Canyon-SRAM have announced an AI research and development partner for the remainder of 2026, with the German squad working with FasCat Coaching as they prepare for the 2027 season.

In what looks to be a first in the women's peloton, Canyon-SRAM will use FasCat's CoachCat AI coaching platform to run an "AI-powered season review" on their riders to help prepare for the new season.

The team say that CoachCat can analyse riders' performance history throughout their career "to identify patterns and insights that might otherwise go unnoticed." The system is said to be capable of examining the effectiveness of training blocks based on several metrics, including heat, altitude, training load, heart rate, and sleep monitoring.

Canyon-SRAM worked with FasCat in the lead-up to this year's Tour de France Femmes, with the company analysing their riders' historical data to generate predictions for the race itself and training and preparation beyond.

"WorldTour teams are sitting on a wealth of untapped data that could tell them exactly why a rider won or lost, and what to change. CoachCat finds that in minutes, not months. Working with Canyon-SRAM lets us prove at the highest level of the sport what our AI does every day for the athletes on our platform," said Frank Overton, founder and CEO of FasCat coaching, which has been in business since 2003.

The team will take on a new look for 2027 as leader and Tour de France Femmes runner-up Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney leaves for Lidl-Trek. Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig and Tiffany Cromwell are also among the notable departures.

Lucinda Brand, Steffi Häberlin, and Georgia Baker lead the incoming list, while young German talent Antonia Niedermaier will take Niewiadoma-Phinney's leadership role at the year's biggest races.

"We are always looking for new ways to understand performance, and AI analysis of a rider’s full history is a natural next step," said Canyon-SRAM performance director Dan Fleeman.

"FasCat’s AI analytics give our performance staff a fresh, objective look at what has driven each rider’s best results and where we can build for 2027. We have enjoyed exploring this together.”

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There are just 70 days to go until WorldTour racing resumes at the Tour Down Under in Australia, but as the anticipation builds for the 2027 season, the first big-name rider on the start list has already been announced: former Giro d'Italia winner Jai Hindley.

It will mark 10 years since he made his debut riding for the national team UniSA-Australia at the Tour Down Under, and will be his first start since 2023. Despite his GC talents, Hindley has never won his home race, with overall results of 16th, 18th, 18th, and 25th from his four appearances, also taking the start in 2019 and 2020.

The 30-year-old will lead Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe in South Australia, having extended his contract with the German team through 2028 back in July. Also already confirmed alongside him will be New Zealand teammate Laurence Pithie, a former Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race winner making his fifth appearance in a row.

"I haven’t raced the Tour Down Under since 2023, so I’m really looking forward to returning," said Hindley. "It’s a great way to kick off the season, racing in the Australian summer and on home roads in front of the Aussie fans.

"The support for the Australian riders is always fantastic, and there’s such a great atmosphere around the race. It’s always a fun event to be part of, and I’m excited to get the 2027 season under way with what I’m sure will be a strong team."

Racing at the men's Tour Down Under will kick off on January 19 in Henley Beach, with six days of action via the Mount Lofty, Corkscrew Road, and Willunga Hill climbs set to decide the next Ochre jersey.

Jay Vine (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) is the defending champion, and while there has been speculation that his teammate and the sport's top rider Tadej Pogačar will make his return from injury in Australia, only Hindley has been confirmed as a headline starter so far.

If Vine returns to defend the jersey, he will be one of the heavy favourites alongside Hindley. Despite his lack of a GC win or podium in the TDU, the latter had a stellar 2026 season for Red Bull, riding to a third-place finish overall at the Giro d'Italia, and taking 15th on GC at the Tour de France while supporting overall runner-up Remco Evenepoel.

"We are thrilled to welcome Jai back to the Santos Tour Down Under and I’m sure all cycling fans will be excited to watch him in action on South Australian roads," said race director Stuart O'Grady.

"He holds a significant place in Australian cycling history as a Grand Tour winner, and at the age of 30 he remains in the prime of his career so we are getting to see the best of him. The course suits his characteristics with his all-round ability complemented nicely by his ability to climb with the best in the peloton.

"I’m sure Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe will again field a strong team to open the UCI WorldTour season, and having Jai here along with New Zealander Laurence Pithie brings some real quality to the peloton."

It will be a history-making edition of the Tour Down Under, as the first-ever WorldTour race to hold men’s and women’s racing over the same distance on the same days. After the first three days of action in the men's event, the women's will run concurrently from January 22-24 across three identical routes from Glenelg to Victor Harbor, Christies Beach to Willunga Hill, and Norwood to Stirling.

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Surely we all love a bunch kick? The tension, the uncertainty, the chaos and the sheer speed, the strutting arms-in-the-air celebrations and the bar-banging of the losers can make hours watching an otherwise mundane day of a stage race all worthwhile.

While there might be only a small group of riders able to win at the highest level, it’s the most highly competitive area of the sport, even when there are only a couple of the best sprinters in the final, you can bet your bottom dollar there’ll be plenty of pretenders trying their luck.

And while sheer power is, of course, vital, winning isn’t all about legs, reading the ebb and flow of a fast moving group is essential, and timing is equally important, using whatever slipstream there is before emerging into the wind at the perfect moment to ensure your maximum effort counts.

Then there’s the lead-out, making the high speed chaos all around slow down so the right decisions are made at the right time. And the best sprinters can either profit off their teammates’ work or surf the wheels to be in the right place at the right time.

Sprinting is a true art. But who were the best artists in 2026? Among the women, there can be only one dominant rider, but on the men’s side it’s much harder to determine who was best. When the sprinter’s job is to finish the job of the team and win, statistics count for everything, so we've ranked seven of the best by their wins.

Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx-Protime)

Lorena Wiebes set out her stall for the year in February, dominating the UAE Tour Women and winning all three flat stages for the second consecutive season. She wore the yellow jersey after winning the opening two stages at the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift and won two general classifications, at the Tour de Pologne and Tour of Chongming Island, where she won all the stages.

Winning from February through to October, she showed remarkable resilience, though there were some interesting blips. At the Ronde van Brugge she lost the record which had seen her win every bunch sprint she’d contested since the 2024 Tour de France Femmes, finishing ninth behind Carys Lloyd (Movistar). Worse, though, was her disqualification when commissaires found her bike to be underweight after she won the opening stage of the Giro d’Italia.

Despite a crash during the Track World Championships, where she won the Scratch Race rainbow jersey, she’ll be back and looking for retribution next year, and no one would be surprised if she adds another 24 victories to her total.

Paul Magnier (Soudal-QuickStep)

Having turned professional as recently as 2024, Paul Magnier is rapidly blossoming into the sprinter to beat in the men’s peloton. He won his first professional race, bagging a further four victories that year, before taking a whopping 19 wins in his second season.

That number might have dipped to only 15 in 2026, but he equalled his tally of six WorldTour wins, and the total is still formidable, especially when considering he shares the team’s WorldTour sprinting duties with Tim Merlier.

At this year’s Giro d’Italia the 22-year-old Frenchman showed remarkable progression, delivering a hugely contrasting performance to last year’s first participation, when he managed only three top-10 placings and failed to finish. This time round he won three stages and wore the cyclamen jersey for all but two days, eventually taking home his first Grand Tour points classification.

As for his other victories, they came in a steady flow throughout the year, proving not only his consistency, but his place at the forefront of an emerging breed of sprinters, who are arguably more able to win after a lumpy day than their predecessors.

Tim Merlier (Soudal-QuickStep)

That Soudal-QuickStep have two sprinters in our list is an indication of the team’s pivot away from targeting general classifications to stages and Classics. With Tim Merlier they had someone ready made to take advantage, and while he was behind teammate Paul Magnier in the list of overall winners for the season, 14 victories is a great haul.

While Magnier is the young pretender, Merlier is the wily old timer, and though he may not be as versatile as the French tyro, he knows his way around a bunch kick better than most, and is able to deploy a prolonged burst of power few others can match. This means he is often able to rescue lost causes, and makes him perfect for the chaos of high-stakes Grand Tour sprints.

At the Tour de France this year Merlier equalled the previous best ever Grand Tour return set at the 2024 Giro d’Italia, taking three stages before abandoning on stage 15. That took his tally of Tour stage wins to six, winning at least one in each of his three participations at the world’s biggest race. However, though those victories count for a lot, those were his only WorldTour wins of the year, with the bulk of his 14 successes coming at second tier .Pro level.

This is, perhaps, an indication that the team’s sprinting mantel is gradually being handed from the 33-year-old to Magnier, though the older man is sure to fight to keep hold of his status as their leading sprinter.

Matthew Brennan (Visma-Lease a Bike)

If Matthew Brennan hadn’t established himself as one of the peloton’s best sprinters by winning 12 races last season, his first as a professional, he certainly did in 2026.

Not only did he match that total, but the 21-year-old stamped his authority on his first Grand Tour by winning five stages. And there might have been more had Wout van Aert, Visma-Lease a Bike’s star name, not been in the race, the team diverting some of their efforts to the Belgian’s successful pursuit of the points jersey.

Brennan’s Vuelta performance, and two earlier wins at the Vuelta a Burgos, not only helped to establish himself as a top contender, but kickstarted his season after a barren period. Between March and September last year he won in all but one month, while this year seemed less consistent, success coming in clusters.

Still only 20, he began 2026 winning a stage of the Santos Tour Down Under and finishing second three times. Back in Europe he bagged a maiden Classics victory at Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne, but in the following five months he only cracked the top 10 four times, though three of those were stage wins at the third tier Flèche du Sud.

Such blips are a sprinter’s lot, though, especially one so young, and we can expect more from Brennan in 2027.

Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek)

Despite winning more in 2026 than in any of his previous seasons, Jonathan Milan’s slightly under-par Giro d’Italia and non-attendance at the Tour de France meant he flew slightly under the radar in 2026. Half of his 12 wins came early in the year, but illness and injury left him short of form and rhythm in the middle part of the year.

The 26-year-old started his season perfectly with victory at the opening two stages of the AlUla Tour, following that with three more wins at the UAE Tour. However, things started to go awry back in Europe, and though he won the final stage at Tirreno-Adriatico, illness ruined the rest of his spring.

He arrived at the Giro d’Italia having not raced for almost a month, and coming up against an in-form Paul Magnier, his chances of a third maglia ciclamino were soon gone. Though he managed three top five finishes, he had to wait until the final day in Rome to claim a victory, second place in the points classification scant consolation.

He gained some momentum during the summer, though, after winning his first Italian road title, Milan beat Magnier into second on two of his three stage wins at the Tour de Pologne. Then victory at stage 1 of the Renewi Tour was perhaps a highlight, beating the likes of Merlier, Olav Kooij, Jasper Philipsen and other sprinting royalty, but his season was over two days later when he crashed out.

While he took more wins than ever, without bad luck, 2026 might have been an even better year for Milan.

Elisa Balsamo (Lidl-Trek)

Elisa Balsamo might not have been able to best Wiebes during the 2026 season, indeed, she’s not won a race ahead of the Dutch rider since 2023, but 2026 saw the former World Champion return to somewhere near her best form, winning more WorldTour races than any year since 2022.

Winning six times through the season, Balsamo took the bulk of her team’s victories, and while she might not have been so prolific had Wiebes not been forced out of the Giro d’Italia Women, she held the overall lead for three days, winning four stages of her home Grand Tour and taking the overall points classification.

Another standout feature of Balsamo’s 2026 successes were their quality, with all but one of her six victories coming at WorldTour level, while at the other, the 1.1 level Egmont Cycling Race, her sprint was so powerful she put three seconds into second place.

One win which showed Balsamo’ versatility was at the Classic Lorient Agglomération, a race rarely won by a pure sprinter and better suited to Classics specialists, setting her apart from Wiebes, who has never started in Plouay.

Charlotte Kool (Fenix-Premier Tech)

For the first time in a while Charlotte Kool seemed to be returning to somewhere close to her best during 2026, last season’s mid-season move to Fenix-Premier Tech finally bearing fruit.

With six wins, it was her best year since 2023, her first season as a lead sprinter. However, in contrast to that year, none of her six wins during 2026 came at WorldTour level, with two 1.Pro victories her best return.

While she failed to trouble the scorers at the UAE Tour, Kool’s spring campaign was excellent, taking four wins between March 1 and mid-May, and finishing outside the top 10 only twice in 12 starts. But as the season wore on her form tailed off, failing to finish either the Giro d’Italia Women or the Tour de France Femmes, though she managed a stage win at the Baloise Ladies Tour, a race where she’s won seven stages earlier in her career.

Kool is a class act, but, like every other sprinter in the women’s bunch, she’s found beating Lorena Wiebes all but impossible. However, she has beaten her in the years since the two were teammates at DSM in 2022, most notably and recently at the 2024 Tour de France, and if she can find her best form and some confidence, she may well do so again in 2027.

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If you've scrolled through social media over the past few weeks, you'd have come across countless posts from professional cyclists around the world enjoying their off-seasons and giving followers a small glimpse into what they have been doing. I'm guilty of this too. Posting 20 photos on Instagram of where I've been, what I’ve eaten, and who I’ve been spending my time with. It’s straight to the point. So today I'm going to give a deeper dive into what my off-season looked like, how it’s shaping my 2027 season, and why it was the best off-season I have had to date.

I was one of the lucky pros at the end of this year (admittedly, that depends on how you define lucky) because I finished my season relatively early after a jam-packed neo pro season. The World Championships road race in Montreal was my final event of the 2026 season, and although I didn’t finish, I had a great time with the Australian team. It was a perfect way to close out the year.

As I sat on the flight back to Barcelona, I had a strange feeling inside me, though. I didn’t really want the season to end. It had been so good to me, and I had enjoyed it so much. Being a neo pro was nice too. It gave me the luxury of making mistakes and not having as much pressure on my shoulders at races, and as you move further into your career, more is expected from you as an athlete.

On the other hand, I was completely exhausted. I had 41 race days under my belt before July arrived without having raced the Giro, and rounded off the year by finishing my first Grand Tour at La Vuelta. I ended the season with 67 race days, almost the same as my 2024 and 2025 seasons combined.

Needing time to do absolutely nothing

I was well and truly ready to take some time for myself, sit on the couch for hours on end and enjoy the few weeks of the year when I can truly do whatever pleases me. After a few days at home post-travel back from Montreal, I planned to travel to the Basque Country in northern Spain with my parents and some family friends for a few days. But when the day came to travel, I was still completely exhausted, and all I wanted was to sit on the couch and spend some time in my own apartment.

It was a good decision in the end, because after almost two weeks, when it was time for the ‘planned’ holiday part of my off-season, I already felt completely rested and my body was returning to normality, if that's how you want to call it.

I wasn’t keen on any overseas holidays this year like a lot of my fellow pros do (I have these trips planned in my head for the coming years), but instead I wanted to stay local and avoid yet more air travel. Thankfully, the beautiful Costa Brava in northern Spain is only a three-and-a-half-hour drive from my home in Andorra. So I spent a wonderful, very relaxing few days there with my girlfriend, whose off-season it was too. We both recharged our batteries lying in the early autumn Spanish sun. By now, it had already been close to three weeks without the bike for me, and I was starting to get a bit antsy.

Throughout this time, I tried to exercise to keep me sane, opting for walks or hikes. It felt nice to spend an hour outside every day just following a dirt track and seeing where it took me. I didn’t do any crazy hikes to mountain peaks like others do; I don’t have the required skill level for that. I stuck to what I knew because the last thing I wanted was to call up the team and tell them I can’t walk or start riding again because I'd sprained my ankle…

By this point, the off-season finish line was edging closer and closer, but there were still two big requirements to tick off. First was my team’s annual October medical camp at Red Bull HQ in Austria, a jam-packed two days of tests at the Athlete Performance Centre (APC) followed by commercial shoots, all in preparation for the 2027 season. But the big ticket item of my off-season was still to come. Every year the team sends roughly six riders to Specialized HQ in Morgan Hill, California, for wind tunnel testing. I was fortunate enough to do this twelve months ago when I was still on the Rookies. But this year our trip had some extra flair.

