVA to win in Roubaix, but we’ll see.
In other news I see Evenepoel has only just returned to indoor cycling almost six weeks after be doored. That’s a long break indicative of the seriousness of his injuries. Fingers crossed for his full recovery and sooner rather than later.
Doesn’t this highlight Vingegaard as the exception, rather than the rule, when it comes to specialisation these days?
Armstrong didn’t ride a World Champs after 1998 (ie after specialising as a GC rider). And Froome isn’t exactly known for his one-day prowess, having ridden about half a dozen one day races during his career…whereas today, all the top GC guys (Vingegaard excepted) seem to race, and win/podium the big one day races…
If anything, I’d say we’re in an era of non-specialisation, and (100km solos aside) the racing is a lot more interesting because of it!
I agree. The era of hyper specialisation were the days when, if you excuse a little artistic license, Freire would win Milan-Sanremo, Boonen and Cancellara won the cobbles, Valverde and Gilbert won in the Ardennes and Cunego won Lombardia!
Very good!
Fully within the artistic licence, I assume, but Valverde brought home a Vuelta besides podiuming the three GTs, and Cunego got a Giro (plus a white jersey at the TDF ^___^), heck even Cancellara was graciously awarded a Suisse
I take it you watch very little MTB racing; MvdP hasn’t won a top level XCO race since 2019 – and since that win has results of 7,2, DNF, DNF, 27…….
It’s not CX, where you can overpower the opposition; you need top technical skills, and his are rusty from lack of racing on the MTB. If he spends the time training and racing on the MTB, then he can be competitive…..
Predictions… for what they are worth.
MSR – Van Aert
Flanders – Pogacar
Roubaix – MvdP
Liege – Pogacar
Worlds – Pogacar
Lombardia – Pogacar
Stage races depend on which ones Pogacar does. I’ll predict that he will win the 2 that he does, whether that’s the Giro and Tour or the Tour and Vuelta, and that the other will be won by Roglic.
Fixed it for you.
MSR – Pogacar
Flanders – Pogacar
Roubaix – Pogacar
Liege – Pogacar
Giro – Pogacar
Tour – Pogacar
Worlds – Pogacar
Lombardia – Pogacar
🤣
Not exactly a precise prediction but I’m going to put ‘transfers’ out there.
There are riders tied to long contracts that could get itchy feet, there are teams at WT and PRT level that have slots available, there are, as mentioned, big riders on teams that will want more of a chance.
And what’s going on with Jayco and Ewan?
I’d heard Ewan was going to Ineos but that was last year and it looks like that’s been called off. Talks with Astana have fallen through too. Daniel Benson’s substack email has more on this, basically he’s homeless although still technically a Jayco rider.
Given his last two seasons, I don’t see why anyone would employ him, unless it was on a pittance. And I don’t think Ewan will ride for low wages. That’s why I think he’s done.
Yes, it seems D. Friebe was hinting at a Ewan-INEOS link up some episodes of the Cyclingpodcasts ago.
Predictions:
Despite Lappartient’s talk about it, budget caps won’t happen, especially not with the threat of Saudi money coming into the sport – the UCI will be too scared to aggravate the teams.
Thus, we will see the bigger teams increasing their dominance.
Caleb Ewan retires.
Roglic wins a one-horse race Giro.
Vin wins TdF.
Pog wins Vuelta.
WVA doesn’t win a monument.
Pog wins three (not M-SR).
Ineos ceases sponsorship.
Froome wins a race, cranked out of his eyeballs.
Lots of people talk lots of guff about safety, all while ignoring more obvious safety issues.
I think have to agree with you about Ewan. A shame. Let’s hope we’re wrong and he stages a revival – though given the sprinting riches detailed above that seems a slim hope.
Ineos have no business with a sprinter anyway, but Astana could maybe use some top 10s… Eeesh. Not a glorious use of a rider of of Ewan’s stature.
