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.
Tadej Pogačar will win his fifth Tour de France. Obvious, dull and safe and if this blog was chasing hits it’s not an opening to provoke outrange or intrigue. But it is the central question in the sport. Given Pogačar has won four five seems within range. His biggest rival is Jonas Vingegaard who has opted to do the Giro as a reset, and were he to win the maglia rosa he could well find some liberation from this but could equally be sapped by UAE for trying. Such certainty today of course means plenty can chip away at these assumptions in the coming months.
Lidl-Trek will finish the season as the second best team. UAE will top the rankings – take your pick for wins, UCI points or even vibes – but the newly-branded German team will be runners-up and having finished narrowly third on the UCI tables last year behind UAE and Visma-LAB they’ll open up a gap on the rest and could even push UAE, in part because Pogačar is racing less and so should score less too. Lidl-Trek is arguably a more complete team than UAE as they have multiple contenders for the classics and a world class house sprinter and should pull ahead of Visma-LAB, especially as the Dutch team has now lost Olav Kooij, Cian Uijtdebroeks and Simon Yates. The mystery is whether Red Bull can find their wings.
Congestion could be an issue at UAE and Lidl-Trek with top riders not always getting the chances they want. The Giro looks spicy for UAE. Juan Ayuso’s move last autumn between these teams even signalled to many they can shred their contract, “pass Go” on their way to a new team where they can pick their race program. But there won’t be any contract-breaking soap operas this season. Loyal readers will know the Paradox of Long Contracts where the longer deals get, the more likely they are to get broken. All these forces exist but it just feels like 2026 could be an exception. Think of the “musical chairs” party game, there’s been a lot of riders dancing to the point but now there are few chairs left, as in not many teams need to raid rivals for talent now.
Budget caps will become a live topic this season but don’t expect them to come into force. It’s been an idea for a while but one that might break cover into something more concrete. There’s always been a big discrepancy between teams in the World Tour; 20 years ago CSC kicked sand in the faces of Euskaltel and Française des Jeux. But now the way arguably two thirds of teams in the World Tour look uncompetitive is striking, reduced to fighting over the crumbs that fall from the table. The remedy? Good luck. Theoretically even the top teams stand to gain if the sport becomes more sporting but in a tragedy of commons scenario the top teams probably won’t vote for this, plus those with ambitions to grow may reject it too. Even if the UCI could make it happen it’s fraught with difficulties and technicalities, the big teams, star riders and agents would have already hired lawyers and accountants to quietly game the rules. One solution to mitigate some of the structural gaps is a central licencing location where, say, French teams with high payroll taxes at home could change jurisdiction to Switzerland while they could do this today – Soudal-QuickStep seems so Belgian but legally it’s a Luxembourg team – having the UCI instigate this soon would supply political cover for a move in the future.
You’ll look forward to bunch sprints a little bit more. One domain where UAE won’t win everything is bunch sprinting. House sprinter Juan Molano has averaged 2.5 wins a year since joining the team in 2019 so imagine how the team would fare if they hired someone capable of winning ten or more sprints a season, all on the caveat that they might not get much of a lead out at all but they’d be paid like a king? But we’re not there and also there’s no undisputed sprint king either, they can go the way of Tim Merlier, Jonathan Milan, Matthew Brennan, Olav Kooij Jasper Philipsen with others capable too. So far, so salivating but one problem is the thrill of the final kilometre means the entirety of the course to get there is predictable, and probably more than ever as teams hunting for wins can’t afford to miss. So tune in, but just for the finish.
A coin toss and the international TV rights to the Giro and the rest of RCS’s portfolio get renewed by Warner-Discovery-Eurosport. As mentioned recently here the existing deal has expired and sale of the rights has been given to Iris Media and they are closely linked to the UK-Saudi streaming website DAZN, a venture with a record of over-promising and under-delivering (here, here, here). But how much is RCS’s portfolio worth? Not much frankly and still probably worth more to Eurosport than DAZN, which would not only have to stream the image but set up production. This could be an entry point for DAZN but the Saudi connection’s dried up given the One Cycling project has stalled. It could go either way and if the coin toss guess sounds flippant, well Strade Bianche is just over 40 days away and there’s no news on how people can watch it, commentators prepping notes for the Giro are waiting and more.