The realities of wind tunnel testing

Alongside my teammates Remco Evenepoel and fellow Aussie Jai Hindley, I jetted off to the USA as part of the first group of riders, and this year we had a little side quest mission in Los Angeles to complete. After the twelve-hour flight from Munich to LA, we had a basketball game lined up that evening, the first NBA game I've watched in my life and a cool introduction to America’s sporting culture. We visited Red Bull’s APC in LA and toured their facilities across the pond. We played beach tennis, visited the Santa Monica Pier, took part in a community ride with Specialized Santa Monica, and carried out a cheeky recon of the potential LA 2028 Olympics ITT course. All in all, I haven’t laughed that much in a long time, and it truly felt like a Year 10 boys' school trip. But we still had the ‘work’ part of the trip to go: the wind tunnel testing at the Specialized WinTunnel.

Without giving too much away, I personally made significant gains on my TT position thanks to all the new pieces of equipment developed by Specialized and the team. I am sure most of the readers of this are also aware of the wind tunnel testing Cyclingnews Labs carries out, but I want to give you an insight into how tough wind tunnel testing actually is on the body.

For context, testing at Specialized is made up of six and a half-minute runs. So every time you change something, even the smallest detail, you complete one full run to gather data, and sometimes you even complete that same run twice to reinforce the findings. My time in the tunnel consisted of two morning sessions which ultimately ran into the early afternoon. On day one, I completed 18 runs, followed by a solid 24 runs the following day (I broke my personal 2025 record of 22 runs, so I was pleased). But the hardest part is consistently holding the extremely aggressive position on the time trial bike again and again and again. You get to the point where you cannot feel your arms anymore, and your back, neck, and shoulders are crying out for a moment of relief. But the pain is temporary; we are here to get faster, so you take down another can of Red Bull and keep going for another few hours.

While you're in the tunnel with 50km/h wind blasting you in the face, all you can think about is how happy you will be once it’s all over, but to be honest, I look back on it with fond memories because it is such a rewarding experience. You can literally see how much faster you are getting with each run, and I can tell you that is a pretty special feeling knowing you are making those gains. I am already looking forward to the next time I get the opportunity to return to the WinTunnel.

So that summarises my off-season. After a long journey back from Morgan Hill back to Andorra, I decided it wasn’t quite enough travelling for me, so I spent another twelve-hour day travelling to visit my girlfriend in Denmark. Yes, she is Danish, so don’t worry we didn’t just come to Denmark in early winter for fun. As I write this, I am ten days back into training and feeling extremely motivated for the new season. I'll spend another two weeks here in Denmark, two weeks back home in Andorra, two weeks in Mallorca for December camp, then travel back to Australia for Christmas and, all being well, I'll start my season at the Tour Down Under again.

Thanks for taking the time to read this column. I hope you enjoyed it, and see you again soon.

The future of French superstar Paul Seixas remains up in the air as the offseason rolls on, with the 20-year-old's Decathlon CMA CGM contract set to expire at the end of the 2027 season.

Seixas is the brightest rising star in the sport, having won La Flèche Wallonne, Itzulia Basque Country, and Il Lombardia this season while finishing fourth in his debut Tour de France.

Decathlon will be hoping to keep their leader on board well beyond then as he looks to challenge Tadej Pogačar and inherit the Slovenian's crown as the world's most dominant rider, though UAE Team Emirates-XRG are among the teams interested in his signature.

Seixas is currently enjoying his off-season vacation in Asia, taking on the Tour de France Singapore Criterium before heading to its sister event in Saitama. He told L'Equipe that he's putting contract negotiations out of his mind for now, saying he'd "go crazy" if he devoted too much thinking time to the process.

"I'm on vacation right now. If I start discussing contracts here, I think I'll go crazy. I've taken this time to rest, and I figure if I don't think about it for now, things might be clearer when I think about it again. We'll see what I think about it in the future. But for now, I'm giving myself time," Seixas said.

"It’s a vacation, no doubt about it. I’m really enjoying it; I took the break I wanted. Of course, it makes for a busy day or two, but on the other hand, I’m enjoying being away and seeing things that are completely new to me, so it’s cool. The real restart will be on November 20th, a few days after Saitama, which gives me time to rest a bit and readjust. And then it’s back to racing."

Despite not wanting to devote his mental space to thoughts of his future, Seixas acknowledged that it's a fact of life within the sport. He said that he finds speculation over his future as "pointless", however.

"I think it's part of the sport. It's normal that people talk about what's next; it's good, because it means that people are interested in me and want to know where I'm going," he said.

"Personally, though, I sometimes find it a bit pointless. Will I stay? Won't I stay? Right now, there's no certainty. Sometimes I come across articles, things on social media, and it makes me laugh a little because there are things I learn."

Seixas did talk a little about his hopes for his future contract, wherever that may be. Rather than financial considerations occupying the forefront of his mind, he's instead prioritising other things.

"They could offer me the moon. It's a very difficult question for me," he said.

"I'm looking for a feeling, a connection. I want to really feel in sync with this team, with people I like. I think that's the most important thing, ultimately."

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While Primož Roglič's future in cycling remains one of the major unanswered questions ahead of the 2027 season, the Slovenian seems to be unfazed as he's headed to Asia for an appearance at the Taiwan Masters Ride.

Five-time Grand Tour champion Roglic arrived in Taiwan last week as the headliner for the event, which saw him attempt to beat the KOM atop the Wuling Pass, around 200km south of Taipei.

"I think it depends on the feeling or the state you are in, no? Normally it's just fatigue, so as you are tired and the body screams 'please stop', it's just a fight with that inner voice that wants to stop. You're sad, yes, but we'll just continue without hearing it," said Roglič in a promotional video for the Taiwan Masters Ride.

"The people that you collect on the way, or they collect you, that you have around, they help the influence at the end on you. I think yes, they left a mark on me, like I said I'm always open to learn, to know more, and the more you know, the more you know that you don't know, so it's a never-ending process."

Roglič failed to beat the time, despite the help of Yen Yo Ho and Li Ting Wei, Taiwanese pro riders from Equipo Kern Pharma and Factor Racing, and four others. However, it had reportedly been weeks since the Slovenian had even ridden his bike amid his off-season holidays, and he didn't even bring his own bike with him, instead riding a grey S-Works Tarmac provided to him.

"What an incredible experience to have Primož Roglič take on one of Taiwan’s most beautiful and challenging cycling routes – the East-to-West Wuling Challenge! We also arranged six Taiwanese riders to take turns pacing him and helping him push toward the summit," read an Instagram post from Taiwanese TV anchor and cycling enthusiast Yu-Tien Wei, who also took part in the event.

"Unfortunately, he didn’t break the record this time. (Well, he hadn’t been on the bike for four whole weeks!) But seriously… is it even normal to ride like that after four weeks off the bike?!

"Watching Roglič team up with the Taiwanese riders, taking turns at the front and giving everything they had to push up the mountain, was truly an incredible and inspiring moment. More than just a challenge, it was an unforgettable ride!"

Roglič closed out the 2026 season at Il Lombardia after winning the European time trial title on home roads, having already finished second overall at the Vuelta a España behind Enric Mas in what was a remarkable recovery from being hit by a driver just a month before the start.

He turned 37 in late October, but his results proved he is more than capable of still competing with the very best. With his departure from Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe confirmed earlier in the summer, the hunt for a new team began for Roglič, with Lotto-Intermarché, Pinarello Q36.5, Visma-Lease a Bike, Unibet Rose Rockets and Tudor among the teams rumoured as landing spots for Roglič in 2027.

As the weeks have ticked by into November and closer to the January 1 start of the new racing season, all news surrounding Roglič so far has pointed to him potentially retiring. Just more than a week ago, Het Laatste Nieuws reported that Lotto and Visma were both not going to happen, and Daniel Benson reported on November 4 that Pinarello was looking unlikely.

The speculation surrounding the other teams, too, had gone quiet, and there remains the question of whether Roglič actually wants to continue. In his typical style, he's been vague when answering questions about his future and his desires for a new team.

"It's beautiful, maybe I'll only wear it at home. Because we haven't decided yet what I'll do next, but no matter what, I'll wear it," said Roglič, talking about the European Champion's jersey. "It would be hard to imagine a better end to the championship."

A week later in Lombardy, he said: "You never know when is the last one. Like everything in life, it can be a bit emotional. I’m looking forward [to the race]."

Asked if he will continue to race next year, he said: "I don’t know it yet. We will see. We will see."

But as for whether he wanted to, he replied: "I think so, yes. I think I will still race."

Among active riders in the peloton, only his compatriot Tadej Pogačar has more professional victories than Roglič's 93, and as a four-time Vuelta winner, Giro d'Italia winner, and 22-time Grand Tour stage winner, he represents the old generation against the new wave of young stars, including the likes of Paul Seixas, Isaac del Toro, and Remco Evenepoel.

When he returns home from Taiwan, Roglič should have decisions to make about whether he extends his time in the sport, and whether he can still find the drive and motivation to fight through setbacks and train to compete at the highest level. In 2026, he managed to show the grit he long has, since swapping ski jumping for pro cycling in 2014, but it could end up that his last ride as a professional was on a mountain in Taiwan, not the ideal send-off for one of the modern era's great champions.

Perhaps an early trip into Slovenia on the recently announced Giro route can convince him to come back with a team where he gets the opportunity to properly bow out from the sport on his own terms, and he's also said openly that he wants to return to the Tour de France. The salary will likely be much lower than previous years if he does end up on a new team, but for the moment, retirement looks as likely a possibility as any.

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Newly crowned gravel World Champion Marianne Vos, Mathieu van der Poel, Lotte Kopecky and Maddy Nut are among the riders set to headline Rouleur Live in London this week, November 12-14. They will be appearing on stage alongside dozens of other pro cycling talents, including former Tour de France winner Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney.

Vos is widely regarded as the greatest cyclist of all time and, throughout a multi-discipline career spanning 20 years, has won 15 elite world titles, most recently at the UCI Gravel World Championships in Nannup, Australia, last month.

The three-day event kicks off on Thursday November 12, with a line-up that includes multi-discipline World Champion and three-time winner of the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix, Van der Poel, along with Xaverine Nirere, Niewiadoma-Phinney and partner Taylor Phinney, who recently returned to track racing, and Bradley Wiggins.

The event continues on Friday, November 13, with multi-time track and road World Champion Lotte Kopecky, former World Champion and this year's Tour de France green-jersey winner Mads Pedersen, Ben Healy, and Fabian Cancellara.

The event will conclude on Saturday, November 14, with Vos taking the stage along with Matteo Trentin and gravel specialist Maddy Nutt.

In between, figures from across the sport will attend the event, offering interviews and stage discussions throughout the three days.

The full guest list includes upwards of 50 high-profile sports figures, and tickets are available for purchase from Rouleur.

Alongside the live show, the event will also feature more than 80 brands, including Pinarello, Kask, Cannondale and Colnago.

Rouleur Live, formerly known as The Rouleur Classic, began in 2015 in London and will be held this year at the Truman Brewery in East London.

Cyclingnews will attend Rouleur Live on an invitation that includes complimentary admission on November 12 and 13. In line with our editorial standards, our coverage is independent and not subject to review, approval or influence by the organiser of the event or any sponsor.

Competing at the top level for the past two years, since his breakthrough at the 2024 Tour Down Under, Isaac del Toro has done more than win. He has also learned from both his successes and mistakes, something that he repeats in interviews, as he did on the eve of the Singapore Criterium.

The UAE Team Emirates-XRG rider enjoyed a remarkable 2026 season which included winning the overall at four WorldTour stage races: the UAE Tour, Tirreno-Adriatico, the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and the Grand Prix Cycliste de Montréal. He also won a stage and finished third overall on his Tour de France debut, helping team leader Tadej Pogačar secure his fifth overall victory.

Speaking on media day ahead of the Singapore exhibition race, which he went on to win, Del Toro told Marca he was “very happy” with his season.

“Happy to have had all the experiences this year and satisfied because I know I can apply them to the future to always do a little better. Obviously, with that emphasis on continuing to work hard.”

From racing his first WorldTour race in Australia for UAE Emirates XRG at just 20 years of age, Del Toro quickly matured into taking on the mantle of team leader two years later.

“It's something we tried to achieve from the moment I signed. We didn't know how quickly or slowly it would happen, or if it was even possible in such a competitive team where everyone is at a very high level,” Del Toro said.

His progression began at the Tour Down Under, but Del Toro initially preferred to delay taking on leadership responsibilities as long as possible so he could learn from those around him.

“After a year, I developed more and began to understand what kind of rider I am; I can handle myself well in quite a few situations, although I don't know if I specialise in anything.”

As only the second Mexican rider to win a Tour de France stage, following Raúl Alcalá's victories in 1989 and 1990, Del Toro understands the responsibility that he carries, though he admits to sometimes forgetting it “for a moment”.

“They remind you that you're a public figure, and you try to be measured. I know there's someone expecting something from me and trying to put me in the best possible light, so I take that as a responsibility.”

When asked if it could be possible for a Mexican rider to win the Tour de France in the future, Del Toro replied: “Why not?”

It wasn’t that long ago that the idea of having a Slovenian dominate racing would have raised eyebrows.

“If others have won it, why can't a Mexican? We have two legs, two arms, a head... I don't see it as distant or impossible. It's difficult, but I see the same possibilities as everyone else.”

“I won my first stage in Barcelona, I made the podium in the Giro, and I know I can be competitive. More athletes are coming up over the years; I'm not just referring to myself, but to the fact that, as Mexicans, of course it's possible.”

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Isaac del Toro continued his battle with rival Paul Seixas on Sunday, the UAE Team Emirates-XRG rider taking a surprise solo win in the Singapore Criterium.

Both he and Seixas (Decathlon-CMA CGM) had been part of a four-man group which escaped the bunch on the 23rd lap around the city. As the final lap approached, the Mexican champion simply rode off the front of that group, holding Seixas a few seconds behind him until the line.

Seixas hung on for second place, a handful of seconds behind, with Søren Warenskjold (UNO X Mobility) winning the sprint for third place. The peloton crossed the line some 30 seconds behind.

With the traditional Saitama Criterium in Japan coming next weekend, Singapore was the first of two Far Eastern criteriums arranged by the Tour de France organisers, ASO, with the race taking place over 25 laps of a two-kilometre city circuit. The race started aggressively and remained that way throughout, with multiple breakaways going clear all day long.

The first of those got away after the opening intermediate sprint and contained Baptiste Viestroffer (Lotto-Intermarché), Patrick Konrad (Lidl-Trek), home road champion Eamon Lim (CCACHE-BODYWRAP) and Rasmus Søjberg Pedersen (Decathlon-CMA CGM). They were away for a handful of laps, but the intermediate sprints, which came every five laps, dictated the race, the peloton re-forming before each one.

That meant that none of the breakaways, however large, were able to gain any kind of advantage, with 10 seconds being all most would create.

Biniam Girmay won the first intermediate sprint, and his NSN team were instrumental in containing the breakaways’ ambitions. Even a strong group of six was unable to build a lead as the race approached the final kick, with five laps of the race to go.

One lap after that final sprint, French sensation Seixas let an all-star group of four up the road, with Del Toro, Mauro Schmid (Jayco-AlUla) and Søren Waerenskjold (UNO X Mobility) quickly establishing a lead and taking 10 seconds into the final three laps. With little conviction in the chase, their lead expanded and, at the start of the penultimate lap, that advantage was out to 30 seconds, the greatest advantage of any of the day’s breaks, and the race seemed set to end with a four-up sprint.

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Picnic PostNL team owner Iwan Spekenbrink has spoken out following allegations of "a culture of fear" within the team, refuting the claims brought forward by an investigation conducted by Dutch media outlets NOS Sport and In De Waaier. Initially reported in October, the investigation, which heard testimony from 71 individuals employed by Picnic PostNL, alleged an "unsafe working situation."

In an interview with Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf, Spekenbrink rejected the investigation’s accusations, calling them "misleading" though he accepted that certain former employees had negative experiences, with one former coach, Adriaan Helmantel, describing the team’s organisation as "a dictatorship."

"There is a group that experienced it differently," Spekenbrink stated. He references an article in which Marcel Kittel, Tom Veelers and Kirsten Wild share their experiences. "They are critical, and that is their right, but none of the three confirms the picture being painted," he said. "Yes, a number of sources have expressed that, and I regret that, because you always want a safe working environment for everyone. Nevertheless, a one-sided story has been told."

In his conversation with De Telegraaf, Spekenbrink also accuses journalist Thijs Zonneveld of a lack of impartiality, given his role as part of the team management at the BEAT Cycling team. “This is like having Grolsch conduct an investigation into Heineken,” he said. He went on to express disappointment that more current employees were not asked for their opinion. "When you walk through the paddock, you always see a lot of fun and camaraderie within our team," Spekenbrink stated. "Teamwork comes first for us."

