Ok, so we're not going to create a race thread for ALL races this year, especially since we're only about 10 people reading here :)

This thread is available for you to write about all the races which don't have a race thread.

It's 2026 and the pro cycling calendar is right around the corner!

Here are all the World Tour and ProSeries races for the year :)

If you're into smaller races - and who isn't? - here are all the 1.1 and 2.1 races you can look forward to this year:

Must... resist... name jokes... But seriously, it's a good match, I guess.

The last one-day WT race of the season will take place tomorrow, Saturday, and visit the lake Como.

The course varied across the years (the departure and arrival cities are inverted every year), but it is generally for climbers only.

There are no less than 8 principal climbs, for a total of over 4500 m of D+. There is a sort of circuit in the end, as the climb to San Fermo della Battaglia is ascended twice.

PCS startlist

Bora brings a big team around Evenepoel🇧🇪 and Roglitch🇸🇮, even though Lipowitz, who hasn't really recovered as his crash in July, was pulled out.

Bahrain brings many names which should be good, but whose form is doubtful. Tudor also brings everyone they have: Rondel🇫🇷, Storer🇦🇺, Jasch🇩🇪.

Lidl displays a rather impressive list: Ciccone🇮🇹, Ayuso🇪🇸, Q. Simmons🇺🇸. Visma also brings Piganzoli🇮🇹, Jorgenson:🇺🇸, Tulett🇬🇧.

Del Toro🇲🇽, Seixas🇫🇷 (we shall see how the new HinaultBettiol digests the 240 km this year), Pidcock🇬🇧, Healy🇮🇪, R. Debruyne🇧🇪, Mas🇪🇸, Berthet🇫🇷 complete or head the list of favourites.

As usual, one may wonder if several of the riders I listed and many I didn't wouldn't be more suited to Paris–Tours on the next day 😞

General map and profile:

Climbs (the second one is missing):

Finish:

The course of this Pro race is the same as last year, except for a a small diversion long before TV time, and a short new track near Chançay.

It doesn't start from Paris but Chartres, and finishes on the north side of the Loire valley, with a mix of short climbs and short track sections, before last flat 9 km.

Usually (since the new formula in 2018) it is a battle between flandriens and sprinters (a mass sprint is uncommon), and De Lie🇧🇪 gets 2 punctures.

Weather forecast (as of Wednesday): some rain today and on Friday, dry Saturday and perhaps a little bit of rain Sunday morning.

We haven't recovered yet from the World Championship the European Championship already starts on Friday in Slovenia.

The same 22-km circuit, which comprises a steep 2-km climb, is used for everything: all mass start events, as well as all Time Trials.

There's no warm up, the mass start races precede the TTs, and the program is condensed:

• Friday 2:
  • 9:00, women U23
  • 13:30, men U23
• Saturday 3:
  • 9:00, men junior
  • 13:30, women
• Sunday 4:
  • 9:00, women junior
  • 12:30, men
• Tuesday 6:
  • 11:00, mixed relay junior
  • 15:30, mixed relay
• Wednesday 7:
  • 9:15, ITT women junior
  • 10:10, ITT men junior
  • 11:30, ITT women U23
  • 12:20, ITT men U23
  • 14:30, ITT women
  • 16:15, ITT men

All TTs are a single 22-km lap.

Here is the circuit:

Junior men and women, U23 women mass start races only take place on the circuit. In other 3 races, there is a pretty flat section coming from the small capital Ljubljana which varies a bit but generally looks like this:

The number of circuit laps varies (in a non-intuitive way, because of the presence/absence of the flat section before) : 2 for elite women, 3 for U23 men and junior women, 4 for U23 women, 5 for junior men and elite men.

Marlen Reuser and Remco Evenepoel are main candidates for ITT (Elite) but with Tadej out there's now an oportunity to some other riders. Not many, because 270 km with that EG it's a hard WC.

Let's enjoy all week long!

(edit: IDK how to set post's language to english, please excuse me)

The official website freezes by web browser after a short while...

5 days of racing, including one Time Trial, for this class Pro stage race.

Winners of previous editions were Hirschi🇨🇭, Tiberi🇮🇹 and McNulty🇺🇸. None of them is coming.

Van der Poel (🇳🇱 Alpecin) is coming back to the road. Will he be active or just training for the World Championship?

Here is the general map. As you can see, Luxembourg is small, and each stage is already almost a Tour of Luxembourg 🙂

Stage 1: Wednesday 16

158 km, D+ 2400 m

It can't be seen on the stage profile, but the last 250 m are uphill. There is also a sort of hairpin to cross the river a bit after the flamme rouge.