Safety will remain a blame game. Fields that prize safety like civil aviation, IT or deepwater diving go a long way to establishing a culture where there are fail-safes, backups and above all a willingness to learn from accidents. Pro cycling has commendably implemented many safety enhancing features in recent years, think weather protocols, five kilometre rules, tramadol bans and more but these tweaks can only mitigate the obvious dangers of hundreds of cyclists in light clothing racing on open roads, all while speeds have increased. Culturally it’s still coming up short. Last year there were two pilot two safety measures, one to reduce the maximum gear ratio and the other over location transponders and both were aborted because of politics, not even a test could happen. So if there’s a serious accident especially involving a celebrity name, expect a circular firing squad and finger-pointing rather than handshaking.
Financial scandal erupts. Nothing systematic but one the consequences of the lack of doping scandals is that money is pouring in with corporates reassured they won’t be the new Festina. As rider pay soars so do the temptations to hold onto it. We already see riders opting for cramped studio apartments in Monaco to live somewhere with no income tax, or take more spacious accommodation in Andorra – sleet and 2°C this morning – with its low 10% rate. But some have partners or agents renting villas the Côte d’Azur hills, others can be regularly spotted training around Girona. Cyclists have been busted for this already but it’s easier than ever for tax authorities. Riders are papped by Instagram users, while Strava, Garmin and Wahoo log precise location data, as does WADA’s Whereabouts system and if they have privacy limits, tax inspectors have investigatory powers too.
The Vuelta a España runs normally. Dog bites man normality, sure but last year the Israel-PremierTech team attracted large protests with some by the road thinking the team was backed by the country and the Vuelta needs to get back to being a bike race rather than a political event. Now the team is rebranded as NSN and while it retains many connections to the backers of IPT, it’s visibly and audibly different and that should suffice, plus Gaza isn’t in our headlines and feeds as much. The sport is vulnerable to protest because it is run outdoors and it’s impossible to secure the whole route. The UAE team could be questioned about Darfur but as we’ll explore in a separate blog post soon, this won’t worry them much; anti-Americanism could be on the rise in Europe given recent events but the EF team would be an unlikely target. Ineos doesn’t have the notoriety and the Total Energies team feels too small to attract climate change protesters despite its big backer.
Assuming the paragraph above holds then the Vuelta a España is the best grand tour of the season. As strong as João Almeida is, Jonas Vingegaard ought to cruise the Giro but could still be sapped by the UAE team which means Tadej Pogačar should win his fifth Tour de France. This leaves the Vuelta more open, especially as neither Vingegaard nor Pogačar are down to race the Vuelta.
The women’s Tour de France is better than ever. The men’s Tour is still a highlight of the season: the best riders in peak form racing across France in summer, it’s hard to top and the daily stage battles are like a world championships every day. But the race is often defined by the contest for the yellow jersey and right now this looks settled in advance. By contrast the women’s race looks open and a good blend of stages means riders with overall ambitions can’t stake all their chips on Mont Ventoux. It got bumper audiences in France last year and Pauline Ferrand-Prévot’s fame should bring out more crowds too.
Journalist Daniel Friebe wrote in his predictions that “One fairly major WorldTour team will run into life-threatening financial difficulty. I have an idea who but won’t say just yet”. You might be wondering which one but here the response was “just one?” Plenty of teams have issues for survival and last summer’s list can be reworked, for example Ag2r did stop sponsoring but the team’s secure thanks to Decathlon and CMA CGM but others could be added to the list. It circles back to the dominance question with teams and their sponsors having to spend ever greater sums just to stand still and some of those who came on board a few years ago may decide they’ve done their time during the course of 2026 but this could be valid next year and beyond.