Since the original story broke in October, a number of former and present riders have responded to the claims laid out in the NOS investigation, with the likes of John Degenkolb defending the team, while Martin Tusveld and Esmée Peperkamp have been among those sharing their own negative experiences of the team’s culture.

Sports director Rudi Kemna was the first in the team’s leadership to respond to the allegations, which were the conclusion of an investigation carried out over several months earlier in 2026. Kemna said he was "deeply upset" by the allegations. The team’s initial statement in response to the investigation said: "we do not recognise ourselves in the overall picture presented in the publications", but nevertheless acknowledging that "it is important to take a critical look at ourselves" in light of the reported findings. The team have since commissioned an "independent, professional investigation into our team culture".

Spekenbrink has stated, “It will take a while before we have the results of that," adding that, "We do not shy away from mistakes, because they are made by everyone, everywhere. When you read that it has really affected people, you have to be honest, because that is not pleasant. We do not want employees to leave with a bitter taste in their mouths.”

The uncertainty surrounding the ongoing investigations runs concurrently with the delay in the team being issued with a WorldTour license for 2027. This is in relation to financial troubles surrounding their bike supplier Lapierre, with a replacement supplier on board but contracts awaiting finalisation, delaying submission of the relevant paperwork to the UCI.

Despite his reservations about the balanced nature of the investigation, Spekenbrink admits that some of the issues raised are worth taking into consideration, particularly the way the team approaches riders who are not used to the style of the team's approach.

“Apparently, we haven't always explained our story clearly enough upfront," he said. "We will have to do a better job of explaining how we view collaboration and sometimes say a bit sooner that it isn't a 'match'.” He offers the example of new riders looking to work with their own support staff, for example, trainers and dietitians.

Spekenbrink said that he believes in the team's ethos. “We still believe in our way of working together. Teamwork is our foundation, with mutual respect."

He concludes: “It is a difficult time right now, but we will emerge from this stronger.”

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The Movistar Team announced the signing of Belgian champion Rune Herregodts on a three-year contract.

This year, racing for UAE Team Emirates-XRG, the 28-year-old claimed the surprise national road race title from a large breakaway that escaped and foiled favourites like Jasper Philipsen on a mostly flat course around Antwerp in the absence of stars like Wout van Aert, Remco Evenepoel and defending champion Tim Wellens.

"I am really excited to join the team. From what I have seen so far, we are working in the right direction," Herregodts said in the press release.

"I think the team is making a lot of progress in terms of performance and, for me, this is a good environment to show my quality, help the team and also have more opportunities in breakaways and Classics. I am really looking forward to next year and to having a great season together. I am convinced we will be successful."

Herregodts will become the second Belgian racing for the Spanish WorldTour team, linking up with Cian Uijtdebroeks, who left Visma-Lease a Bike for Movistar after the 2025 season.

"I have spoken a little with Cian and also with the team to get to know the way they work," Herregodts added. "He was very enthusiastic, and that has strengthened my confidence that this is a good place to develop my career as a cyclist."

After starting his elite career with the Flanders-Baloise team in 2021, with whom he won the Ronde van Drenthe and a stage of the Ruta del Sol, Herregodts joined the WorldTour with Intermarché in 2023, winning the ZLM Tour the next year.

A strong breakaway rider and fast finisher from small groups, Herregodts' time with UAE Team Emirates was less fruitful, and the Belgian title was his singular victory for the team, albeit one of the biggest days of his career.

Head of Sports Sebastián Unzué said, "Rune joins the team at a point of full maturity, with the experience and quality needed to contribute across different terrains. I am convinced that his arrival will bring great value to the group."

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World champion Brandon McNulty debuts his rainbow jersey on home soil on November 21 at El Tour de Tucson. A native of Phoenix, Arizona, McNulty will make his first appearance at the Tucson event, now in a 43rd edition that has grown in size to 12,000 participants across three routes, the longest 103 miles.

McNulty will be joined by three-time US Pro road race national champion Quinn Simmons, Canadian road national champion Jérôme Gauthier, as well as multi-time road and track world champions Chloe Dygert and Sir Bradley Wiggins.

A number of former pro athletes are also part of the front corral of starters including four-time triathlete world champion Leanda Cave and former Grand Tour riders George Hincapie, Bob Roll, Bobby Julich, and Frankie Andreu.

All riders compete for prestige and bragging rights in a choice of three distances, as there is no prize money.

El Tour de Tucson is the flagship event for El Tour America, a non-profit that produces cycling events and helps raise funds for more than 120 other non-profits. Many of the current and retired pros participating in the ride will also participate in The Prologue, an exclusive camp for limited attendees to raise additional funds.

Ide Schelling continues with gravel focus

RNRNYC Racing p/b R1 will support former WorldTour rider Ide Schelling for a second season, this time with a focus on gravel racing, and will be the the new home for New Zealander Ethan Craine as the team grows their roster for 2027.

RNRNYC, which takes their name from cycling apparel brand Rubber N' Road that has a design studio and manufacturing in New York City, launched last season as an elite club team. They promote inclusivity and give riders opportunities to develop and race at a high level alongside experienced pros.

Schelling had a limited role with RNRNYC Racing last year, participating in a limited calendar of road and gravel, taking 10th place in The Gralloch. The Dutch rider retired from an 11-year pro road career in 2025, which included six years at the WorldTour level with Bora-Hansgrohe and XDS Astana. He will continue as a brand ambassador for RNRNYC and be supported as a privateer in gravel.

"Ide will be racing a lot more by himself, but remains part of the bigger ecosystem, the RNR and R1 racing family. Maybe he'll do a couple of races with the team, but really he will focus on doing gravel events, which are mostly in Europe. Maybe doing Big Sugar and a couple more in the US," Gil Lavi, co-founder of Rubber N' Road and RNRNYC Racing, told Cyclingnews.

Lavi said the cycling apparel brand benefits greatly from an international roster of riders, since the company has production facilities in three countries and customers around the globe.

"Having Ethan [Craine] is huge. César Marte and Wiley Close are very talented racers, super young, super talented," Lavi said about some of the new riders that have been announced so far.

Craine, 25, joins from five years with Project Echelon Racing, where he had stage wins in the Green Mountain Stage Race, Salt Lake Criterium and Chicago Grit. Close, 22, moves from ENVE MOG Squad's gravel team, where he finished eighth on the queen stage at Green Mountain Stage Race in his first road race in September.

Marte, a sprinter from the Dominican Republic, earned top results in the US across multiple teams at the Tour of Somerville, Gateway Cup, and Tour of America’s Dairyland since 2022 and als has multiple stage wins at the Vuelta Independencia.

The full roster will be disclosed in the coming weeks, with 12-15 riders expected to compete on a heavy road racing calendar, with a few gravel races mixed in.

Crusher in the Tushar retires for good after 14 year-run

Retirement news is typically reserved for riders, but this time organisers for Crusher in the Tushar confirmed Thursday that the Utah gravel race would permanently close after 14 years.

Taking its name from the Tushar mountains of central Utah, the highest range in the state, the Crusher was cancelled twice in the last three years due to impact from active wildfires in the area.

Life Time purchased the event from founder and former road pro Burke Swindlehurst in 2019, and included the race as part of the Life Time Grand Prix series from 2022 to 2024, though the third instalment was not held due to the fires. Keegan Swenson won the two Grand Prix editions while Haley Smith and Sofia Gomez Villafañe split the wins for elite women.

"We made the decision to retire Crusher in the Tushar," Life Time posted Thursday on social channels and the web site for the event.

"Since its founding, Crusher in the Tushar has played a pivotal role in shaping gravel cycling, challenging athletes on one of the sport's most demanding and memorable courses.

"We are deeply grateful to founder Burke Swindlehurst for his vision, the greater Beaver community for its incredible hospitality and partnership, and the athletes, volunteers and partners who have made Crusher such a special event over the years.

"Our thoughts remain with the Beaver and Piute County communities as they continue to recover and rebuild following this year's devastating wildfires and flooding."

EuroCrossAcademy opens 24th season in Netherlands and Belgium with 12 juniors

A total of 12 US teenagers will be part of EuroCrossAcademy's November block of training and racing, with the first competitions set for the Netherlands November 14-15 including Vam-Berg Cross in Wijster.

The squad will have multiple skills training sessions in Alphen, Netherlands and Lichtaart, Belgium, with a focus on forest trails and sand, then complete the two-week trip with racing in Hilversum, Netherlands and Maldegem, Belgium.

This is 24th year EuroCrossAcademy, led by Geoff Proctor, and a third consecutive year for a unique block for 15-16 year olds. The programme began in 2003 as EuroCross Camp to help athletes prepare for the Cyclo-cross World Championships. It has grown into a non-profit, EuroCrossAcademy (ECA), which now provides summer camps in Montana and Vermont as well as blocks of European racing experience in the development process for young US riders.

The group of 15-16 year olds are the focus for November, with the 17-18 year old riders taking part in a separate experience in December.

"The emphasis at the ECA November block is specifically on development, not results or outcomes. Are are they becoming better people by improving their character/continuing to find purpose?" Proctor told Cyclingnews about what measuring success.

He said ECA coaches measure success based on the level of "finding joy in a safe, kind, supportive environment" as well as learning life skills, not just riding skills, from their teammates, mechanics, support staff, and themselves.

For both blocks of training and race, Cyclingnews will provide coverage with rider dairies, the athletes providing first-person accounts of the 'character development' and competition.

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After months of uncertainty and the loss of half of their riders, the TotalEnergies squad have found new life, according to Ouest France.

An official announcement from managers Jean-René Bernaudeau and Stéphane Heulot is expected on November 9, according to Cyclism'Actu.

TotalEnergies made the October 15 deadline to file for a 2027 licence but were unable to complete the required financial paperwork due to the uncertainty around their sponsorship.

At the time, Bernaudeau said, "We need to have ten riders under contract and a sponsor providing a bank guarantee before being interviewed in December to finalise the budget. The end of the month is obviously the deadline; we promised ourselves we wouldn't go beyond October 31st."

Bernaudeau appears to have met that cutoff with the imminent announcement of a title sponsor for the next three years.

However, the team will have to be aggressive in the transfer market over the next three years if they hope to rejoin the WorldTour in 2029, as they have lost their top points scorers during the uncertainty surrounding their future, some of whom have made a step up to the WorldTour.

Their GC hopeful Jordan Jegat, who finished 10th overall in the Tour de France and won the Classic Grand Besançon Doubs in April, has already signed for Lidl-Trek. Classics specialist Anthony Turgis and Nicolas Breuillard have already inked deals with XDS Astana, and Alexandre Delettre, along with Emilien Jeannière, a podium finisher in the Scheldeprijs, and Sandy Dujardin left for Groupama-FDJ. Pierre Thierry signed with Cofidis.

Meanwhile, Mathieu Burgaudeau, Thomas Bonnet and Mattéo Vercher jumped ship for ProTeam Burgos-Burpellet BH, while Lorrenzo Manzin, Geoffrey Bouchard and Fabien Greiller retired.

Bernaudeau may yet hold on to Jason Tesson, winner of the Classic Var, who was their fourth-best scorer in 2026, and Tour of Mentougou winner Joris Delbove, who are among the 14 riders who have not yet announced their 2027 contracts.

The outfit have a long history in the peloton, having been founded in 1986. They were briefly a professional team as Castorama before returning to a development programme. In 2000, Bernaudeau landed Bonjour as a title sponsor and, under that banner and later as Brioches La Boulangère, Bouygues Télécom and Team Europcar became fixtures in the ProTour, the predecessor to the WorldTour.

Thomas Voeckler's ten-day stint in the maillot jaune in 2004 was the team's biggest highlight, but by 2009, the team were forced to drop out of the top tier and almost disbanded in 2010 as they struggled to find a sponsor until Europcar came along.

The team brought on Direct Énergie as a sponsor in 2019 and, as TotalEnergies, signed superstar Peter Sagan with high ambitions of rejoining the WorldTour, but the three-time world champion won only a single race for the French outfit, a stage of the Tour de Suisse in 2022, and the team did not meet the promotion criteria by the end of 2025.

In 2026, the team fell short of the top three ProTeams, being beaten by Pinarello-Q36.5, Tudor and Cofidis, so they will not earn automatic invitations to the Grand Tours. However, they remain eligible for wildcard entries as they made the top 30 in the UCI Team Rankings, and as the fourth-best ProTeam, will be invited to the one-day WorldTour events.

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Wout Poels will continue racing into his 19th season as a professional in 2027 with Unibet Rose Rockets, the French-registered ProTeam confirmed on Friday.

The 39-year-old joined the Rockets at the start of 2026, and after maintaining his love of training and racing, particularly at the Giro d'Italia – the team's first and his 26th Grand Tour – and his high levels of performance, Poels didn't want to hang up his wheels just yet.

Born out of a YouTube channel and owned by Bas Tietema, Josse Wester, and Devin van der Wiel, the Rockets are approaching their fifth season in the pro peloton, with Poels part of a 26-rider roster that also includes Dylan Groenewegen. In 2027, they will look to secure invites to the Giro and a first Tour de France.

Poels' extension was confirmed in an accompanying video featuring him and Tietema at the former's fan club cafe in his home village of Blitterswijck, where the pair discussed plans for 2027 and played darts.

"Now I have to say, because of the Giro, it triggered a little bit more. It was a really nice three weeks and a really, really good level," said Poels.

"The most important thing is that I really like to do it. I like to train. I like to race. I like to do training camps. If you like it, then why would you stop? And the level is still there. That's the most important one.

"I imagine if I would have really did shit in the Giro and you get all the time dropped, you never go in a break, you never make a result, then I think I would not continue. I also like to be in the mix to do results, but even at a small race like Sibiu Tour, I was fourth in the GC and then second in the mountain stage – it's not the biggest race, but I still enjoy to race and get a result."

Poels will turn 40 on October 1 next, and while this is supposed to be his final year of racing, he still didn't rule out potentially keeping going into a 20th year.

"Is this really the last one?" asked Tietema. "Normally, yes… The door is always a little bit open," said Poels.

A former Liège-Bastogne-Liège winner, Tour de France stage winner, and Vuelta a España stage winner, Poels isn't landing the same calibre of results he was in his prime years at Team Sky and Bahrain Victorious, but he's still been able to land several impressive top 10s for the Rockets.

Poels finished in the top 10 of two stages at the Giro, including on the brutal mountain day to Pila on stage 14, where he was eighth and only lost out to the top GC favourites. He also finished fourth on GC at the Sibiu Tour in Romania, and seventh overall at the Arctic Race of Norway.

"The Giro; that's the highest level of the WorldTour, and it's really nice to perform there, especially on the mountain days to do top ten there from the peloton, that gives me a really good feeling," he said.

"OK, for me, I did, I think, 26 Grand Tours. But then I really come to my best after one week of racing, and I still feel that I get less fatigue.

"The WorldTour teams and Pro Teams, just to be in the top ten is always really high level. If you really want to perform there, then you need to be 100% ready."

But it's exactly that process which the Dutchman is still enjoying, having trained at altitude for the Giro this past season. Not only can he operate as a climbing leader, but Poels – as one of the most iconic super domestiques of the Team Sky era – is one of the most valuable riders for the Rockets' young talents to learn from.

For now, his win tally reads the same as his Grand Tour appearances at 26, but he's looking to bump them both up to at least 27 in 2027. It would maintain a run of winning a race on every team he's raced for as a pro, and a streak of starting a Grand Tour in every season that extends back to 2011 when he was on Vacansoleil-DCM – this was the season when he finished second atop the Alto l'Angliru behind Juan Jose Cobo at the Vuelta.

"I really would like to win a race for the team because I didn't do that last year. I was close to it, but I didn't do it," said Poels.

"That would be really nice, also for myself, just for my stats to say that I won a race in every team. But I just want to approach it like last year; have a good time, go to some nice races, perform well, try to do good GCs, just make good results. That's what I like to do."

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FDJ United-SUEZ manager Lars Boom has outlined Demi Vollering's main goals for the 2027 season and talked about what went right in a stunningly successful 2026 campaign.