I think Ineos would have been wise to give Ewan a shot. He could just follow their big boys around and pick up some scraps here and there. Can’t be any worse than Viviani, and Ineos need wins, even at lower-tier races.
Surely better than current Viviani, whose role I must suppose should be sort of a tech/mentoring/pre-managing one rather than anyone expecting victories from him… (which Ewan isn’t at all apt for, I’m afraid).
But Ewan was never close to top Viviani and he himself is probably far from his best versions. Both athletes with short-lasting peaks of absolute excellence, although Viviani had less of a natural gift and much more hard homework done, besides obviously a very brilliant track career to take care of.
Anyway, Ewan will always be the author of one of the most commanding performance I can recall from a pure sprinter on the Poggio.
I think Ewan has (had) a lot of natural talent, both in terms of sprinting and in M-SR as you mention, but his ‘tactics’ in sprints seemed increasingly wayward.
What really showed his character, though, was that in his final season at Lotto, he would continually sit up once he knew he was no longer going to win a sprint, despite his team desperately needing the points.
” Is it worth doing Dwars Door Vlaanderen if you want to win Roubaix or the Ronde?”
Winning races like Dwars Door Vlaanderen turns you into the next “star” getting hyped for the monuments.
So therefore a race to be avoided, in hope of a quieter week heading into the big ones.
If they must have yellow cards then I think it’s a pity they’re not going to be issued by commisaires popping out of car sunroofs, as that would at least make it somewhat amusing to see!
Is there something missing from the end of the Arkea paragraph?
My prediction for 2025: Carbon monoxide usage comes to the forefront. There’s something insidious when one or two teams can be so dominant and both Visma and UAE have admitted to its usage, yet no one really knows the extent. I’m truly hoping that the riders aren’t being used as guinea pigs, but we all know the realities.
I think it could equally recede, the teams who said they’ve used it have said they won’t so much now. The feedback (a couple of chats, not a survey) seems to be it’s something that riders and staff are not worried about at all… except for the way it gets written up, eg a legitimate blood test method that many teams might like to use but it’s too expensive/logistics gets written up with a suspicious tone.
Still the sport has a long history of experimenting with gains and using legal methods for illegal gains so it’s right to watch out. Plus there are one or two people in the altitude field who… well I wouldn’t buy a used car from them but they’re not working with the two teams you mention. As said in a “shorts” piece from December, CO is koolstofmonoxide in Dutch, монооксид углерода in Russian, just in case.
Define “usage”?
Every team will be “using” CO at some point, as CO rebreathing is a part of the gold-standard method to measure total haemoglobin mass, as parts of sports physiology science – and has been for at least half a century (it was invented a century odd ago). If there are teams /not/ “using” CO, then that implies a team that is /not/ using modern sports phys. science to evaluate and monitor progress of its riders in the off-season.
If you mean “using” CO rebreathing to try improve performance. Note these things,
1. The underlying physiological response this aims to stimulate is exactly the same as the one stimulated by altitude camps – increase in erythrocyte production in response to a chronic hypoxia stressor.
2. CO rebreathing leads to a portion of haemoglobin being bound to CO, and unavailable for O2 or CO2 transport, for a period of days. It will be a very very small portion, but it’s still enough to probably cause a (small) performance decrease for a few days.
From this we perhaps can make the following conclusions:
a). A top-level team that can afford altitude camps is going to keep using altitude camps as much as it can, cause of 2 – particularly for those “top up” altitude camps, where a rider flies from a race to camp, and later from camp to a race.
b) For lower level teams, for whom altitude camps may not be as accessible (how many hotel rooms are there available at altitudes over 2km in Europe over the winter and early spring?), who would otherwise be at a disadvantage against the top teams who have no problem booking out rooms at altitude for all riders who need them, CO rebreathing potentially gives them a much cheaper and much more accessible way to access the same stimulus (chronic hypoxia). So is CO rebreathing really a bad thing?
c) Also, CO rebreathing can be done anywhere, so this would allow riders to have a bit more of a normal life, while still making use of the same stimulus.