Staying with financial gloom the Total Energies team ends. This is one call where it would be great to be wrong but the title sponsor has switched to become a co-sponsor Ineos and the remaining deal with the plucky French second tier team runs out at the end of this season. And there’s no news on a replacement so the squad that joined the pro ranks in 2000 may halt. The best time to find a new sponsor was yesterday, the second best time is now and talk of racing to get results is an alarm bell as it puts the onus on the riders and means nobody is interested now. There’s little time left. Current riders like Jordan Jegat, Emilien Jeannière, Mathieu Burgeaudeau, Thomas Gachignard and Anthony Turgis will be targetted by other teams in the coming weeks and months and the longer the wait, the more riders who can leave will which leaves the remaining team less appealing in case any sponsor is interested, a vicious spiral. There is one big hope why it can continue in that it’s got a de facto Tour de France invite. Having a sufficiently competitive team, a French flag and the lack of rival contenders for this spot means it’s a potentially attractive venture. But it’s not as easy as paying €15 million for Your Name Here title sponsorship, new backers have to buy into the team’s identity and define a new project.
On the tech-side a new Dura-Ace groupset from Shimano is due for release this summer. Reprising something from the Christmas Quiz is that many stock team bikes can now weigh under 6.8kg so we might see the UCI’s minimum weight limit become an issue, or at least some “UCI illegal” marketing from brands.
Talking of revisiting blog posts, a year ago there was a suggestion that with more and more carbs being used that teams could move to bigger bidons so they can carry more fuel. It didn’t happen but having read the follow-up review of 2025’s predictions a member of staff from one team emailed to say they’d tested just this but the riders were anxious about the weight penalty, both while riding but also as picking up heavy bottles at speed increased the risk of dropping them. So if regular size is here to stay, how about insulated bidons in use more? Normally they’re cheap plastic and treated as disposable. Thermos-style ones might seem extravagant to throw away at passing fans but there could be real gains when it’s very hot, at least the kind teams might pay €10-15 a time for.
Another prediction for 2026: Inrng will be the best cycling blog.
Thanks, not a field packed with others these days though 😉
So you’re going to win the perfect Desgrangean race: last athlete standing!
You mean ‘remains’? 😂
Fascinating comment as ever. Thank you.
Looking forward to a great season, TV coverage permitting.
“You’ll look forward to bunch sprints a little bit more”
Nop don’t see this happening, it’s just people getting a bit fed up with pog (inrng included) clearly dreaming.
I find it strange that I discovered the greats of this sport by reading here, but now seeing the same thing he kept applauding about the past live, there is a aura of complain in all the posts.
I love current racing, I never though I would see something like this
Doing previews on here it’s more fun to face uncertainty and even be wrong, the feeling of knowing who will win the Tour de France today takes away some of the conversation but as said a few times here lately, this scenario feels so obvious that it could be brittle and change. So doing previews and just anticipating bunch sprints will be harder but more fun for it.
Looking ahead, take Milan-Sanremo where we’ll all be meteorologists in March as we sift wind forecasts on the Cipressa.
I know we all feel certain Pog is going to win the Tour, but I cling to the memory that we all “knew” Indurain was going to win in 96?
The IA or supposedly such used for weather forecasts will mess up further more race routes, bringing us one step closer to the future of cycling and the main chance to end Pogi’s dominance, i.e. course design unknown to riders and teams until they’re on the very road and pedalling
😛
Not sure that would help others beat Pogačar given UAE seem to go into races with him without much of a plan and he attacks when he wants, relatively speaking. Right now it’s as if all the other teams are trying to find which side of the road at KM127 has the best road surface or whether the crosswind at KM159 can be used and they’re left short anyway.
He’d win much all the same, only he’d win less, be it only because it would be be more random. It can be debated theoretically if the strongest prevails more often in a more chaotic scenario or the other way around, but empiric experience in cycling seems to suggest that the opener the script in a given race, the less frequent it becomes that the strongest athlete gets the victory. Of course a superior cyclist will always have more chances over the rest, not to speak of a much superior *and versatile* one.