Vollering enjoyed her most successful season yet, with wins at the Tour of Flanders, Liège-Bastogne-Liège, the Giro d'Italia Women, Tour de France Femmes, and the World and European Championships, among 16 victories.

She added another trophy to her collection on Monday, taking home the Keetie van Oosten-Hage trophy as the best Dutch female cyclist of the year. It's her second time winning the award, having previously triumphed in 2023.

At the ceremony in Utrecht, Boom told WielerFlits about Vollering's 2027 goals, with her schedule likely to follow a familiar pattern.

"Well, I think the Tour de France again. And defending her world title," Boom said of her top priorities for next season. Her early season goals and starting point have yet to be defined, however.

"She will ride some Classics and maybe the Giro again. It's a bit obvious, of course, but I think the Tour and the World Championships will be major milestones again."

Vollering has been in the USA in recent weeks, travelling through California and Oregon and taking part in events and rides with sponsors Specialized, Red Bull, and visiting Nike HQ in Portland.

Attention will soon turn to the 2027 season, though, and renewed hostilities with rivals including Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney at Lidl-Trek, new Movistar pairing Paula Blasi and Marlen Reusser, Visma-Lease a Bike leader Pauline Ferrand-Prévot, and UAE Team L'IMAD's Elisa Longo Borghini, among others.

She beat all of them in 2026, and Boom hinted at what she did right.

"I think she has grown a lot mentally. If I take the Giro as an example, she was quite nervous back then," Boom said.

"In the Tour, however, there was total calm, and we basically didn't say anything on the bus or just before the start. That really made a world of difference."

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After the departure of nine riders, including their highest-ranked rider, Richard Carapaz, EF Education-EasyPost have continued to rebuild for the 2027 season, with four graduates from the Development squad announced as stepping up to the WorldTour team.

After US rider Gavin Sherry and British rider Tomos Pattinson were already revealed to be making the jump, EF announced this week that 19-year-old Italian Roberto Capello and 23-year-old US rider Gavin Hlady would join them at the highest level in 2027.

The former had started his path to the pros in Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe's junior setup at Team GRENKE-Auto Eder, but joined EF Education-Aevolo for 2026. Despite setbacks due to crashes and injury in the first half of the season, Capello closed out the racing calendar strongly and has now earned the step up he's dreamed of.

They join Tao Geoghegan Hart, Ivan Sosa, Nicholas Milesi, Tobias Bayer, and Emil Herzog as EF's new arrivals for 2027. Team boss Jonathan Vaughters had already confirmed that Carapaz's departure was due to overstretched finances, with development team graduates allowing them to bolster their roster size closer to the 30-rider maximum while keeping the costs down

"I’m looking forward to the future and not looking back. It’s been my dream to race pro since I started cycling. I can’t wait to race with the best riders in the world, and EF Education-EasyPost is a really cool group," said Capello.

"I’ve had my fair share of bad luck this season, but I’m confident I’m in a good position to join the WorldTour with EF Education-EasyPost. They have shown a lot of patience and faith in my qualities as a rider, and I’ve worked really hard since joining the development team at the start of the year. I’m confident I can have a successful 2027 with the team and be a strong rider and teammate.

"Next year I want to try my hand at some short stage races but mostly just gain as much experience as possible. I want to learn from my teammates, and give everything that I can. I can’t wait to start."

His best results so far came as a junior in 2025, taking second at the European Championships road race, sixth in the World Championships time trial, and winning the Italian junior ITT title. Despite the injuries, which mostly prevented him from kicking on fully in 2026, EF are still confident in his abilities as a GC prospect.

"If you see Roberto’s results, he was one of the top riders in 2025. I’m super happy that we signed him," said head of scouting Sebastian Langeveld.

"This year was a bit on and off because of injury, but you can see from his training that he’s super talented. He has an incredible capacity on climbs and against the clock. He’s a very promising GC rider. It will take time, maybe a few years, but he has the qualities even though he’s still super young."

Hlady rode as a stagiaire for the WorldTour squad back at the end of 2024, and then raced for two seasons on the Aevolo squad to earn his way up to a full spot. A two-time under-23 national road race champion, Hlady also finished on the podium of the elite men's road race at the US national champs in 2025 behind Quinn Simmons and Evan Boyle.

"I’m excited to be stepping up and into the next phase of my career with this amazing team," said Hlady.

"Honestly, over the last few years, I always thought joining the WorldTour was possible, but I never thought it was guaranteed, so having this opportunity means so much to me. I truly believe that I have more to give and more room to develop as a rider."

In 2026, he finished second on a stage of the Alpes Isère Tour, and netted top-10s on stages at the Flèche du Sud and Le Tour de Bretagne Cycliste. For 2027, Hlady is looking to improve on his versatility, with the team confident he can go in any direction when it comes to specialising.

"Obviously, EF Education-EasyPost has strong American roots, but even if you took that aspect out of the equation, this is the team that I’d want to join. If you lined up all the teams in the men’s WorldTour, I’d choose EF Education-EasyPost every time," he said.

"I’m grateful, and I appreciate that we still have this cool international flavour and culture. I think we’re a really diverse team, and what sets us apart is that at the biggest races we always seem to punch above our weight. It’s an all-or-nothing and fun racing attitude. From the outside, they seem like the best team too because all the staff seem really cool too," he added.

"I want to get stronger, better and faster in every possible way and then see where that takes me. From there, I’ll sit down with the team in November at our next camp, and that’s when we’ll formulate a plan in terms of expectations and race calendar."

"Gavin came with Aevolo, and he’s shown throughout the last couple of years, with his national titles, that he has a lot of upward potential. He raced with the WorldTour team this year, and he did really well as a teammate, and he’s ticked a lot of boxes for us this year," added Langeveld.

"It’s a bit early to determine where he will end up as a rider, but he still has a lot of untapped potential, and we’re going to work with him on getting the best out of himself in the coming season. He can climb, and he might even go in the direction of the classics, but really, it’s about taking our time with the young riders and not rushing them."

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With the cycling off-season in full swing, Tom Pidcock has swapped two wheels for four, taking to the German motor racing circuit Nürburgring Nordschleife in a Porsche 911 GT3 RS.

The Briton has won world and Olympic titles on cyclo-cross and mountain bikes, but he's no slouch in the race car, either, joining Porsche brand ambassador Jörg Bergmeister for a track day at the legendary circuit in Germany's Eifel mountains.

Pidcock has previously recorded a 6:52.37 lap time around the fearsome 20.832km former Formula 1 circuit, which features 73 corners, leaving him just 27 seconds off the all-time lap record, set by Stefan Bellof in 1983.

The 27-year-old, who this year won Milano-Torino and finished ninth at the Tour de France, will soon be gearing up for his third season at Pinarello-Q36.5, where he'll be joined by new arrivals Giulio Ciccone, Mauro Schmid, and Ethan Hayter, among others. However, he took time away from the bike to explore the track with Manthey Kit on Wednesday.

"The organisation of the race team and where all the parts are feels very similar to how we have our service course in the cycling team. The parts storage, the packing lists – it's a similar world," Pidcock said of the company's headquarters, located near the famous 2km straight of the circuit.

"What I've learned from Manthey is that, if you're developing a car at the Nürburgring, the data doesn't tell you everything. You have to use feeling.

"And personally, I think feeling is even more valuable than data when I'm trying to develop a bike. The Nordschleife is such an unpredictable place, and Porsche and Manthey manage to make the cars feel as predictable as possible for the people driving them."

This time around, Pidcock took on the challenging circuit in wetter conditions, and Bergmeister said that Pidcock's pace is particularly impressive given he isn't a regular at the track.

"I know a couple of pro and ex-pro cyclists, and the line and flow that it takes to do a smooth, quick lap comes naturally to these guys. Tom gets in and knows exactly what he's doing and has great feel for the car – and also no fear," he said.

"For someone who isn't here regularly, Tom's pace is pretty mind-blowing. There are people on the Ring every day who go slower. The advice I could give him is to simply focus on hitting the marks: braking points, turn-in points.

"But you can see it all comes naturally. I guess there's a reason why he's so good on the descents in cycle racing!"

Pidcock explained what drew him to the track and racing high-performance cars, such as the powerful Porsche 911 GT3 RS.

"I guess it's because it's about 'high performance', just like cycling is for me. It's the same mindset," he said.

"Driving, in general, is a pursuit of improvement, which is constant in what I do daily. But here there's no pressure – I can also enjoy the fact that I don't need to push it to the extreme limit. When I'm competing [in my career], there's always so much pressure, so on track it's nice that I can simply just compete with myself."

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Ashleigh Moolman Pasio's career could have ended very differently had she given in to a drawn-out and frustrating recovery to a fractured vertebrae. She considered hanging up her race bike during the 2025 season, a year earlier than planned, her confidence weakened after 18 months of trying to find form due to a crash at the 2024 Volta a Catalunya.

However, the South African was determined to write a different final chapter to her 17-year professional career, and saddled up for one last campaign.

Following the Road World Championships in Montreal, where she finished 19th in the road race, and the Gravel World Championships in Nannup, the pioneer of African women's cycling has retired in a much happier place than a year ago.

Speaking to Moolman Pasio over a video call from her home on the outskirts of Girona, it's clear that this conversation would have been very different had it occurred twelve months earlier. The AG Insurance-Soudal rider is leaving the peloton satisfied to have bowed out on her own terms and in good shape, rather than being forced out through injury.

She isn't leaving the sport altogether, however, and now takes up a role with Team Amani as the African Continental outfit's general manager, aiming to take its women's team to the Tour de France Femmes in 2028.

"At the end of 2025 I actually didn't know who I was as an athlete any longer. It was such a disconnect from the athlete I was in training and who I knew I was in terms of the power and the performance I could produce," Moolman Pasio tells Cyclingnews a few days after her final bow at the gravel worlds. "I felt quite lost and desperate. It did cross my mind to retire sooner than planned."

Alongside her T10 vertebra fracture, Moolman Pasio also discovered at that time that she was suffering from high insulin sensitivity, causing her muscles to flush out glucose from her bloodstream; a physiological concept known as the 'athlete paradox'. After adjusting her diet, she got back in shape for the 2026 season.

"I decided that I wanted to finish my career on my terms and managed to get back to a level that I was very happy with," she says, having finished fourth at April's Brabantse Pijl among several other strong results in her final year.

"I finished on my terms and I finished the athlete that I know I should be. Whereas if I had finished last year having had all those performance issues I would have felt like I was forced to retire because I'm not good enough any longer. Now, I actually could continue… I still am at the level that I could hugely contribute to a team."

"I didn't finish because I wasn't good enough any longer. I finished because I've decided it's time to put my focus into other things," she adds.

Moolman Pasio was pleased with her final road worlds performance, finishing in the top-20 on a tough course in Montréal. Things didn't go quite as smoothly on the gravel two weeks later, however, as she endured a cold in the days before and ended her final race early due to a crash.

No "fairytale ending," she says, but turning 41 in December, Moolman Pasio is now taking time to reflect on almost two decades in Europe that have themselves had the twists and turns of a good novel.

An outsider infiltrating a European sport

No African woman precedes Moolman Pasio for her longevity and achievements in professional cycling. After qualifying as a chemical engineer at Stellenbosch University, the Pretorian discovered her talent for cycling later than most, encouraged and supported by her husband, Carl.

Moolman Pasio began racing on the South African scene while at university. She soon signed for one of the country's big teams, Cyclelab-Toyota, which in 2008 enabled her to race in Europe for the first time at the Tour Feminin de l'Ardèche. She finished the six-stage race in 39th, doing enough to convince Lotto Ladies to hand her a life-changing contract.

"The Tour of Ardèche was a big big eye-opener. [I was] totally out of my depth at that point in time; crashing, punctures, all sorts of nonsense. But thankfully I made contact with Lotto. We managed to negotiate this ride for a couple of members of the local team on the Lotto set-up. [It was] for free. We just got our bikes and support," she explains.

"It took determination, it took guts. I had to be really brave to make this all happen. It also took the support around me which I was very lucky to have."

Moolman Pasio describes racing a 'double season' in her first couple of years; competing in Europe during the northern hemisphere summer with Lotto, and then again throughout the summer months in South Africa. She survived on the small amount of pay from racing in South Africa as well as some personal endorsement deals from South African companies.

She says her first "proper contract" came along in 2014 when she joined the Norwegian Hitec Products team after a season in which she finished on the podium at La Fléche Wallonne. However, throughout all this time, she and Carl had been struggling with visa restrictions due to their South African passports. Utilising his Italian heritage, Moolman Pasio's husband managed to get Italian passports for both of them, solving their visa restriction woes.

Moolman Pasio went on to take a total of 49 UCI victories throughout her career. She became the first African woman to win a WorldTour stage race in 2022 at the Tour de Romandie, won the UCI eSports World Championships in 2020 and was twice overall runner-up at the Giro d'Italia Women. For much of that time, Moolman Pasio has been the only African rider at the top level of women's cycling, something which she plans to change in the next phase of her life.

'The hunger in their eyes' – Paying it forward with Team Amani

Moolman Pasio's career has not only been characterised by what she has achieved on the bike, but also her activities off it. She set up Rocacorba Cycling in 2021 alongside her husband, a boutique cycling hotel in a restored 17th century estate, nestled in the mountains near Girona and named after one of the local climbs. Alongside the hotel, Moolman Pasio established the Rocacorba Collective, a thriving indoor cycling community with a particular mission to uplift and bring women together.

In a sport that has become more insular, with riders able to focus on little else aside from their performance, Moolman Pasio has always ridden with a wider set of goals in mind. In 2023, during the middle of her Classics campaign, she travelled back to South Africa to support women from Khaltsha Cycling, a cycling project partnered with Rocacorba Collective in the country's largest township, to ride the Cape Town Cycle Tour.

"I've always been driven by impact, purpose, paying it forward, deeper than winning bike races," she says. "Yes, performing at bike races motivated me, obviously, to keep always giving my best, but my real inspiration as an athlete was so much more than winning bike races."

Now that she has hung up her wheels for good, Moolman Pasio will plough her full focus into her new role as general manager of Team Amani. She will guide the East African cycling project's women's Continental team, which aims to enable African women to race at the very top levels. The ultimate and immediate goal is to race the 2028 Tour de France Femmes.

Moolman Pasio's original plan in the latter stages of her career was to set up her own cycling team, linked in with the Rocacorba community. However, after speaking with Ethiopian former men's WorldTour rider Tsgabu Grmay, she recognised a synergy between her ideas and what Amani was already putting in place. Instead of competing with Amani, Moolman Pasio was invited to join the team staff, and has even spent time supporting its riders this season, hosting a small group at Rocacorba and spending a day coaching them in descending.

Instantly, Moolman Pasio was gripped by the potential of the riders from Ethiopia, Rwanda and elsewhere in East Africa.

"It was actually quite mind-blowing really," she recalls of her day coaching the riders in June.

"We went out for a session on Rocacorba to do some downhilling skills and it still gives me goosebumps to think of that day because it was just so high impact… The hunger in their eyes, that's something that really stands out to me with these girls. They have so many challenges back home, especially the Ethiopians with war that's looming [In October, fighting resumed in the Tigray region, where Amani's Ethiopian riders are from, following the 2020-2022 Tigray War between the Ethiopian Armed Forces and the Tigray People's Liberation Front – Ed.].

"Two of them have young children and their families are there, but the hunger and just how they were soaking up everything that I was showing them, everything I was saying to them. I could just see their eyes, I could see the sparkle, I could see the switch flick in their brains."

Days later, Moolman Pasio raced with her AG Insurance-Soudal team against Team Amani at the Volta a Catalunya, finishing 12th. Amani's best finisher was Ethiopian Eyerusalem Haftu Reda in 20th overall.

"Seeing how [Eyerusalem Haftu Reda] moved in the peloton, how she was fighting for her place. She transformed her descending just from spending a few hours with me. I was just blown away by it and that's when I was like these girls have it, you know."

"It's now moved from 'I want to pay forward, I want to help Africans, I want to give them opportunity', to saying 'We can get to the Tour de France, we can compete at the highest level'. If this is how quickly they can turn things around, imagine if they have a full season. They can do it."

"It didn't change my motivation, I was always motivated, but it just amplified everything. We need to make this happen. So that's when we really started talking quite aggressively. We want to be at the start line of the Tour de France in 2028 and we really do believe we can do that. So now it's about putting everything possible in place to make that happen."