Note “potentially”, because I don’t think there is a paper describing clear performance benefits for CO rebreathing. It is just assumed there must be by many sports physiology scientists, because there is evidence for a benefit from altitude camps, and it is believed the stimulus is the same (chronic hypoxia).
The “Oh no, CO rebreathing!” mania in the cycling press and amongst fans is a bit misplaced, given the same press and fans have said absolutely nothing for decades about altitude camps. If CO rebreathing is to be banned, should altitude camps not be banned too? They are certainly a major cost to teams, plus they are a cost to the family of the riders – by many reports, it is not fun for riders to be stuck on top of a mountain for many many weeks over the off-season, away from family.
CO rebreathing in many ways (if it works) should help _level_ the playing field, and give riders a bit more of a normal life. Also, you can’t really ban altitude camps – least, be hard to come up with fair, water tight regulations (not least, cause some riders were born and live in high-altitude places).
Re: hemoglobin test usage. Visma and UAE claim they no longer use it, it sounds like they may now have good enough “secondary standards” so that the primary is no longer needed. CO rebreathing as testing is legit (as opposed to as a PED), but given the previous in this sport it’s easy to understand the suspicion and cynicism.
As for point 1, you can make that case for Xe, EPO, or really any PED.
Daft that teams have to not use a standard test in sports physiology, just cause a bunch of people on the internet don’t understand it.
I do not see how induction of a physiological stress via environment is equivalent to EPO or any PED. EPO is directly stimulating the body to produce more erythrocytes – it is the hormone that has that purpose in that purpose. If we can equate environmental stressors with PEDs, then by that standard you could equally claim that base and threshold training are equivalent to EPO and weight training is equivalent to anabolic steroids. Doesn’t really compute.
If people are allowed to subject their bodies to chronic hypoxia, for the training effect, then…
CO does /not/ stimulate anything, it actually /deprives/ your body of oxygen! It is literally the opposite of a PED. For 1 to 2 days after exposure your VO2 threshold is _reduced_.
The deprivation is the hypoxia and there are possibilities to abuse this and it is hard to test for any abuse. If anyone wants more reading, see here.
How are they going to test for CO rebreathing? They’d need to start taking blood samples as part of OOC testing I think. Which means you can’t just hire random people as your testers, they’d have to be phlebotomists. Then there’s potential ethical issues with regularly taking blood from people for no medical purpose.
I don’t understand the recent hyperventilating over CO rebreathing. Largely smacks of a lay press and audience hearing about something they have no idea of and coming to all kinds of strange conclusions.
What can be done about it? Very little. Even if it could be banned, is there even anything to worry about? It’s not a PED (it is in fact the exact opposite – it’s deprives your body of oxygen; rather it is the response to that _stress_ that may create a benefit, /after/ the CO has all left your blood and gone back to the air – which takes 1 to 2 days).
There are surely much bigger fish to fry.
It’s this sort of information and discussion that makes Inrng the best cycling website !
Interesting takes, Mr. INRNG.
On women’s racing, I think you are right. Minor men’s races could be pushed aside for women’s races. Or – which I hope – we will have more double shows running with both men’s and women’s racing.
On the subject of Women’s racing, a joker has been thrown in as Anna van der Breggen returns to racing. This will be very interesting to follow.
On bottles, you were wise to state training rides, as UCI’s regulations still has a maximum of 800 ml on bottles.
And on Vingegaard, he has in the Danish press expressed interest in the upcoming WC, but it remains to be seen if new Danish national coach Michael Mørkøv can make him participate.
On the TdF, I would venture with del Toro in the top 5 and – if his recovery goes according to plan, Evenepol wil have a greater impact than last year. I am convinced he only needed to shed 2 kilos to be fully competitive with at least JV. TP will always be somewhat more difficult. TP’s ability to also stay upright and avoid trouble is rather impressive.