Don’t you think Pogacar planned a very light beginning of the season to be able to do the Vuelta later ? That would be my guess for the season, especially if Vingegaard wins the Giro and become a 3-GT winner before him…
For the big team in trouble, I would think of Visma, they spend a lot, and Plugge seems to be very grumpy about cycling financial system recently. That could be one of the minor reasons why Yates is retiring too : if he lacks motivation and learns the team is in trouble, he decided to spare them his salary (too much dietrologia ?)
As for TotalEnergie, the most important, I think, is their amateur team which seems to have found another jersey sponsor with Primeo Energie, a swiss brand. I don’t know if they’re big enough to sponsor the pro team too.
Pogačar to the Vuelta seems open, a light calendar should keep him mentally fresher but it should come down to how he feels after the Tour again. Presumably he’s thinking a lot about Sanremo and Roubaix now knows he has to do the Tour so raising the Vuelta with him already is too much. If UAE can think long term it might be a goal to dangle for his later years too, after he’s won in Sanremo or Roubaix? UAE also need to give others a go and another part of the answer, more short term, could also depend how Almeida fares at the Giro.
As for Visma, yes it’s a concern as they’ve had issues before, we all wowed when they won all three grand tours in a season but behind the scenes they were in emergency merger talks with Quick-Step and all those wins meant win bonuses. Their budget’s eased now that Yates and Uijtdebroeks have gone, that’s saved them several million. Plugge seems to have spent a lot of time and energy on the One Cycling mirage but at the same time hasn’t taken his eye of his own team, they’ve got new sponsorship from Nike, Rabobank and others. Alas we can worry about more than one team’s financial future.
Primeo is unusual as they’re backing the U23 Vendée team in western France but only have business in Alsace in Eastern France. Funding the team would consume a chunk of their budget and Total become Primeo it would have to become a franco-Swiss team in a market where Tudor and Q36.5 already bid for Swiss riders. Still perhaps the announcement yesterday means the prediction is going to be skewered within hours?
Primeo has now business all over the country, it seems.
From reading Weight Weenies and the like, the new Dura Ace isn’t likely to be available until 2027, at least on general release. I’d imagine teams will be riding it, or a version of it, at the Tour though.
Visma are having an absolute shocker in Oz, not sure if it means anything this early in the season. I’m definitely in the group who are more interested in sprints than I used to be, if only because they don’t end at 50 km from the finish! Conjecture about Pog at the Vuelta seems silly at this time of year with all the uncertainty in cycling, but of all the riders I’ve ever seen Pog is the one who seems the surest bet to stay strong, healthy and upright all year round. Can’t wait for the actual lead-in to the Tour this year; the Giro and spring classics will have their impact on the narrative, but we don’t know how. Could be exactly as expected with Pog and Jonas having wins under their belts, but there’s plenty of luck involved in getting there.
Anton Schiffer impressed on the Corkscrew, just to be in the front chase group in his first World Tour race aged 26 and a relative newcomer to cycling after triathlon – a bit like Javier Romo and others. While teams will keep searching the junior ranks for the next Pogačar, there are still roles for others who can turn pro much later.
A shocker in Oz?
A stage win and a second place from six stages in January, and with an inexperienced team. It’s maybe not dazzling but not a shocker either.
I wrote that before the stage win. Up to that point it wasn’t great and Brennan had been washed out of at least one finale. But now their TDU looks great 🤣
If I were Brennan then I might be somewhat concerned that they thought it OK to send such a lousy support crew for him. Potentially lackadaisical. Also, Fiorelli gave no evidence whatsoever to stop the headscratching around his signing and attachment to Brennan as his supposed leadout. That continues to look a signing even worse than last year’s Hail Mary with McLay and without the excuse of it being unexpected and last-minute after Teunissen’s U-turn.
‘Strong, healthy and upright’? If you went into a pub early doors and had to drink a pint for every time Pog has fallen off his bike as a pro you’d be sloshed well before closing time. Good job he’s not made of glass like some unfortunates seem to be.