The loss of Moolman Pasio's presence in the WorldTour peloton will be felt in 2027. This driven rider, with her punchy style and consistency, has been a constant figure in the bunch for 17 seasons.

However, speaking with this giant of African cycling, you get the sense that she is just getting started.

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The first year as a professional cyclist is often one of finding a footing in the intensely competitive pelotons, where the dream of being paid to race a bike can become a brutal reality. There are some, however, that do just more than learn and survive in that first year – they step up to the challenge and thrive.

Some neo-pros entered the 2026 season with the weight of expectation already on their shoulders, such as Jarno Widar and Jakob Omrzel after steadily laying foundations and building blocks via years of racing in Europe through the junior and U23 ranks, accumulating results that put them in the spotlight along the way.

Others took a more unconventional path, such as Sandrine Tas, Lennart Jasch and Lauren Dickson, starting out in another sport and then discovering a talent for cycling later on. Then there are those, like Jasch and Talia Appleton, who at the start of the season were actually not yet even neo-pros but made such a splash in the development teams that a mid-season promotion to the next tier came early.

From the surprise breakthroughs to the long watched new stars of the professional peloton, we take a look at the achievements and path of 10 riders who have made such a big mark in their first season as a professional that it seems likely you'll be hearing about them on an increasingly regular basis through coming seasons.

Lennart Jasch (Tudor Pro Cycling)

This German rider wasn't on anyone's radar as one of the neo-pro's to watch at the start of this year for one simple reason, at that point he was still listed on the Tudor Pro Cycling development team roster.

Lennart Jasch came to cycling late, coming from speedskating, but has been quick to make a big impression since he signed up with a regional cycling team in 2024. After a year with the Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe Rookies in 2025, Jasch made his potential crystal clear at the 2.Pro ranked Tour of the Alps when, having stepped up to take on an event with the senior team, he claimed victory on stage 4 from among a field packed with WorldTour riders. Not surprisingly after that he was quickly bumped up to that squad for the rest of the season. That, however, is not where his winning run ended with a stage win at Il Giro d'Abruzzo to prove his early season efforts were no fluke.

That left him heading into his final stage race of the season with what he said was 'absolutely no pressure' but undoubtedly a big opportunity. The newcomer to the world of cycling who had only just stepped up into the ProTeam level was being given a chance to take on a general classification tilt as team leader at Le Tour de Langkawi with the pre-race objective outlined as his team being a top five overall. He well and truly overshot that goal.

After the very first climbing challenge to Gunung Jerai on stage 2, Jasch was already in the overall lead with a 20 second margin, though other teams had multiple options lining up behind. There were no shortage of attempts to find ways to wear down the leader, but even as the temperature of the competition and environment continued to rise, Jasch kept a cool head. He displayed the patience and composure that many far more experienced players often find it hard to muster. Plus, while he was prepared to rely on his team, Jasch was also ready to take responsibility for jumping on a dangerous move and could also finish off the team effort in a way that meant he could not only hold onto, but also add to, his leading margin. It was a race that Jasch said would provide a 'first answer' as to how he may fare as a GC rider and that first answer is one that is bound to make his rivals sit up and take notice.

Sandrine Tas (Lotto–Intermarché Ladies)

Sticking to the theme of skaters turned cyclists, let's take a look at Sandrine Tas. The 31-year-old this year turned a childhood passion and one time training tool into a profession this year. Tas switched from the ice to the road with her debut at this year's La Flèche Wallonne just months after competing in the speedskating at the Winter Olympics.

She had already made her cycling capabilities clear, coming eighth in the elite women's road race at the Belgian National Championships in 2025 and also winning two national level races. However, the first real test was launching into the professional peloton in the tough and talent packed one-day Women's WorldTour race, and Tas came through it with flying colours. She finished 57th, 3:35 off the winning time of Demi Vollering in a showing that clearly demonstrated an ability to manage the chaos of a top-tier peloton.

What's more, on just her sixth race day in the professional peloton the first win came on stage 1 of the Bretagne Ladies Tour. Then she followed it up with another on stage 3 which landed her in second overall at the three day 2.1 tour. A win, let alone two in a first season as a professional, is an impressive beginning, though more podium appearances and a Tour de France Femmes start were yet to come. In fact Tas even managed another top step before the season was over, with victory ahead of Charlotte Kool on stage 1 of the Eneco Tour to round out one extremely successful first year.

Luke Tuckwell (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe)

Australian rider Luke Tuckwell certainly wasn't heading into his first year as a professional without eyes on him, his second place overall at the Giro d'Italia Next Gen and top 10 at Tour de l'Avenir in 2025 made sure of that. He started the year at home at the Santos Tour Down Under, where he came fourth in the youth classification, and then as the season built so did the results.

At the Tour de Romandie, Tuckwell delivered his first WorldTour overall top 10, taking sixth among a strong field led by none other than Tadej Pogačar. That was impressive by itself, but it also opened up another opportunity, as it led to the decision to send the Australian to the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes. That's when an already great season as a first year professional turned into a phenomenal one.

After a solid start to the race, stage 6 delivered an opportunity that Tuckwell wasn't going to let slip through his fingers. A huge break got away, with Tuckwell part of it, and while he helped his teammate Maxim Van Gils claim the stage win the Australian also finished third with a margin that comfortably shifted the rider up from twelfth overall to the very top spot.

Isaac del Toro (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) did manage to pull back the margin and take overall victory, though Tuckwell had two days riding in the yellow leader's jersey and held on to second overall – a result that neither he or anyone else will be forgetting in a hurry.

Federica Venturelli (UAE Team L'IMAD)

It was a step up from the UAE Development Team for Federica Venturelli in 2026 straight into the world's top team, and while track was still a focus – which delivered plenty of success – there was no hiding in the peloton on the road. The Italian's very first race of the season was the 1.Pro Clásica de Almeria in late February and she went straight to the top step of the podium with a winning sprint from a reduced group of six.

There was then another victory at Dwars door de Westhoek in June, quickly followed by a second place in the opening stage of the Tour Féminin International des Pyrénées. At the end of three stages of racing she also walked away with the points classification. It's an impressive tally from just 16 days of racing as a professional and bodes well for what's to come when the all-rounder adds some more in 2027, particularly if the 2025 U23 European time trial champion manages to add some more races against the clock into the mix.

Jakob Omrzel (Bahrain Victorious)

It was Jakob Omrzel who beat Luke Tuckwell to the top spot at the Giro d'Italia Next Gen in 2025 and the 20-year-old also delivered strong GC results as he stepped into the a new tier. That began with sixth overall at the Tour of the Alps in April, a top 10 at the Tour de Hongrie, third at Tour of Slovenia.

Then in the second half of the season it was time for the rider from Slovenia to take on his first Grand Tour, as the youngest rider at the Vuelta a España, and he did way more than just survive it. First there was a fourth place on the challenging uphill finish of stage 7. Then on stage 12 Omrzel got into a 30-man breakaway and then also rode away from it to cross the line solo and claim his first WorldTour win, and at a Grand Tour no less. In doing so he became the youngest Slovenian to win a Grand Tour stage, no small feat given this his compatriots in the peloton include Tadej Pogačar and Primož Roglič. Also in that moment he became the second youngest ever stage winner at the Vuelta, after Celestino Prieto who took his win in 1981.

The rider who is signed with Bahrain Victorious through till the end of 2029 also walked away from the Spanish tour with second in the youth classification and seventh overall. Though, perhaps, more importantly he left his first Grand Tour having gathered experience and tested his limits, which look set to stretch to considerable heights through the years ahead.

Mackenzie Coupland (Liv AlUla Jayco)

For Liv AlUla Jayco, there is plenty of pride wrapped up in the Australian summer, as it is the one time of the year when the nation's only Women's WorldTour Team gets to perform at home. There, too, is plenty of effort put into making the team is also taking the green and gold stripes of the national champions jersey back to Europe. Ruby Roseman-Gannon may have been the favourite from the squad to do just that, but Mackenzie Coupland, who had just stepped up from the Liv AlUla Jayco development squad at the start of the year turned out to be the one to claim the jersey after making a late move that stuck.

That meant a neo-pro year in the distinctive national champions kit for the first year professional, a big enough achievement on its own delivered in one of her very first races with the Women's WorldTour team. She was also the squad's top finisher at the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race later that month, narrowly missing the podium with fourth and then in March, joined the development squad for a race and claimed a stage and the overall victory at Vuelta a Extremadura Femenina. A third place at La Périgord Ladies when then followed up with a spot on the Tour de France Femmes squad and a strong fourth at Chrono Féminin de Gatineau to help round out a first year in the professional peloton for the 21 year old.

After starting with such a strong opening round in Australia in 2026, there is no doubt there will be plenty of eyes on her to see what she can deliver in round two in 2027.

Jarno Widar (Lotto Intermarché)

There was no shortage of focus on Jarno Widar in 2026 as he stepped up to the Lotto Intermarché WorldTour team from the development squad, having won the Kristallen Fiets young talent of the year award for a second year running plus delivered results that included victory at Liège–Bastogne–Liège U23, stage wins in the Giro NextGen and the Tour de l’Avenir as well as the European U23 road race title. It was a results list that meant he was ushered into the team with considerable fanfare, with the expectation that he would be doing far more than learning the ropes but would be supported to chase key results, in fact the 20-year-old even entered his first Grand Tour, the Vuelta a España, as team leader.

The first half of the season had its challenges, with illness and lingering knee injury keeping him away from racing for 16 weeks, though he made a solid mark soon after his return with fourth on the final stage of Tour de Suisse. He then upped the ante in his Vuelta debut, coming second on stage 4 behind Tadej Pogačar. There was also a fourth on stage 13 of the Spanish Grand Tour.

It was, however, the closing month of 2026 when Widar stepped up to deliver on the promise and to the top step, with a win Tre Valli Varesine and then his first WorldTour stage victory in the final day of racing at the Tour of Guangxi, which also clinched him the overall win. Those strong closing weeks are bound to help make the challenges of the early season feel like a distant memory and set the rider up as a focal point for the team in 2027, a year where the squad will be losing its former great hope, Arnaud De Lie.

Lauren Dickson (FDJ United-Suez)

Lauren Dickson is another of the later entries to cycling, initially finding her way into the sport via triathlons but only a couple of years after her first race finding a spot on one of the world's top teams, FDJ United-Suez. It may have been a fast progression but there could be little doubting that the British rider who turned 26 this year was ready for it.

Less than three months into her professional racing career and she already managed to find her way onto the podium the Spanish 2.1 ranked race, the Vuelta a Extremadura Femenina, when Dickson snared second behind new Australian champion Mackenzie Coupland on stage 3 and also second overall. Impressively she then also followed that up with podiums in the Women's WorldTour race of Itzulia Women, where her third place on stage 3 once again also secured her the final spot on the overall podium. Then it was fourth at Durango-Durango Emakumeen Saria and 11th overall at the Giro d'Italia. There was another second on stage 1 of the Tour de Suisse Women, though her run was halted by a broken collarbone later in the race. Still the momentum was recaptured later in the season and she moved up to the top step at the Faun Tour. The late season win will make sure that even though she may be a new rider at one of the world's top teams, there will be no disappearing into the background when plans for 2027 are being formulated.

What's more, she did all this while also proving her value as a domestique, delivering a prominent support role in Demi Vollering's Giro d'Italia victory.

Brady Gilmore (NSN)

Brady Gilmore succinctly summed up his year at the top level of the sport in a social media post as "a season I'll never forget" with "a lot to be proud of". He may not have entered his neo-pro season with quite the same fanfare as some of the others on the list but with multiple wins while racing with the development team, including two Volta a Portugal em Bicicleta stage victories and a Circuit des Ardennes stage and overall win, there was plenty of reason for optimism that he could make some kind of impression in his first season with the NSN Cycling WorldTour squad.

There was certainly no waiting around, as he did just that in his very first races with the squad, twice missing the podium by just one spot on stage 4 and stage 5 of the Tour Down Under and then landing on it with a third at the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race. It wasn't long then until he found the top step, beating Dorian Godon and Remco Evenepoel over the line in a reduced group sprint on the final stage of Volta a Catalunya. From there the top tens continued to roll in through the season. Given the home performance at the start of 2026 as Gilmore was just integrating with the team, it will be intriguing to see just what the 25-year-old can deliver if we see him on the start line again for the Australian summer season in 2027.

Talia Appleton (Liv AlUla Jayco)

Talia Appleton had well and truly proven her ability in Australia and beyond in 2025, claiming a number of victories across the top-tier domestic series, the ProVelo Super League and also coming second overall, plus also stepping up to the podium on three stages and in the overall of the Tour de l'Avenir. It was a season that earnt the rider a place in the Liv AlUla Jayco development squad for 2026, but she quickly proved that she was capable of even more. An early season run of results that saw her take seventh at both the GP de Chambéry and the Clásica de Almería as well as third overall at Vuelta a Extremadura meant by May she had been promoted to the WorldTour team.

Once there the solid results continued to flow, with the 20-year-old consistently near the front section of the field despite the then 20-year-old rider's very recent introduction to it. Regularly a top five performer in the youth classification, and also finishing 14th overall at the Tour de Suisse, Appleton also broke through with her first professional win in June, making the most of her climbing strength to claim the 1.1 ranked Alpes Gresivaudan Classic. With that win and a results list through the season that paints a picture of consistency and strength, the rider from Victoria not only clearly justified the fast track to the Women's WorldTour team, but delivered more than a small hint of her GC potential.

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In a partial review of Netcompany Ineos' season, team Director of Racing Geraint Thomas conceded that 2026 "definitely wasn't good" from a results standpoint, although he did point out several positive aspects of the year.

Speaking with Decathlon CMA CGM Directeur Sportif Luke Rowe on the Watts Occurring podcast, Thomas accepted that the team was a long way from where it once was when he, Chris Froome, and Bradley Wiggins were dominating Grand Tours. However, he pointed out several of the team's successes as they look to progress to their former dominant position.

"People have kind of said, 'oh, you know, you can say was our season good or bad?' And purely from results, I'd say it definitely wasn't good," Thomas said.

"I feel like Dorian [Godon], Oscar [Onley], and Kévin [Vauquelin] are all new to the team and that takes a bit of gelling. I think the fact that they executed is a big plus. I think they all learned then the next phase of that plan. And I think they'll all take that forward, and it's part of that growing."

The three new additions were among Netcompany Ineos' highest performers in 2026. Godon was the team's top rider, winning seven times, including five stages across Paris-Nice, Volta a Catalunya, and Tour de Romandie.

Vauquelin, meanwhile, won the Giro d'Abruzzo and took fourth at Paris-Nice, and Onley took a stage win and second overall at the Vuelta a Burgos before taking sixth overall and best young rider at the Vuelta a España.

Thomas said the team was making progress, having "gone up the ladder a couple of steps" with their standout results.

"I think it's all learning and stuff as well, and even though results weren't particularly sensational, we had a lot of wins, but they were like smaller wins. It wasn't like any big wins, really," he said.

"It's all about that progression, and it's where you're starting from as well. This might be a headline now, but let's just say we're at 20% of what we used to be, to pick a number – you can't just go from 20 to 80 straight away.

"It's like climbing a ladder, isn't it? It's the same thing with a team, and I think we've gone up the ladder a couple of steps, for sure. We slipped a few times as well, but that's all part of it."

Other standout performances of Ineos' season included Filippo Ganna's Dwars door Vlaanderen triumph and Thymen Arensman's ride to fourth place at the Giro d'Italia, his best-ever Grand Tour result.

"Great to see Pippo win Dwar Doors, the rest pretty flat, really. But it's kind of like that's what's always kind of been with our team as well, isn't it?" Thomas said, summing up the Classics season.

"[The Giro] was a bit more of a traditional sort of Grand Tour, wasn't it? Jonas was the outstanding favourite, but the way Visma rode was a bit more old school – controlling the harder days, and there was the race for the podium behind. Out of the three, it was a bit more kind of what you're used to.

"Thymen was 30, 40 seconds off the podium. I think it was a massive step forward if you just take him in isolation, from previous years. Just psychologically, a lot more consistent.

"He's done a lot of work with Steve Peters this year, and I think it definitely paid off, and the combination with his coach worked really well. It's the best Grand Tour result he's ever had. He was super consistent, there were no big standout mistakes, and I think that's a big positive for him."