Stage 2: Thursday 17

167 km, D+ 2000 m

The last 30 km are on a circuit (2.5 laps).

Stage 3: Friday 18

179 km, D+ 3000 m

The last 30 km are again on a circuit (2 laps), a very hilly one.

Stage 4: Saturday 19

20 km, D+ 350 m, ITT

There is a 1 mile climb after 4 km, half of which is around 10% steep. Then very light hills, and then a mini wall followed by an uphill false flat after 14 km. On reaches the line after a 2 km long descent.

Stage 5: Sunday 20

177 km, D+ 2900 m

Guess what? The last 30 km are on a circuit (a bit more than 2 laps), very hilly again.

Those 2 circuit races, and of course especially the Montréal one, will be a live rehearsal for the World Championship that will take place in Montréal 2 weeks later.

Tour de France riders are back on the road: Del Toro🇲🇽, Seixas🇫🇷 and Evenepoel🇧🇪. The Mexican won the Tour of Germany as an appetiser.

Québec tomorrow Friday:

Matthews🇦🇺 won it in 2024 (and many other times), but last year it was a surprise victory by Alaphilippe🇫🇷. The Frenchman retired a couple of few weeks ago (another surprise) but the 35 yo Australian will be present again.

Montréal on Sunday:

Pogatchar🇸🇮 won it solo in 2024, and on a tandem with McNulty last year.

This week will be easier than the previous ones. Difficulties will be concentrated on Friday and especially Saturday. There isn't a single Mountain point offered before then.

Rankings after stage 15

General time classification

In top-5, riders just switched 1 place; behind, 3 riders appeared in top-10 thanks to breakaways, as the ones holding those ranks didn't care about protecting them, and Mühlberger crashed.

1. Enric Mas 🇪🇸 Movistar
2. ⬆ Felix Gall 🇦🇹 Decathlon @ 2′06″
3. ⬇ Primoj Roglitch 🇸🇮 Bora @ 2′10″
4. ⬆ Richard Carapaz 🇪🇨 EF @ 4′24″
5. ⬇ Oscar Onley 🇬🇧 Ineos @ 5′44″
6. 🆕 Jakob Omrzel 🇸🇮 Bahrain @ 6′14″
7. ⬇ Matias Skjelmose 🇩🇰 Lidl-Trek @ 6′49″
8. 🆕 Cristian Rodriguez 🇪🇸 Astana @ 7′01″
9. 🆕 Clément Berthet Bahrain @ 6′14″
10. ⬇⬇⬇ Sepp Kuss 🇺🇸 Visma @ 4′09″

Points

Pedersen and Laporte withdrew. Romele and Coquard are trying a bit. The whole peloton is riding for Van Aert, therefore:

1. Wout Van Aert 🇧🇪 Visma: 267 pts +143
2. Matthew Brennan 🇬🇧 Visma: 159 +92
3. Alessandro Romele 🇮🇹 Astana: 153 +94
4. ⬆⬆⬆⬆ Bryan Coquard 🇫🇷 Cofidis: 94 +52
5. 🆕 Andreas Leknessund 🇳🇴 Uno-X: 79 + 49
6. 🆕 Ramses Debruyne 🇧🇪 Alpecin: 78 + 39
7. ⬇⬇Ethan Hayter 🇬🇧 Soudal-QS: 77 +20

Mountain

Buitrago is the only one going for it (except the big green thing). Nobody even entered top-5...

1. Santiago Buitrago 🇨🇴 Bahrain: 69 pts +40
2. ⬆⬆ Wout Van Aert 🇧🇪 Visma: 40 +24
3. ⬇ Enric Mas 🇪🇸 Movistar: 24 =
4. Andreas Leknessund 🇳🇴 Uno-X: 23 +4
5. Lorenzo Fortunato 🇮🇹 Astana: 21 +8

Stages

Stage 16, Tuesday 8

181 km, D+ 1900m

A sprinters stage. A km-0 breakaway of small teams riders will pretend to have a chance during the first hilly part.

Stage 17, Wednesday 9

185 km, D+ 900m

Another sprinters stage. No one should even try anything. Or could those stages be windy?

Stage 18, Thursday 10

32 km, D+ 150m, Time Trial

The only top-10 rider who may be at ease on this hopelessly flat TT is Roglitch. Others will be judged on their ability to limit damage.

Stage 19, Friday 11

210 km, D+ 4000m

This long stage present a set of medium climbs in its middle, followed by a big nothing (40 km of descent and flat), and then a very long final climb.