2025 predictions?
A mad race for UCI points by a few teams which will liven up the minor races.
Otherwise watching the UAE team on the final stretch of MSR will be probably intensely amusing.
Just hope the Tour winner is not decided by who does not crash in the Spring.
Wild guess. Pogačar will look again überstrong, save for some sort of accident and its consequences which will have him out for an unspecified part of the season.
Another script turn might be he’s on fine form at the TDF and proves the strongest but some freak situation puts him ten minutes down and he fails to get it all back from Vingo and Remco.
Milano-Sanremo: Pogacar
Giro delle Fiandre: van der Poel
Parigi-Roubaix: van der Poel
Liegi: Evenepoel
Giro d’Italia: Roglic
Tour de France: Pogacar
Vuelta a Espana: Vingegard
Mondiale: Pogacar
Lombardia: Pogacar
Well the musette might have to find its way back as the teams must now register with a UCI license for all zone hoppers. No big deal I hear you say? …well given the emphasis on fuelling these days and reports from people such as Luke Durbridge on younger riders „never haven even been back to the car for bottles etc“ this might make a bit of a problem for some.
Íve helped out numerous times at Spring Classics and tricky TDF stages like last years gravel stage and „Roubaix“ stages. Whilst it´s a good thing to tidy up some of the cash grabs by the likes of the „Jumbo Visma fans experience“ of being driven around in a van and just dropped off with a couple of bottles to hand out (160 euros thanks!) and might just take some of the more reckless drivers off the road (yes Ím talking about you Belgian VIP vans).Íve been asked „what to do“ by very nervous fans who are part of these programmes and whilst I dońt have a ratio of how many of said bidon are subsequently dropped in the bunch…..Whilst it´s might seem nothing much to worry about, its actually a real problem for example at the top of the Kemmelberg where there frankly isńt enough space now between the top and the left/ then right hand turn from the otherwise and frankly, sometimes they just „get in the way“.
For some of the smaller teams with smaller budgets and hence less staff the likes of my friend and I who travel to the races and have built a bit of a relationship with some of the DŚs at our team are a real help. Doing the zone hopping „properly“ and sitting down with veloviewer and maps and working out how best to use the deviations“ and so on and having a good knowledge of the routes around tight areas like Flanders or Roubaix is appreciated. We don’t get anything really other than the pleasure of trying to help and be involved in just the tiniest way in the action. (Even though at the time wéve rarely got any idea of what´s really going on in the race). Hopefully the team will get the said Licenses for us as you might be surprised how many teams are frequently „under staffed“ when it comes to bodies out there in the fields on a cold afternoon in February at the top of a muddle hill in Flanders!
I saw that rule change too, worth explaining it more to readers as until now “staff” could hand up bottles and as touched on here. Staff has long been a loose definition, especially for races like Roubaix where a lot of extra help can be brought in.
Visma were offering VIP travel (€2,775 for two nights at the Tour, (postcard section of https://inrng.com/2024/07/tour-de-france-stage-5-preview-saint-vulbas/ explains more) including moments where guests were “helping with supplies”, as in handing up bottles which was clever as it raised money for them and got extra people by the road.
Now staff have to be UCI licence holders too (but who will check?). Sounds like you know what you’re doing and the cheapest version of paperwork from your country’s federation should fix this.
Ahh…( annon last time). Yes the team have a meeting later in the week to sort it out and we will hopefully get the accreditation (paid for). It would be very hard to see how one would get the help needed (bodies at the start and end of every sector and sometimes in the middle of longer ones such as Haaghoek or the longer Roubaix sections) without volunteers.