The team was set for something of an overhaul for the 2027 season, with Ganna among the notable names on the outgoing list as several promising younger riders come on board.

Leading the list is the highly-rated junior world champion Benjamín Noval, who joins alongside fellow Spaniard Markel Beloki and former Tour de l'Avenir champion Joseph Blackmore. With 22 riders confirmed for 2027, there'll be more to come from Ineos in the transfer market before next season gets underway at the Tour Down Under.

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Swiss bike brand BMC are set to make their first foray into the women’s peloton for many years, partnering with a Spanish ProTeam, Laboral Kutxa-Fundación Euskadi.

The deal, which is with the team’s Basque Country parent organisation Fundación Euskadi, will see the team not only riding their Teammachine SLR 01 frame sets, but also using their cockpits and wheels.

BMC have been a presence in the men’s peloton for some years, and currently provide bikes to the Tudor Pro Cycling Team. Before that, they worked with AG2R Citroën, Dimension Data, CCC and, obviously BMC Racing. However, they have not worked with a women’s team since at least the creation of the UCI Women’s WorldTour in 2016.

The company recently teased the partnership with a press release, saying "it’s about time we saw BMC bikes in both the men’s and Women’s Grand Tours," and the partnership has now been announced. As Laboral are one of the sport’s second-tier ProTeams, they have realised their desire to be present at the biggest women’s stage races.

"This partnership represents an exciting new chapter for BMC," said BMC’s head of marketing, David Heine. "As one of the brands that supported women's cycling early on, we are proud to return to the highest level of the sport with Laboral Kutxa-Fundación Euskadi.

"Women’s racing is thrilling, inspiring, dynamic, and growing rapidly worldwide. We look forward to supporting the team with our performance-driven bikes and proudly cheering for the riders throughout the season."

The partnership is part of BMC’s bid to gain more relevance with younger and more diverse riders and, as the team has riders from both Colombia and Chile on their 2027 roster, will help the company expand their presence not just in Spain but also South America.

Spanish rider Sandra Alonso will return in 2027, having several seasons of experience on the WorldTour level and raced the Tour de France Femmes three times.

Laboral Kutxa have been riding at UCI level since 2020, starting life as Continental level team before moving up to ProTeam in 2025. During the 2026 season they rode Chinese XDS bikes and Shimano groupsets, it is not yet known whether Shimano will remain on board.

The president of Fundación Euskadi, Iñaki Isasi, is rightfully pleased with the partnership. "Their technical standards and culture of performance correspond to the ambitions of Laboral Kutxa-Fundación Euskadi. This support allows us to approach the season with confidence and continue to grow our women's team at the highest level."

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Former Time Trial World Champion Ellen van Dijk has shed light on the management culture within the Picnic-PostNL team after the leadership was accused of creating a culture of anxiety and fear.

Van Dijk spent the 2017 and 2018 seasons with the team when it was called Sunweb, and described the management structure as "special", saying their methods contributed to her leaving the team after her two-year tenure brought 10 victories.

However, she does not recognise the culture of fear exposed in an extensive recent report from the Dutch public broadcaster NOS, though she accepts it might have existed.

"They have a strong opinion on how to work with riders, and they really believe in their approach. And for them, it's only that way that works," Van Dijk told Cyclingnews.

"There's a lot written about an anxiety culture, and I never experienced it that way. The management wanted you to listen to them, but I never was scared of them. I mean, if I wanted to say something, I would say it. But maybe if you're a younger rider, you can experience that.

"I just didn't experience the anxiety they are they are writing about, and for me that's a that's an important nuance to it. Maybe some people did experience that, but I didn’t."

'We were not a perfect match'

During an investigation into the team, NOS and the podcast In der Waaier spoke to 71 current and former riders and staff members, revealing accusations of a culture of fear and a "form of tyranny", with some staff leaving the organisation feeling traumatised.

The report further spoke of a lack of support for riders’ mental welfare and a management culture that feared losing control of its staff and was unwilling to allow riders any room outside the organisation’s decision-making.

Van Dijk’s time at the time came in the middle of a storied career that saw her take 71 victories, including three World and four European time trial titles. With Sunweb, her 10 race victories contributed to almost a third of the team’s total, but she left after two years, joining Lidl-Trek where she now works as a coach after retiring at the end of the 2025 season.

Though the team have a reputation for recruiting younger riders, Van Dijk was 29 when she joined, with one world title and victories at the Tour of Flanders and the Boels Ladies Tour GC already on her palmarès. The equally established and mature Lucida Brand arrived at the same time.

"I had quite some discussions with the management, they have a special way of working, and it didn't always fit my way of working, I kind of knew when I signed there that they are like that, but it was a bit more than I expected and yeah, we were not a perfect match together.

"But elite sports, being at the top level, it is really hard, and you need a special character for that. I think in this team, let's say, the characters that are less suited for pro cycling, they are offended a bit more easily, maybe.

"I think it's kind of part of the job that sometimes at the highest intensities, the highest emotions, people say things which are not okay, and then it depends on how sensitive you are at that moment. Sometimes it really hurts, and sometimes you think 'I don't care'. But it's a complicated subject for sure."

Harder for the youngsters

Picnic-PostNL has always had reputation for recruiting younger riders across its two WorldTour teams and that certainly applied to the women’s team, the 17 women on their 2026 roster averaging only 23 years of age. This has advantages and disadvantages, according to Van Dijk. On one hand riders are developed, but on the other they lack the maturity to challenge poor practice.

"I think they were really good for young riders to develop them and to guide them in the process of developing," she said. "I didn't agree with their way of working, but that's why I left, and maybe I had a bit of an easier position because I already had my place. It’s definitely easier than when you are young and you still are fighting for your place in cycling."

Van Dijk’s time with Sunweb was a hugely successful period for both the men’s and the women’s rosters. On the men’s side Tom Dumoulin was at the height of his powers, winning the GC at the 2017 Giro d’Italia and four stages across the two years, while other riders took multiple stages at the Tour de France among the 31 wins in the two years.

In the same period the women’s squad bagged victories at the Tour of Flanders, Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, the Ride London Classique and Madrid Challenge by La Vuelta among their haul of 29 wins. And both teams won the now defunct Team Time Trial World Championships in 2017.

"That was a surprise, and I wouldn't say that was because of their structure, I think; it was because of many things together," Van Dijk said of that success.

"But they got the confirmation that their way of working was going well, and from what I heard after that year it only became more strict because they started to believe in it even more."

Since the allegations emerged the team have appointed a prominent Dutch sports lawyer to lead an independent commission.

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Tadej Pogačar and UAE Team Emirates-XRG retained their dominance as professional cycling's top rider and team in 2026, winning the Tour de France and three Monuments. However, there remains one feat that they haven't yet achieved, which stands out as a goal for sports manager Joxean Fernández Matxin in 2027: winning all three Grand Tours in the same season.

It's only been done once in men's cycling history, by Jumbo-Visma (now Visma-Lease a Bike) in 2023, with Primož Roglič winning the Giro d'Italia, Jonas Vingegaard winning the Tour, and Sepp Kuss claiming a surprise win at the Vuelta a España.

It's no secret that Pogačar will be back at the Tour to defend his yellow jersey and take aim at breaking the record for overall victories with six, and he's also already pointed to a preference for combining it with the Vuelta, having crashed out while leading the race on stage 8 earlier this year. But Matxin is hopeful one of their other top GC riders can conquer the Giro and set up the chance for a complete set in one season.

"I don't look back on what we've achieved, but rather forward to what we still have to achieve. The possibility of breaking those five Tour victories with a sixth, the ambitious dream of winning all three Grand Tours in the same year," Matxin told Eurosport.es in a recent interview.

"What am I longing for right now? I won't lie to you, what Visma has achieved: winning the Giro, Tour, and Vuelta in the same year."

Matxin kept his cards close to his chest when asked if Isaac del Toro could return to the Giro after his second-place debut performance in 2025 and maiden podium at the Tour this year. Both the Mexican star's and Pogačar's schedules will be revealed at UAE's December training camp media day.

"Riders like Del Toro and Pogačar, in any race, will be contenders for the win. What I can guarantee is that we'll have a balanced team, a season where everyone will have their chances," he said.

In 2024, UAE won two of the three through Pogačar at the Giro and Tour, but in 2025 and 2026, they have only managed to win the Tour, with Visma taking out the past two Italian Grand Tours and the Vuelta in 2025. A crash denied the Slovenian what looked like a certain Vuelta victory, and, in spite of their 78 victories in 2026, UAE were heavily hit by crashes and injuries throughout the season – with more luck, Matxin is hopeful that goal becomes attainable.

"I think it could happen every year, but I don't know why it hasn't," he said.

"This year we've had really bad luck with crashes. We've had 78 crashes. 18 out of 30 riders have been injured. I think all those circumstances have made us stronger and helped us push ourselves to improve."

The main crash for UAE is, of course, that of Pogačar in Spain, in which he suffered several fractures and a concussion, and just last week he revealed how he had suffered more fractured vertebrae than was originally diagnosed. He's been ramping up his recovery into full training, and Matxin has no doubts about what level of Pogačar will be seen in 2027.

"When you truly go through and suffer through bad times, you'll find more meaning in them and appreciate the good times more fully," said the sports manager.

"I believe you have to be positive about everything in life, and from bad times you have to know that you'll come back stronger, with that little bit of anger that helps you improve.

"I have no doubt that Pogačar will be better than last year."

The 2027 Tour route and Pogačar's rivals

He also welcomed the recently unveiled route for the 2027 Tour de France, despite some suggestions that it is an "anti-Pogačar" course, understanding the organisers' need to try and keep the race open for longer. At the most recent race, the Slovenian had the GC all but wrapped up with a 2:42 lead on Vingegaard after stage 6.

"What the organisers are aiming for, and I understand them here, is to prevent the Tour from being decided on the fourth stage. I understand that perspective," said Matxin.

"I'm no fortune teller, but I do understand that the organisers are looking for formats that keep the race as open as possible."

When it comes to Pogačar's main rival, that spot will likely be filled by one of Vingegaard, Remco Evenepoel, or Paul Seixas, but the UAE boss was cautious to single any of them out at this moment, knowing full well how much a season of racing can change their respective standings.

"I would never say who the main rival is. Because just as Seixas emerged this year, someone else could. And just as Jonas Vingegaard has been the usual rival, this year he wasn't because of a crash," said Matxin.

"And just as Tadej didn't win the Vuelta a España because of a crash. In cycling, everything moves very quickly. Last year we were talking about Jonas being the rival, and it was Remco. We shouldn't rule out Remco. We shouldn't rule out Jonas. And we obviously shouldn't rule out Paul Seixas, because he's burst onto the scene brilliantly. I don't think we should focus on just one rider, but rather on the overall contenders for the general classification."

Even with his injuries, Pogačar will most likely line up at the start of the Tour in Edinburgh as the heavy favourite, but it remains to be seen how he will perform in races after his heavy crash, and how UAE will plot the best route to challenging for the Giro and Vuelta by splitting up their leaders.

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At the 15th time of asking, this spring Wout van Aert scored a cobbled Monument victory, beating Tadej Pogačar in a two-man sprint to win Paris-Roubaix on the Roubaix Velodrome.

For 2027, the Tour of Flanders is in his sights. The Belgian has finished fourth three times, with a second place in 2020, and he'll line up at the start next April as one of the favourites once again.

While he's more than happy to add one of the two cobbled Monuments to his 2020 Milan-San Remo triumph, Van Aert said that winning on home ground in Flanders could be trickier.

"For myself and for the people, it was much more of a release. The word 'finally' comes up often. I noticed that in the reactions as well. Apparently, I have made a lot of people happy," Van Aert told Fiets magazine of his Roubaix victory.

"Somewhere deep down, I didn't expect it to work out this year. That teaches me that I must always keep trying. There are riders who have better cards, but there are also few riders who get opportunities as I do. That chance can always come, and then I have to be ready. That applies to the Tour of Flanders as well."

Van Aert has already had to compete at Flanders with a great rival in Mathieu van der Poel but in recent years the race has changed somewhat, with five-time Tour de France winner Pogačar coming along and winning three times with attacks on the long Oude Kwaremont climb. Remco Evenepoel's surprise podium on debut this spring feeds into that notion that Flanders is not just for the traditional cobbled Classics specialists anymore.

"At the same time, it is no coincidence that it worked out in Roubaix specifically. That is one of the few Monuments where I have a more than realistic chance," Van Aert said.

"The Tour of Flanders is becoming increasingly difficult, especially with the presence of Pogačar and Remco Evenepoel. I have to keep believing, but also be realistic."

Roubaix release

Whatever happens next spring, though, Van Aert will always have his Roubaix victory to look back on, a win which came as a "release", he said.

"Roubaix keeps coming back regularly. You notice people like to start talking about it, and do so quickly. It is a victory that clearly resonates deeply.

"Those previous big victories aren't even that far behind us, but back then it felt more like a logical consequence of my development as a rider. Now, for myself and for the people, it was much more of a release.

"If it had happened one or two years earlier, relief might have predominated more. Back then, I felt more strongly that I needed such a victory to make my career a success.

"I realise that I have already achieved many wonderful things. That does not alter the fact that Roubaix remained a huge motivation. Of course, there was relief after all the work I had put into it, but above all, it was a very profound moment of joy."

Van Aert went on to win plenty more in 2026, including a stage of the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, the Tour of Denmark, and two stages and the points jersey at the Vuelta a España. His plans for 2027 remain to be seen, though the cobbled Classics and a return to the Tour de France, which he was forced to miss this summer, look certain.

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With the routes for the 2027 editions of the Tour de France and Giro d'Italia now out of the bag, the world's top general classification riders have all the material with which to make their Grand Tour plans for the season ahead.

Though the Vuelta a España shouldn't be forgotten about, the big question, as ever, is Giro or Tour – or even both.

Over in Italy, we have a route that's billed as balanced but still favours the purer climbers with summit finishes here there and everywhere, and 57km of time trialling but 19 of those being uphill. In France, we have a somewhat shocking increase in time trialling – 71km and largely flat time – coupled with a notable reduction in marquee mountain stages.

But where does that leave the world's leading Grand Tour contenders in their decision-making processes for next year? And who will actually be swayed to target the Giro d'Italia over and above the Tour de France?

Here, we take a look at factors that will be swaying all the big names, and how likely they are to be booking a flight to Italy next May.

Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG)

Giro Probability: Highly unlikely

The Giro d’Italia organisers have dangled a carrot in front of Tadej Pogačar’s nose with two stages on Slovenian soil, but it doesn’t seem to have worked – at least not fully. The 2024 Giro champion sounds like he’d love to return for a second appearance but other duties might take precedence: “Even though I'd rather ride the Giro, I'll have to tick off the Vuelta at some point too. I think that will be the goal for next year,” he said recently.

The Vuelta, of course, is a source of unfinished business, given he crashed out while in the lead this year, and given it remains the missing Grand Tour in his trophy cabinet. Pogačar has demonstrated a penchant for broadening his palmarès and ticking races off in recent years, and for someone who has won so much, the Vuelta represents something of a gaping hole at this point. And given the Tour de France is an immovable point on his program, the Spanish Grand Tour is set to be the preferred combination.

When it comes to the Giro, another stumbling block would appear to be another missing piece of the Pogačar palmarès puzzle: Paris-Roubaix. The Slovenian has become one of the most prolific Classics riders of all time and the Hell of the North is now the only missing trophy in his Monument cabinet. Having finished runner-up two years in a row, an extraordinary and historic victory is clearly within his grasp, and this seems to have become a major fixation. The cobbled Classics in early April are less than a month out from the Giro and require completely different training loads and even physiologies – Pogačar himself opened up about the weight he gained for this year’s Spring campaign and hitting that flat-land Classics shape isn’t compatible with gearing the body for a mountainous three-week race.

Pogačar will surely return to the Giro in the future but it would be a huge surprise to see him there next year.

Isaac del Toro (UAE Team Emirates-XRG)

Giro Probability: Likely

If Pogačar does indeed stick with his 2026 schedule, then that opens the door for Isaac del Toro to target the Giro d’Italia in a bid to win a first Grand Tour. The Mexican arguably should have won the 2025 Giro but let victory escape him in a hugely dramatic denouement, and he decided against trying to right those wrongs this year in favour of joining Pogačar at the Tour, where he joined him on the podium.