Stage 20, Saturday 12

187 km, D+ 4800m

For the first time in this Tour (except the Andorran stage in a way, but this one is much longer), there will be a succession of hard climbs, with a final on top that isn't any easier than the 3 previous climbs.

Stage 21, Sunday 13

187 km, D+ 4800m

The Vuelta ends in Granada this year, and after a flat first half, enters a circuit with a single but significant hump rider will have to climb 4 times. A little bit like the Montréal circuit, but flatter between the (harder) climbs. Th finish line is 8 km from the top.

A new Vuelta started this week-end with the withdrawal of its leader Pogatchar. A very hilly week awaits the riders.

Standings after 9 stages

General time classification

There is a gap after rider #8.

1. Enric Mas 🇪🇸 Movistar
2. Primoj Roglitch 🇸🇮 Bora @ 1′18″
3. Felix Gall 🇦🇹 Decathlon @ 1′39″
4. Oscar Onley 🇬🇧 Ineos @ 2′20″
5. Richard Carapaz 🇪🇨 EF @ 3′26″
6. Matias Skjelmose 🇩🇰 Lidl-Trek @ 3′55″
7. Sepp Kuss 🇺🇸 Visma @ 4′09″
8. Harold Tejada 🇨🇴 Astana @ 4′39″
9. Gregor Mühlberger 🇦🇹 Decathlon @ 7′33″

Points

Is Visma the only team going for it?

1. Wout Van Aert 🇧🇪 Visma: 124 pts
2. Matthew Brennan 🇬🇧 Visma: 67
3. Alessandro Romele 🇮🇹 Astana: 59
4. Mads Pedersen 🇩🇰 Lidl-Trek: 58
5. Ethan Hayter 🇬🇧 Soudal-QS: 57
6. Christophe Laporte 🇫🇷 Visma: 52

Mountain

Buitrago went for it on Sunday.

1. Santiago Buitrago 🇨🇴 Bahrain: 29 pts
2. Enric Mas 🇪🇸 Movistar: 24
3. Andreas Leknessund 🇳🇴 Uno-X: 19
4. Wout Van Aert 🇧🇪 Visma: 16
5. Lorenzo Fortunato 🇮🇹 Astana: 13

Stage 10, Tuesday 1

185 km, D+ 2700m

No big climbs, no steep climbs, but a number of them again. The finish may be decided by small hump 5 km from the line, and the survival over the following 4 km long uphill false-flat that brings the riders to the line. Who will win, a puncher? a false-flat sprinter? a breakaway?

Stage 11, Wednesday 2

151 km, D+ 1400m

Contrarily to the previous day, today the elevation is concentrated in one main climb. Its slope isn't steep and there are still 30 km to go after its summit. We can note that the first 15 km are designed to create a breakaway. But the whole profile shouldn't be very hard to control.

Stage 12, Thursday 3

167 km, D+ 4500m

Parts of this stage look similar to the one won by Leknessund on the 1^st^ week. However there are a few more serious slopes here, in the beginning of the Velefique Pass and then in the beginning of the Calar observatory's climb . Between 2 easier stages, the GC leaders will certainly battle again here. Will it be for stage victory too, or simply far behind a breakaway?

Stage 13, Friday 4

193 km, D+ 3300m

Once again, a stage with a climb at a distance from the line, 40 km here, before a flat finish. The originality is that first half of the stage is however pretty hard. If it were still to finish in some sort of a sprint, the last half-mile is uphill.

Stage 14, Saturday 5

155 km, D+ 4100m

Back to a (short) mountain stage with a finish on top. There is no other difficult climb before that, but there is no flat at all, just uphill and downhill false-flats everywhere, with a couple of medium smooth climbs and a few little walls here and there.

Stage 15, Sunday 6

190 km, D+ 3300m

To finish the week, we alternate again with another hilly stage. A bit of flat at the start, a bit of flat at the end in Cordoba, and 150 of hills in between.

We start heading South. Pogatchar (🇸🇮 UAE) has already crushed the race: with 2 victories in -4- 3 stages, he leads the 3 classifications...

Rankings after stage #4.