Really? I can only think of 3 instances, one of which was on gravel and the other during Roubaix.
Really. He’s fallen more than three times, like the vast majority [all?] of pro cyclists. Do you not think that, in general, it’s much harder to remember crashes that have no consequences than those which do? Sure bets to stay upright, specially in modern cycling, are a mug’s game.
I’m with Tom here…
I remember fairly few Pog crashes:
The broken wrist at LBL.
The descent crash when trying to drop Jonas at TDF.
The Roubaix crash last year.
The Strade crash last year.
I’m sure there are some more innocuous little falls that I’ve forgetting and it’s very true that so far he seems more durable than others when he does fall – but still, for in a rider who’s fast approaching ten years as a pro there have been surprisingly few incidents.
It’s pretty obvious his bike handling skills are supreme from seeing the crashes he’s avoided and hearing other’s say similar.
Geraint Thomas and Roglic stand out beyond most in recent years for being crash prone or in the wrong place at the wrong time. Off the top of my head some of G’s greatest hits are:
Coming off on the descent after taking the highest pass in 2010 TDF
Crashing in the snow just before the line in Romandie.
The wind blowing him off in Gent-W
The rider bumping him into the telegraph pole in TDF
The big one we didn’t see caused by R. Majka in 2017 TDF
The broken hip in Corsica TDF Grand Depart
The bottle at the Giro before the stage start
The police bike stopping at Giro
The Rio Olympics when he looked on for the win
The Gesink crash at TDF with dislocated shoulder
Commonwealth games TT crash
The Paris Nice crash on the stage where Porte also crashed.
The spleen rupture that I only know from listening to his podcast.
There are plenty more but those are just a quick list.
Isn’t the UAE Tour an RCS race? It’s certainly got the same set and frequency of graphics as the Giro does. That’s just three and a bit weeks away, and the women’s race goes before that.
It’s the organiser, yes – and we could see a Giro grande partenza there soon linked to this – but the TV rights could be separate, need to check more. As shorthand I can see UAE on Eurosport’s schedules… but not Strade Bianche.
Inrng – when you say that UAE will top the rankings even for vibes, what do you mean by vibes in this context?
Just that which way you slice or dice it they’ll finish as the top team. One of the ways the sport is interesting is how rankings or win rates don’t tell us everything, they can suggest, but don’t necessarily prescribe, who is the best rider or what is the best team.
I understand the point about wins and rankings not being the be-all-and-end-all, yes. But top for vibes? Depends what is meant. For a lot of fans, UAE are more and more cycling’s ABU team and for more than one reason.
Interesting thought about riders and financial scandal. Lots of companies offering services to, not rich people, but “ultra high wealth individuals”. Not quite Epstein’s, “only billionaires need apply”, but at lease $30 million in assets, so the likliehood of cyclists or team owners popping up in places like the Panama Papers, or in offshore havens like the Cook Islands, seems just a matter of time. (infact Sylvan Adams was in the Paradise Papers many years ago).
Cycling News had a little snippet about standing outside UAE’s team bus and seeing kiddies with team shirts and thinking about sportswashing. No politics allowed though over at CN!
Forgot to add – how about a betting scandal as that seems to be the latest thing in US sports?
That’s a good bet (horrid pun intended) to follow.
Is the betting scene as insane in Europe as in the US? Ads all over television streaming? Major sports figures shilling for betting firms? The recent college basketball indictments are simply crazy.
I’m curious: Have there been betting scandals in the past in cycling? What are the main ways it’s been done, if it has been?
The betting industry is big but the US has seen a big wave of deregulation this decade and big spending as brands try to compete for the new market. By contrast some countries in Europe are legislating to ban gambling companies from sports sponsorship, eg in Belgium and the Netherlands. The market in Europe still seems wild, you can see top football teams signing marketing deals with “bookmakers” that are probably money laundering fronts.
The UCI has passed some rules on betting but obviously with little ability to detect and enforce them. But cycling is a sport without many binary outcomes, it’s not win/lose but 180 riders who could win on the day so really hard to rig. Then the market is small for the sport, not many other side bets are offered, eg which kilometre the first rider will crash; who will DNF etc and if there were bets like this the market would probably dry up if you staked a small sum.