After helping now for about 5 years in my judgement it does seem to have got a bit out of control and increasingly congested at some points. As for checking this? As you say, my friend and I were wondering the same thing. Would the UCI or organisers really have a “jobsworth” ( for want of a better phrase) at the start of every feed zone…surely they’d need volunteers for that as well! 😉
Wow wow wow. I’m stupefied after the Giro route announcement. It’s the softest GT route I’ve ever seen. The GC battle won’t even really begin until stage 16. The real climbing is only in week 3 and even then it’s not particularly hard. If any year allows someone to go for 3 GT wins it’s this year, the Vuelta isn’t all that hard either.
I understand the politics of it but Pogačar could really go for a GT triple this year without too much strain.
Left field predictions of winners
MSR – Ganna
PR – Kung
RVV – Mads Pedersen
LBL – Healy
Giro – Ayuso
TdF – Remco
Vuelta – Mas
Worlds – Jonas
Lombardia – BOC
I predict a turbulent year for Lotto as well. They might end up with the points to move up to World Team Status but with a budget too small to make it happen. I wonder if the team can survive a second year of fruitless chasing that big second sponsor, they really need one.
Betting advertising has been outlawed in both the Netherlands and Belgium for this year and this is visible with most of the sponsors vanishing (Napoleon, BetCity etc) but one thing I hadn’t clocked is that Lotto only has a temporary exemption to this law and that come 2028 it won’t be allowed to sponsor a team either. So 2027 could be the team’s final year unless the law changes/exemption extended or they find a whole new title sponsor. This will have an effect already as if they want to sign a rider for next year then it’s hard to see beyond a two year deal if there’s no news.
a lot has been brewing at Lotto just beneath the surface. See also Victor Campenaerts’ story (an, alleged, oral agreement never resulted in a formal contract extension), Jarno Widar claiming to leave and then stay, Maxim Van Gils breaking his contract, …. The team only changed management last year right? Heulot came with the explicit assignment to get new sponsors. So far not happening. The roster remains strong for this season and with real young hopefuls (from both sides of the country) you’d think that some Belgian based-multinational would want to chip in but so far it seems not to be happening. Maybe there simply aren’t enough companies with the right profile here? Which is very worrisome both for the longer term survival of Lotto but also for the short-term prospects as the turbulence will not subside this way.
By the way sponsorship outlook for Intermarché is also not great and Quickstep are forever one expiring sponsor deal away of financial trouble. Despite the history & culture, the good amount of races and star riders, the unconditional media-attention, A+ sponsorship money seems hard to find in Belgium. This is further confirmed by the exception: Alpecin, Fenix and Canyon are all three foreign companies sponsoring a Belgian team. This is a strange situation which I don’t believe is sustainable in the longer run. I guess we’ll have to wait until AB Inbev has a brand of Alcoholfree beer it wants to market globally or some Belgian top teams will be forced to fold, merge or decamp, much like their Italian counterparts did a decade ago.
As a non-European I find this astonishing. From the outside Belgians appear to be lunatics for cycling and sponsorship of cycling seems like the most obvious choice for Belgian companies to raise their profile. AND it’s not that expensive! In the US, big companies are falling all over themselves in the race to be associated with the most popular sports properties; it’s one of the few ways that advertisers can reliably reach their target audience. Seems like a complete slam-dunk for Belgian firms to do the same.
Football (aka soccer) is much more popular and it seems that they take away all of the sports-related marketing money.
Did I see a story on “nutrition”? I thought I did, and then it was gone. Did I get confused with some sub-portion of a story, or did I go mad, or did something (briefly) get published?
Maybe the link to https://inrng.com/2022/09/the-calorie-revolution/ in the section about bidons and musettes?
That must have been it, thanks 🙂
I expect a ‘historic’ year for individual performances but few stars out of five for gripping tension.
I can’t see the GTs being very competitive in GC or sprints – only the Tour has potential if the stars align for Vin and Pog to be fit and well balanced.
A handful of riders sweeping up, and with ease, from 2-4 teams. A historic year of domination but not of competitiveness or depth.
There may be consolidation among teams later on and perhaps new UCI management and moneys will help balance things in the future. Otherwise we’re just waiting for the next generation of young riders