General time classification

1. Tadey Pogatchar 🇸🇮 UAE
2. Primoj Roglitch 🇸🇮 Bora @ 3′21″
3. Enric Mas 🇪🇸 Movistar @ 3′32″
4. Sepp Kuss 🇺🇸 Visma @ 3′44″
5. Oscar Onley 🇬🇧 Ineos @ 3′45″
6. Richard Carapaz 🇪🇨 EF @ 3′50″
7. Felix Gall 🇦🇹 Decathlon @ 3′57″
8. Matias Skjelmose 🇩🇰 Lidl-Trek @ 4′06″
9. Jarno Widar 🇧🇪 Lotto-Int. @ 4′06″
10. Jay Vine 🇦🇺 UAE @ 4′11″

Points

1. Tadey Pogatchar 🇸🇮 UAE: 82 pts
2. Ethan Hayter 🇬🇧 Soudal-QS: 37
3. Matthew Brennan 🇬🇧 Visma: 30

Mountain

1. Tadey Pogatchar 🇸🇮 UAE: 23 pts
2. Lorenzo Fortunato 🇮🇹 Astana: 10
3. 4 riders with 6 pts

Stages

Stage 5, Wednesday 26

173 km, D+ 1700m*

Whith the hills that start 60 km from the line and end 20-30 from it, this should be a game of sprinters vs punchers. Therefore we should see punchers-sprinters having their day.

NB: the profile exaggerates the steepness of the slopes.

Stage 6, Thursday 27

177 km, D+ 3000m*

Another mountain stage, another Pogatchar day. To make sure of it and remind him of his 3 Stade Bianche victories in a row, there will be 2 km on a gravel road at 12% near the summit of the last climb. Shall the first group to ride down towards the finish line be a one-man group or shall he get a few companions?

Stage 7, Friday 28

150 km, D+ 3600m*

I am not sure how to name this stage. There is quite some elevation, but the vast majority of slopes are smooth. Probably a day for breakaways, coming after an UAE stage.

Stage 8, Saturday 29

172 km, D+ 1300m*

I assume this stage is designed to create a fight between punchers and sprinters. However it didn't work on Wednesday, as everyone wanted a sprint; and this time the slope may be insufficient to get rid of all sprinters.

Stage 9, Sunday 30

188 km, D+ 5000m*

A mountain stage fo finish the week. All sorts of climbs, steep or smooth, short or medium-length, precede a 22 km long final climb. This stage will be very hard, there is no flat section and it is rather long.

The Tour of Spain (Vuelta a España) starts tomorrow Saturday. In Monaco...

As we can see on the general map, despite starting in France and its dependent principalities, most of the tour will happen in the South of Spain, which is rather unusual (I believe?). In fact, there is not a single mile of stage in the Spanish Pyrenees, their foothils, or the Cantabrian Range!

Riders

The coming of Pogatchar (🇸🇮 UAE) leaves little hope about the final victory to other riders (and spectators), unless something bad happens to him. Gall (🇦🇹 Decathlon) will try to get his second 2^nd^ place in GC this year after the Tour of Italy. Will Skjelmose (🇩🇰 Lidl-Trek) and Carapaz (🇪🇨 EF) aim for the podium, after taking part in the Tour of France?

Therefore, most teams will aim for stage victories, and bring the personnel accordingly. Van Aert🇧🇪, Laporte🇫🇷, Brennan🇬🇧 and Kuss🇺🇸 for Visma! M. Pedersen🇩🇰 for Lidl-Trek. Bora brings Roglitch🇸🇮 for his vacation package.

The first 4 stages

Stage 1, Saturday 22: 🇲🇨Monaco🇲🇨

9,4 km, ITT

The distance is barely over the limit for a prologue, and they managed to avoid any sort of climb.

Stage 2, Sunday 23: 🇲🇨Monaco–Manosque🇫🇷

214 km, D+ 3000m

The first of the two French stages proposes a very hilly course, over a distance longer than any of the Tour de France stages this year. The finish may be (I don't know) the same we often see on the Tour de la Provence in the beginning of the season, where it is usually won by sprinters who can handle punchy courses or strong uphill false-flat finishes.

Stage 3, Monday 24: 🇫🇷 Gruissan–Font Romeu🇫🇷

175 km, D+ 2600m

After a very long transfer along the French Mediterranean coast, this stage arrives already in the Pyrenees. Amusingly, the destination is basically the same as where the Tour de France entered France from Spain in July. Most of the approach is made of unbearable dozens of kilometres of a slightly then strongly uphill false-flat highway road. The final climb is pretty much the same.

Stage 4, Tuesday 25: 🇦🇩Andorra la Vieja–Andorra la Vieja🇦🇩

105 km, D+ 3000m

Familiar climbs with a finish at the bottom. The first half of the course consists of climbing the Envalira pass and coming back, which involves a lot of false-flat both ways. Riders better be ready for a direct, fast start over the uphill false-flat.

Not a huge surprise , is it ?

I wonder if this means anything long term for guys like Almeida. I’m also curious if he signed this expecting Pogi to step aside in the next couple of years?

Demi Vollering claimed her historic second career Tour de France Femmes title with a solo victory on Sunday's final stage.