Not saying it can’t or won’t happen but at first glance if someone wanted to rig things, plenty of other sports might work better?
To your point below about the more marginal tennis and golf tour pros perhaps being incentivised to fix matches/moments. I agree top line cycling’s salaried business model mitigates against this somewhat. But I would say those pressures manifest themselves in doping – my impression (vibes only, no data to hand) is that blood doping carried on past the boom with riders incentivised to dope as a way of keeping a spot on a pro/conti teams, or placing in lower profile races (Portugal springs to mind) rather than as a way of winning Grand Tours.
So we can say the conditions and motivations exist for race fixing, but not the route to market. We’d all be mindful to be wary of this, even if it is an imminent threat.
Well, you could say that about cricket and look at the international betting controversies there down the years.
I don’t see that being a problem in cycling.
There’s too much race fixing already in cycling even without the bookmakers getting involved.
Race fixing in cycling is an interesting one isn’t it? I’m not even sure fixing is the right term. As an example, Pogi handing Majka a stage win isn’t ‘fixing’ in my mind, but part of the tapestry of cycling. As Inrng mentions above, results and records don’t always show the full picture. But you say ‘too much fixing’ – do you have a different view? Interested to know.
But I agree that cycling seems harder for bookies to tap into (but not impossible!). Cricket looks to be the opposite. Lots of standalone set pieces, each with multiple elements to bet on. The explosion in ‘franchise’ cricket seems really like an explosion in betting markets. Cycling has very few ‘set piece’ moments.
You read stories of lonely tennis players struggling to earn enough prize money to pay for their airfare to a tournament or golfers with debts who are easier for crime groups to identify and pick off.
Not to say pro cycling smells of roses, we have team managers and staff who have committed fraud etc, but this is sociologically different with insiders conspiring rather than outsiders.
Insulated bidons in their current design are, as far as I’m aware, all made of double skinned metal with a vacuum between, as such they would fail the test of needing to be able to collapse on themselves when run over by a rider wouldn’t they? Perhaps a different design with foam insulation would work instead.
Some foam could work, any means to keep it colder for longer. And other means too for cooling, people still putting stockings of ice on their shoulders which helps but there must be better ways to deliver and also there are better locations for it.
Are the teams not putting ice cubes in bottles? Or even freezing the bottles overnight?
I did this for my bottles when I went to the alps in summer. One bottle in the freezer overnight (you must account for expansion 😉 ). Another bottle half-filled in the fridge to chill, and then the remainder filled with ice-cubes before leaving. The ice-cube bottle was my first bottle – the liquid chilled by the melting cubes. By the time I was done with the first bottle, the 2nd bottle had enough melt to drink from.
Worked great, and I had super cold water for my climbs.
There have already been double wall plastic bottles (with foam between the layers) available for well over a decade now, and pro teams already use them. Teams won’t be publicising it because they are mostly buying Camelbak Podium Chill bottles in bulk and wrapping them with team labels, regardless of whether they are sponsor correct or not.
This type of insulation doesn’t keep the drink cold for many hours like a steel double wall bottle does, but it does slows down the rate at which it warms up to ambient temperature.
The main contexts where they are used are for training, the first bottles of the racing day (which include time for forming up, neutral zone and first 20km before service is allowed) and supply at the end of a stage to cover riding back to the bus/hotel. Except for those lost in incidents, they should all be returned to the team for reuse.
During a race in hot weather the focus should be on hydrating often, not holding onto bottles for hours. The updated rules for maximum distance between feed zones introduced last year should facilitate this, along with neutralisations to allow mass service from team cars if the race organisation is not complying with those requirements.
Thanks inrng for the preview and nice to see the new season already upon us! Looking forward to another great year of your commentary.