That ride this summer – along with the rest of an outstanding season – confirmed Del Toro as one of the very best riders in the world and a Grand Tour winner in waiting. Having gained that experience – and particularly having learned directly from Pogačar at the Tour – it would seem Del Toro is ready to step up into a true leadership role, and the Giro represents the perfect place for that to happen.

Going back to the Tour, meanwhile, would likely yield the very same result, so in terms of his development the Giro feels like a logical next step in 2027.

Remco Evenepoel (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe)

Giro Probability: Unlikely

Only a few weeks ago, when the new Giro boss Luca Guercilena was talking about re-balancing routes and re-embracing time trials, it seemed like Remco Evenepoel would have a huge decision to make following his brilliant runner-up finish at this year’s Tour. Return to France, and knock against the impenetrable Pogačar-shaped door once again? Or head to Italy on a more favourable route with less competition?

But the route reveals have done away with those preconceptions. Given Evenepoel’s incredible time trialling superiority and his vulnerability to an off-day in the mountains – even if his 2026 Tour was impressively consistent – the Tour is surely the route that suits him the best next year.

He would dearly love to win the Giro – the first Grand Tour he took aim at in his career and which he arguably might have won in 2023 were it not for COVID-19 – but he won’t want to miss the Tour after what he did there this year, and now the route doesn’t really give him a convincing counter-argument.

The Tour also seems to sit better with Evenepoel’s season as a whole, allowing him to return to the Tour of Flanders after his impressive debut this year, and target a third Liège-Bastogne-Liège title later in the Spring, before building quietly towards the Tour like last year. There has been speculation over a Giro-Tour double but all the noise from the Evenepoel camp is that he’ll do even less racing – and even more tailored training blocks – in 2027, so this doesn’t seem realistic in the slightest.

Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike)

Giro Probability: Unlikely

Having won the Giro at a canter this year, and with it now ticked off on his palmarès amid the complete set of all three Grand Tours, the question is what Vingegaard has to gain by going to the Giro. Sportingly, not an enormous amount – another Giro title would still be an amazing achievement and one that would underline his greatness as a five-time Grand Tour winner. However, after a third straight Pogačar victory and with that once-dramatic rivalry now looking extremely one-sided, the Tour de France is surely more urgent a priority than ever.

The interesting point is that the Tour was still, on paper, the priority in 2026. Vingegaard spent the best part of the spring and summer talking about how he is stronger in the second Grand Tour of a season, making the Giro appear to be little more than a preparation race. We never got to see the theory truly play out, as Vingegaard – already far behind but still insisting he was growing into the race – crashed out of the Tour on stage 15.

If he and Visma-Lease a Bike truly believe his best Tour de France form can be reached with the Giro in the legs, then another double could well be on the cards, which would be great for the sport. But with the Giro ticked off the palmarès, the suspicion is that they will focus squarely on the Tour de France and opt for a more tailored approach – after all, as easily as Vingegaard won the Giro, it still comes with a lot of mental stress plus the exposure to 21 days where – as he and Pogačar know only too well from last year – best laid plans can be wiped out in a moment’s misfortune.

Paul Seixas (Decathlon CMA CGM)

Giro Probability: 50:50

After placing fourth at this year’s Tour de France, in the middle of some truly sensational exploits in the spring and autumn, Paul Seixas is the hottest property in cycling and his Grand Tour choices for 2027 will be eagerly anticipated and indeed scrutinised.

The routes for both races suit the Frenchman but he’s like Pogačar – a Swiss Army knife all-rounder and perhaps even better against the clock – so it’s hard to envisage a route that wouldn’t suit his characteristics.

Does he go back to the Tour and try to get a little closer to Pogačar? Or does he take on the Giro with a much clearer path to victory?

Still only 20, there’s no way he’ll ride both, not least because he has his heart set on the World Championships near his grandparents’ house, which take place earlier next year, just a month after the Tour. In fact, those Worlds might just sway it, coming in a tricky spot not soon enough after the Tour to cash in on the residual form that follows the initial recovery period, and not long enough away to truly wind down and build back up again. In that sense, if Seixas is as serious as he sounds about the Worlds, doing the Giro and skipping the Tour would actually make the most sense in terms of peaking for both (even if it might compromise any Spring Classics ambitions).

One important thing to note with Seixas is that he has not yet finalised contract negotiations for 2028 and beyond. After turning pro on an initial three-year deal, and with his value skyrocketing, this is a huge next contract for Seixas and one that will shape the sport for the next five years. Decathlon are working hard to keep him but rumours of big-money offers have been doing the rounds all year. What all this means for the Giro is that Seixas finds himself in the unusual position of being the one who can call the shots. A French team with the star French rider usually means the Tour de France – it took years for Romain Bardet to be allowed to do the Giro in this same team – but Decathlon are so desperate to tempt him to stay that, when it comes to his race program in 2027, it’s essentially his own call.

Other big names

• Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe have arguably the deepest Grand Tour arsenal in the world, and if Evenepoel does decide against the Giro then it will be interesting what the German team do with their marquee home talent, Florian Lipowitz. With less time trialling, the Giro seems better suited to the 2025 Tour podium finisher, and there were some awkward moments of cohabitation with Evenepoel at last year’s Tour. Giulio Pellizzari had a disappointing Giro this year but could return as a home hope, while former winner Jai Hindley might be tempted to do what he did this year – shoot for the podium at the Giro then work for Evenepoel at the Tour.
• Ineos Grenadiers will almost certainly send Oscar Onley to the Tour de France after he missed out on the chance this year, with Egan Bernal, Thymen Arensman and Carlos Rodríguez the others who'll need to fit around those plans. 
• Visma-Lease a Bike could well hand the Giro reigns to the rider who guided Vingegaard so impressively in the mountains this year: Davide Piganzoli. The 24-year-old Italian had a stand-out season and looks set to assume greater responsibility next year. 
• Lidl-Trek have decisions to make with Giro runner-up Felix Gall joining Juan Ayuso and Mattias Skjelmose at the team. Gall has been the best of them in the past couple of years but really struggles against the clock, unlike the other two, so it could be Giro for the Austrian again.
• Richard Carapaz was more of a stage hunter with EF but might renew his GC focus at NSN – given their lack of climbing options, perhaps we'll see him double up.

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In a world of some fairly extreme aero machines being released, the Look 795 Blade RS looks almost conventional in its appearance.

Svelte tube profiles that rely on squared off ends for aero performance and more standard clean lines rather than sharp angles and flared elements result in a bike that looks like a rather normal bike.

Interestingly this is Look's out-and-out aero machine, but it doesn't resemble the deep profiled aero bikes from the likes of Factor, Van Rysel, or other brands. It does however have a rather narrow front profile, something the Factor ONE and Tarmac SL9 have all pursued with the leading edge of the bike often being one of the more important elements when it comes to overall aerodynamic performance of a bike.

The bike doesn't come with dedicated aero bottle cages, like the ENVE Melee V2 or Trek Madone, but the bottle boss placement and tube shapes are designed to limit the negative impact that fitting a 500ml round bottle tends to have an aerodynamic performance.

Tyre clearance is claimed to be 34mm, while Look states that the bike can come in at 7kg fully race ready. What that means is not specified, but we'd hope that means with bottle cages, computer mount, and pedals fitted.

The protocol

We're now somewhat dab handed when it comes to conducting these wind tunnel tests and for this latest round we followed the same protocol as previously.

We're already outlined in great detail how we went about testing in our 2025 aero bike shootout article if you want to go over it in all it's glory there.

However I'll outline the main principles here as well.

1. Bike only:

This is the first test, and involves the bike being tested as stock with the wheels that it comes with and all components as standardised as we can.

The position is adjusted to be as close as possible between bikes in terms of size, handlebar width, stack, and seat height, but the saddle, groupset, and all the components are as sold.

This allows us to test the bike as is without the added complexity of a riders legs acting as large moving pistons disrupting the airflow. Although not attributable to real world, it can show some interesting differences between bikes that may have data that suggests they are fast, but not necessarily in the real world where a rider is present.

2. With a rider:

Obviously no bike can be ridden without a rider, so testing with a rider present on the bike is essential for actual real world applicable testing that matters to you.

Some bikes are designed with riders on them, while others are not. Comparing the two tests can give us an indication of who has followed certain design methodologies.

The only issue is that, even while keeping rider position as consistent as possible, it is difficult to keep the margin of error as small as the frame-only. The margin for error is greater, yes, but still gives us a good idea of good performing bikes, bad performing ones, and standout offerings.

3. Bike only, control wheels

Wheels make up a descent amount of aero performance for a bike as they are one of the first things the air hits and the last that it leaves.

We use a standardised set of wheels (Enve SES 4.5) and tyres (28mm Continental GP5000 S TR) because some of the test bikes come with 40mm wheels and 28mm tyres, while others came with 60mm options and 30mm tyres. There is also the fact that some frames are designed to perform best with certain wheels, while others are not.

Testing with a control set of wheels allows us to test the frame, fork, and components in isolation somewhat to the effect of a synergistic wheelset.

We can also infer some wheel performance testing from doing this, as some wheels test worse than the control ones, and others better.

All testing was done across yaw angles (the angle the wind hits the bike) of -15°, -10°, -5°, 0°, 5°, 10° and 15° to allow us to assess crosswind performance.

Testing itself is conducted at 40km/h as a decided speed that the majority of buyers may expect to go on their faster-paced grouprides, group events, or giving a road bike time trial a go. Rather than the 45kph+ that WorldTour pros race. We appreciate everyone will go faster than this at points, but that'll mostly be with the support of a tailwind or a hill.

Bike-only tests collect data for 10 seconds at each yaw angle, as there is less noise (messy data) and variance here, while With-Rider tests are done for 30 seconds each time to reduce the amount of noise we get from the tests and reduce the error margin.

To try and standardise things we ensure all testing is done in the same gear, so rear mech placement is similar, and with the same front tyres as they are the first thing the wind impacts. Position on the bike is kept as close as possible between bikes thanks to a laser outline so body position has limited impact on the results.

Two Elite Vico cages with Elite Fly bottles are fitted to each bike, save for when the bike comes with aero bottle cages as standard such as the ENVE Melee V2. This is because those are included parts of a bike, and people are unlikely to remove them (in favour of something nominally worse) so it is worth testing them as part of the entire system.

We have done a piece about the impacts of round bottles versus aero bottles if you want some homework.

We also still have our trusty Trek Emonda ALR control bike for the baseline testing. We test this at the start and end of each test day to ensure that conditions have remained consistent throughout the testing day. It hasn't changed since we started doing these tests, so allows us to ensure 2025 and 2026 testing days are comparable.

The results

Bike only

You can see here that the Look performs far better than our Emonda, and close to the Factor ONE. Look does state that the bike shaves 15 watts off the performance of the previous generation at 50kph, while performance across -15˚ to 15˚ Yaw was also an important part of development.

The Blade is actually closer to the performance of the Factor at the more extreme Yaw angles. Often more bladed tube shapes can perform well here acting as a sail, but only to the point at which they stall. Round tubes, like the Emoda, struggle here.

Total drag for the Look 795 Blade RS was 35.42 watts faster than the Emonda baseline. More impressively, it was a massive 11.3 watts faster than the previous generation 795 that we tested previously.

It also places it just shy of 5 watts behind the Factor ONE in first place for our bike-only testing.

With rider

When we add a rider to the equation, essential for the real world, performance is relatively better, with the Look actually beating the Factor at the more extreme yaw angles.

These are more prevalent at lower speeds, blustery conditions, and when riding in a bunch, so the bike seems well primed to perform well in more real world conditions.

However, we can see that the 2026 testing conditions were slightly faster than the 2025 based on the Emonda baseline testing, so although the Look performs well, it may be a watt or so slower than our measures when compared to previous test bikes.

With a rider present, the Look jumps up the table comfortably into the top quarter. 22.9 watts faster than the Emoda and just under 5 watts behind the Cervélo S5 at the top.

It's worth caveating that with a rider, not only is the error margin greater, meaning the bike could be anywhere from 3rd to near last, but the differences between frames are also smaller. The fact is that a rider makes up most of the drag, while large moving legs disrupt that smooth airflow massively.

This is why a clean front end and trailing edge can really help in real world aero performance, as well as deeper section wheels. It helps reduce the drag at the front of the bike, while also sometimes helping in smoothing the airflow coming off the back of the rider.

Control wheels

Interestingly, when we add the control wheels to the equation, the Look suffers badly, dropping down the table and 7.09w behind the Factor ONE and 2.72w slower than with the standard wheels.

This is likely due to the bike being tested initially with the Scope Artech 6 wheelset, which is deeper than our ENVE 4.5 control wheelset and a very sold aero performer as we have tested ourselves.

An intriguing aside, the Argon 18 Nitrogen Pro also came with the same wheels (albeit it modified versions to better suit the frame), yet it suffered less when we switched to the ENVE wheels. It looks like the Look does perform exceptionally well with those Scope Artechs.

This may look damning for the Look, but it's worth bearing in mind that the bike performed relatively better with a rider present than just the frame-only, which is how we tested the control wheels.

Even taking the same penalty of switching the wheels and applying this directly to the rider-on tests, the Blade 795 RS remains in the mid-table cluster which includes the likes of the 2026 Cannondale SuperSix Lab71 and aero focussed Van Rysel RCR-F.

The conclusions

Look designed this bike to be fast in the real world, with bottles mounted and a rider present. Given that the 795 Blade RS performed relatively better with a rider on the bike, we can say that to that end Look has done a very good job. It has also eclipsed the aero performance of the previous generation bike as a frame-only and rider-on model which is mightily impressive given the visually limited differences.

Some of the aero performance is clearly from being tested with a class-leading set of deep section 60mm wheels versus some bikes that were tested with 40mm options. However, even with that accounted for, it's a solidly performing bike.

A race-ready weight of 7kg claimed is also impressive and up there with all-rounder aero bikes that don't fully sacrifice light weight. My favourite addition to this bike though is the handlebar system.

On the face of it, it looks like a one-piece bar and stem, but the reality is that it is a very smooth and clean two-piece system. Given that many one-piece systems can cost in excess of £500 and be a pain to switch, this two-piece system offers easily adjustability to change reach and bar width.

The reason this is so helpful is that, as our tests have shown, the rider makes up the largest proportion of drag in the full bike and rider equation. Having the option to adjust the geometry more to accommodate a more aerodynamic position that can be sustained for a ride is going to offer a far larger potential aero gain than the small differences between frames.

The 2026/2027 cyclo-cross calendar is already rolling, and the winter campaign hits full throttle on Friday, November 27, 2026, with the opening round of the marquee UCI Cyclo-cross World Cup in Ostrava, Czechia.

The season culminates with the 2027 UCI Cyclo-cross World Championships taking place from Friday, 29 January to Sunday, 31 January 2027.

Before we get to World Cup action, we have plenty of action to enjoy, including the Cyclo-cross European Championships this weekend, November 7-8, and the Pan American Cyclo-cross Championships on November 7.

The only way to guarantee uninterrupted viewing from anywhere is to use a VPN. It lets you stream your usual subscribed cycling coverage from wherever you are while keeping your online connection secure and private.

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With star names including record-breaking eight-time World CX champion Mathieu van der Poel, Wout van Aert, and Tom Pidcock all likely to appear at some point in the full 12-round CX World Cup calendar, now is the ideal time to get your cyclo-cross streaming arrangements locked down.

A VPN (Virtual Private Network) is a cyber-security tool that keeps you safe online and allows you to alter the digital location of your devices, thus bypassing the geo-restrictions you get on most streaming platforms.

Our tech colleagues at both TechRadar and T3 both recommend NordVPN as the best overall, and its blistering speed, robust threat protection, and consistently dependable global network are some of its standout features.

2026/27 UCI Cyclo-cross World Cup Schedule

How to watch cyclo-cross in the UK

TNT Sports and HBO Max are the UK’s go-to home for cycling, boasting another bumper broadcast lineup for the 2026/27 cyclo-cross campaign. Subscribers can catch every battle across the UCI World Cup and World Championships, alongside regular action from the Superprestige, X2O Badkamers Trofee, and Exact Cross circuits.

Access to TNT Sports starts at £25.99 a month, and TNT Sports plus HBO Max starts at £27.99. HBO Max also includes some of the best series and movies on top of the live sports coverage.

How to watch cyclo-cross in the US

Following the cyclo-cross season from the US can be a bit fragmented, with live rights largely split between FloBikes and HBO Max.