A question if I may – do you know when the Grand Tour wildcards will be announced? Really hoping Unibet Rose Rockets can get an invite to one of them – their evolution over the last few years has been fascinating to watch, and a combination their own progress and other teams falling by the wayside should hopefully mean they are a contender for a place for one of the GTs….
Should be soon for the Tour and Giro; last year it was at the end of March but after some wrangling to get an extra team invited and so a UCI rule issue.
Usually it’s in late January/early February. There are not many teams to pick from so I think the Rockets should get a Tour start; we’re seeing the Giro interested in a Spanish team like Burgos which could be fun but it’s unclear if they’d want to ride, it’d be expensive and it’s not clear where anyone in Spain will be able to watch the race if the Eurosport deal isn’t done so commercially less appealing but some of their riders would presumably love the opportunity.
Groenewegen already has a win under his belt, not a big race but still a good sign. The Rockets will definitely be fun to follow this year.
Is it just me, does it not seem that races are modified for weather issues more often than in the past? I’m not a global warming denier but!
As stated riders are paid a lot of money for us to enjoy the drama associated with their legendary, riding technical skills, endurance, stamina and strength.
I can imagine combining the men’s races with the women’s so they have less distance to race, less altitude gain, less fatigue and more time to find tax havens for the money they make.
On second thought it would be disrespectful to the women to have them have to put up with constant complaining by the men. t
42°C is the exact right temperature to grill some trolling protein bros
Predictions are fun, but it is sad how often crashes and injuries mess up cyclists seasons.
That being said, I hope Jonas goes to the Giro and wins, and I hope Derek Gee-west manages a podium.
Pog may prep even harder for the spring monuments. I expect he wins Strade, Ronde, LBL, and it’s a 2-up sprint in the Roubaix velodrome. MSR completely unpredictable – I really hope Matthews wins it but who knows. Pog wins the tour. Evenepoel 2nd. Also wins worlds RR and Lombardia.
I really hope the Vuelta is very open and a good race this year. The people with the best heat tolerance will be favored. I wonder if Jay Vine will go for it.
I think what Jay Vine is hoping for is a win in a time trial somewhere … and I hope he succeeds. Doesn’t seem to have the stamina to be in contention at a GT.
Maybe he will aim for the time trials at the Vuelta. 9km and 32 km are both respectable TTs. I hope he is able to get some big TT wins this year.
The Vuelta has a chance to be a wide open race this year. It’s impossible to know in January who will end up there (and why), but at this point it looks unlikely that either of the top two will be there. That was a recipe for a very enjoyable Giro in 2025.
I would rate Pogi about 50-50 whether he goes to the Vuelta. And the decision will only happen after the conclusion to the Tour. But if he wins the Tour easily, and feels fresh, there is a good chance he will go to the Vuelta.
I’m long enough in the tooth to remember Eddy’s last TDF victory, my first views of pro cycling, few years later this wee Scottish guy started romping up hills winning spotty jerseys and i’ve been hooked ever since.
2026, Tadej will win his 5th tour, he’ll win either San Remo or Paris Roubaix but not both, Flanders, Liege and Lombardia appear his to lose. Jonas will win the Giro, but be nowhere at the tour. MVDP will win whichever monuments Tadej doesn’t.
When i think about predictions I’ve always found is that the most predictable thing at times is the unpredictability of the sport. On any given day anyone can win but anyone can lose. A mechanical, a bad day, poor team positioning can destroy a predictable win, Amstel Gold last year, doubt any of us expected that. In saying that cycling is increasingly predictable because we have those few riders who are so far above anyone else that we can’t see beyond them.
Whatever happens this year I hope that the billionaire TV moguls remember us poor working folk what to see our sport at affordable prices, rather than underpinning billion pound deals for sports I personally couldn’t care less about.
When will we know who will carry the RCS races (Giro, Strade Bianche, etc.) in the USA? All I’m seeing is that the rights are still being negotiated with Iris Media. I do not want to sign up for HBO Max without some kind of assurance that they will be on that platform.
That’s the problem, 100 days to the Giro etc but no word on the deal yet. I think it should be in February but hold on for now.