Dedicated cycling hub FloBikes carries a healthy slice of top-flight action, including select World Cup rounds. However, broadcast schedules can fluctuate and don't always cover the entire calendar, making it wise to monitor their upcoming listings closely. Membership is either $39.99 on a rolling monthly basis or $155.88 for an annual pass.

HBO Max holds a major share of US streaming rights across the winter calendar. To access the live sports feed, you'll need at least the Standard ad-free tier, which sits at $18.49 per month.

For occasional free-to-air viewing, the official UCI YouTube channel occasionally streams select races live, though those feeds are strictly geoblocked in regions where a domestic broadcaster holds exclusive distribution rights.

We test and review VPN services in the context of legal recreational uses. For example: 1. Accessing a service from another country (subject to the terms and conditions of that service). 2. Protecting your online security and strengthening your online privacy when abroad. We do not support or condone the illegal or malicious use of VPN services. Consuming pirated content that is paid-for is neither endorsed nor approved by Future Publishing.

Roval claims that the Rapide CLX Sprint are ‘the fastest road wheels [they’ve] ever tested’. When they were launched in the summer of 2025, they turned heads and raised eyebrows with their revolutionary (to the road market, at least) mullet dimensions; a deeper front wheel and shallower rear wheel.

A front wheel depth of 63mm and a rear wheel depth of 58mm, paired with carbon spokes and ceramic DT 180 hubs makes the intended use of this wheelset exceedingly clear; these are for racing. Fast.

I’ve been testing these wheels for the last few months on the road in pretty much all conditions. I’ve ridden them on fast flat group rides, up long mountains, and battered them over a broad variety of road surfaces from smooth asphalt to fine gravel on unpaved bike paths.

By way of comparison, I’ve actually ridden (and owned) both previous generations of Roval’s Rapide wheelsets, and currently use a set of Reserve 57/64 Turbulent wheels on my race bike - as well as having tested dozens of other wheels over the last few years; so I have a pretty deep pool of experience to compare with.

These Rovals are positioned as one of the best road bike wheels in the market, and have all the credentials - on paper, at least - to live up to Roval’s speed claims.

Design and Aesthetics

Let’s address the elephant in the room first; the difference in depth between the front and rear wheel is nowhere near as noticeable as you might think. At a glance, you’d be hard pushed to see a 5mm difference in rim depth when standing still - let alone when whizzing past - and when we first spotted these wheels at the Spring Classics in 2025, it was only the eagle eye of senior tech writer Will Jones - who really is frightfully attuned to 5mm differences in wheel depth - who spotted these on the Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe bikes.

When explaining this design choice, Roval claimed that “90% of aero benefit comes from the front wheel”, so they optimised this whilst reducing the depth of the rear wheel to save weight and keep the overall package as light as possible. I can’t validate these aero claims myself, but the theory is sound. I’ll get into my experience with the performance of these wheels later on.

Depth aside, the rest of the rim dimensions are equally as interesting. Both front and rear internal widths are 21mm. This was somewhat of a surprise to me and - dare I say it - quite narrow for a modern wheelset. Roval’s reasoning for this width is that the rim profile is aerodynamically optimised around a 28mm tyre. For comparison, the Reserve 57|64 are 25.4mm internally at the front and 24.4mm at the rear - so are much better suited to more modern tyre widths of 30mm, 32mm, or even wider; not uncommon even on racing bikes in 2026.

My main surprise with the internal rim width is that it’s exactly the same as the previous two generations of Rapide wheels - which were first launched alongside the Specialized Tarmac SL7 in 2020. At the time, 21mm was plenty wide enough for the narrower widths riders chose back then - I was still racing on 23mm rubber - but a lot’s changed since then, and the choice to retain a 21mm internal width feels a little out of touch with the choices riders are making in 2026.

The wheels came to me in ‘review spec’, meaning they were missing a lot of the accessories they are supposed to include (such as wheel bags or tubeless valves), but they did come with a set of 28mm Specialized cotton folding racing only tyres. When mounted, these looked a lot narrower than 28mm, and left a noticeable lip of the rim showing. The external widths are 35mm at the front and 34.4mm at the rear, which accentuated how narrow the 28mm tyres looked, and they measured up closer to 27mm. Roval claims that the wheels are rated for tyres ranging from 24mm up to 38mm - I would suggest that the profile of a 38mm tyre on these rims would be sub-optimal, at least aerodynamically.

After a few weeks on the 28mm cotton tyres with inner tubes (which were amazing by the way - these were my race tyres of choice a few years ago, and it was lovely to revisit them and remind myself how fast and chattery they feel compared to modern, fatter rubber) I switched to some tubeless options; namely Continental’s GP5000 S TR in a 30mm and then a 32mm spec. I’ll get onto how this impacted the wheels in the performance section of the review.

At this point, it’s worth noting that the Rapide range of wheels are available in three specifications; the CLIII, the CLXIII, and these Sprint CLX. The CLIII and CLXIII both use a shallower rim combination of 51mm at the front and 48mm at the rear. All three variants share the same carbon rim construction, with the differences being the choice of spokes and hubs specced. The CLIII are priced at £1,548 and use DT Swiss Competition Race Straight Pull spokes and DT Swiss 350 stainless steel hubs, and the CLXIII uses the same spokes and hub combo as these sprints and are priced the same at £2,998.

Carbon spokes are still fairly rare on stock wheels from mainstream brands, but Roval has plumped for composite spokes manufactured by Arris Composites.

Arris is a brand I wasn’t familiar with before diving into the spec sheet of these wheels, but a quick glance at its website shows that it primarily produces ‘drone & defense’ products, alongside carbon plates for running shoes. In the interest of brevity, I won’t be diving too much further down the rabbit hole beyond their company motto: “Making products radically lighter and stronger”. Safe to say, it delivers on these goals.

The front wheel has 18 two-cross radially laced spokes, and the rear 24 one-cross / three-cross. All the spokes have alloy nipples and titanium endpieces.

I haven’t used carbon spokes before, and to be honest I don’t think I noticed that much of a difference. Of course, they’ll contribute to the feather light weight of these wheels, but in terms of stiffness or compliance, I can’t say they moved the needle for me compared to other wheels with steel spokes. I did have thoughts of their fragility in the back of my mind for the first few rides, but these quickly vanished after battering over a few cobbled sectors around Bristol and having no issues. In terms of practicality, they are pretty proprietary spokes, but Roval supplies four extra spokes and nipples should anything happen.

Roval has specced the ‘Sprint’ variation of these Rapide wheels with some pretty bling hubs. The hub body is a custom machined Roval alloy hub loaded with DT Swiss 180 ceramic bearings. These are really beautiful hubs that look as premium as they feel - even down to the minimalist centrelock rotor hubs with fewer splines to further reduce weight.

Performance

Riding with these wheels felt great. The combination of deep, aerodynamic rims picking up the wind and pushing me along like a sail combined with the low rotational weight and super smooth hubs gave me the sensation of having really good legs on every ride. Those subtle sensations - when you punch over the top of a climb and get back up to speed a little quicker than normal, or when you look at your speed on the flat and find your going a few kilometers an hour quicker than you thought you were - are hard to find when you’re an experienced rider and usually ride pretty fast equipment, but these wheels really did feel special.

Of course, there’s every chance that this was the placebo effect of having some shiny new equipment, but it didn’t really diminish much throughout the test period, so I’m inclined to say the wheels are actually just really fast.

They were stiff without being jittery, deep without being easily led by crosswinds, and light enough to flick up climbs out the saddle without the sensation of being dragged backwards that some aero wheels can have.

I rode these wheels in some pretty heavy rain throughout the testing, and - although I haven’t put thousands of kilometers into them - the hubs are still running smoothly and showing virtually zero signs of wear.

Gushing aside, I did have one qualm with the wheels that I couldn’t shake. Using the 28mm inner-tube-only cotton tyres pumped up to about 80psi felt a bit jittery; they were firm and translated a lot of road noise through to my hands. I didn’t necessarily mind this - it’s about what I expected and reminded me of how bikes used to feel. I also knew that the narrower tyres are the specification the wheels are designed around, so running them was offering the maximum aerodynamic benefit; which I’m sure played some part in making these wheels feel so…zippy.

However, when I switched up to 30mm tyres, the wheels did feel slightly more muted. The profile of the tyres on the rims was also much wider than the 28mm Specialized tyres (which suggests to me that the Specialized tyres actually come up a little undersized) and had an ever so slight lightbulb looking profile to them, which I knew would impact the aerodynamics.

They were, of course, more comfortable than the 28mm tyre, but knowing they were costing watts and losing that real edge that these wheels had presented up until now didn’t feel great. The 32mm tyres were even wider, and ballooned out significantly from the rim.

Comparing this to the Reserve wheels I run day-to-day, which have a 25.4mm internal width at the front and 24.4mm at the rear and accept 30 and 32mm rubber with a much smoother profile, and the impracticality of the Roval’s rim width becomes clearer.

Race bikes have changed a lot in recent years. We’ve seen riders up-sizing their tyres for a number of years now, and not just in the Spring Classics where wider tyres have always been the norm. A wheel optimised for a 28mm tyres does make me think the Rapide Sprint CLXs will become outdated quite quickly as more and more riders follow the pros lead and switch to fatter rubber.

Now, I’m not suggesting there’s anything wrong with 28mm tyres, nor am I suggesting that there’s anything wrong with 21mm internal rim widths; much like rim brakes - they still work absolutely fine. But, you can’t deny, they are measurements that are becoming increasingly outdated as the industry progresses, and if you wanted to future proof yourself with a set of wheels that will stand the test of time, these probably aren’t quite wide enough to do so.

Personal preference aside, I’m pleased to say that the hooked rims were a doddle to set up tubeless with just a track pump using both the 30mm and 32mm Continental tyres.

If you plan on using these with inner tubes, make sure you stock up on long-valve spare tubes or valve extenders, as the 63mm front rim is too deep for most standard tubes, and you may get caught out…which DEFINITELY didn’t happen to me…

Value

There’s no two ways about it; these wheels are expensive. Just under £3,000 is getting on for the most it’s possible to spend on stock wheels, and there are much less expensive wheels out there that will offer much of the performance you find in the Rapide CLX Sprints.

The Hunt 5AM Limitless wheels, reviewed by Will Jones recently, are a strong alternative. But even within Roval’s own Rapide range, the CLIIIs are £1,548 - almost half the price - and, although they lose the carbon spokes and drop down to a slightly shallower rim depth, will still be a significant upgrade on a lot of stock wheelsets.

However, these particular hoops are tricked out with some of thez finest components money can buy, and they feel wicked fast. Can you really put a price on that feeling?

Comparing them to the Reserve 57|64 SL Turbulent Aero wheels - which retail for a mere £1 more - and the spec sheet is broadly the same, bar the Reserve’s favouring a Tune hub. However, the Reserve wheels do include both the Shimano HG and the SRAM XDR driver in the box - so creep ever so slightly ahead on the value front. They also do have a more modern rim profile, so will hold their stock a bit better as the years roll on and tyres continue to get wider.

Verdict

Overall, I really did enjoy riding these wheels, but I probably wouldn’t buy them. As fast and sprightly as they felt, I just wouldn’t want to part with that much cash for a rim of this width given my preference for more modern tyre widths.

You might disagree. If you’re a fan of (what I would call) narrower tyres and want a fast, stiff, light race wheel package, and are happy knowing that if you wanted to fit wider tyres to these wheels you’d be missing out on a lot of their claimed aero benefit, then these are great. If you want to run tyres wider than 28mm, I’d say there are better options out there.

Unibet Rose Rockets have welcomed on board a new head of racing as Aike Visbeek joins for the 2027 season. The team will aim for a Tour de France wildcard invite next year, after making their Grand Tour debut at this year's Giro d'Italia.

The 50-year-old Dutchman previously worked at Sunweb, SEG Racing Academy, Intermarché-Wanty, and, for half of the 2026 season, Lotto-Intermarché.

He surprisingly departed Lotto at the end of June, wanting to spend time with his family after the death of his father-in-law. Now, he's heading for a new start next season with the Dutch ProTeam.

"What attracted me to the Rockets is that this is a team that is still building and has a clear ambition to keep moving forward," Visbeek said upon signing with his new team.

"I have been fortunate to work on similar projects before, where you really have the opportunity to develop something together."

Visbeek has more than a decade of experience in various roles across several teams, with his longest stint coming at Sunweb between 2013 and 2019. At Lotto, he worked as chief performance officer.

Unibet Rose Rockets chief sports officer Eelco Meenhorst said that Visbeek has "an impressive track record of developing teams and improving performance at the highest level.

"His knowledge, strategic insight, and experience will be extremely valuable as we continue to strengthen our performance," he added.

Unibet will field a largely similar squad for 2027, with only Axel Mariault (CIC Pro Cycling Academy) confirmed on the incoming list to date. Major names including Dylan Groenewegen, Wout Poels, and Lukáš Kubiš stay on board, while several other riders – including Clément Venturini, Odd Christian Eiking, and Victor Lafay – are departing.

Visbeek's addition isn't the team's only behind-the-scenes change this offseason. Bas Tietema, Unibet co-founder and main 'face', is stepping away from the sporting side to focus "even more on positioning the team as well as possible", including media and business duties, reported WielerFlits.

"The fact that [Visbeek] has chosen to join us says a lot about how far we have come as an organisation, but even more about where we believe we can go," said Tietema.

"We have already taken some incredible steps, but we are far from finished."

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A modern icon of the Giro d'Italia will return for the 2027 race after six years out of the action: the Monte Zoncolan. The brute of the Carnic Alps, one of Italy's most fearsome climbs, and on its eighth appearance at the men's Giro, it will serve as the grand finale to the race for the maglia rosa on stage 20.

It will be approached from the traditional Ovaro side in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, roughly 120km northwest of where the 110th Giro starts in Trieste, offering up an average gradient of 11.9% across the 10.1km to the summit as one of the sport's most savage double-digit beasts.

Even worse than the average gradient, though, is what is hidden underneath the profile on paper – the steepest sections exceed 20%, where even the most elite climbers in the world can be made to look ordinary as they battle to survive, and the suffering barely repents as the road up to 1,750m ticks by.

After an eye-opening 1.65 km at 9.1%, the riders are lulled into a false sense of security as they hit a tiny flat section between Liariis Piazza and Inizia Strada Zoncolan, but they will all know the worst is still to come, and this only brings the climb into the most difficult sector.

The subsequent 4km are raced at a vicious average gradient of 15.3%, and it's here where the steepest pinches will be found, upwards of 22%, and the group will start to thin at a rapid rate as those unable to live with the tempo are forced to fight for cadence and position on the mountain.

With several important mountain days already in the legs, whoever is in pink before Zoncolan will be hoping their gap is all but out of sight by this point, but race organisers RCS have opened the door to late drama as an off day could cause total capitulation.

Anyone could falter on the section after the village in Liariis, but it doesn't get much easier from thereon out, with the next 3km still averaging 13.9% gradient, and the final 2km to the line – where the legs will already be empty and screaming – are taken on at 7.1% and 8.9% respectively.

The riders will traverse through tunnels marking the final kilometre, having almost completed the narrow, often snow-lined in May and exposed roads overlooking the Gorto valley, arriving at the foot via 120km of mostly flat roads, and then two late warm-up ascents up the Passo Duron and Sella Valcalda.

All the way up will be massive crowds roaring on the GC favourites and pushing those in the grupetto to survive the climb, which vies for the top spot when it comes to professional cycling's most difficult ascent alongside the Alto de l'Angliru and Passo del Mortirolo – which, in the 2027 Giro, the riders will have already tackled twice in the same day on stage 16.

Emerging from the tunnels, the strongest competitors will still have a steep final run to the line to contend with, but by this point, it will be clear who is going to add their name to the short list of iconic winners atop the Zoncolan, and it will also be certain on stage 20 that the holder of the pink jersey after its 10.1km is completed will be the champion in Rome a day later.

Giro d'Italia history

Lacking the same history as fellow Giro icons such as the Passo dello Stelvio and Blockhaus, the Zoncolan has established itself as a modern icon, with the list of winners in the men's race including Gilberto Simoni (twice, in 2003 and 2007), Ivan Basso (2010), Igor Anton (2011), Michael Rogers (2014), Chris Froome (2018), and most recently Lorenzo Fortunato (2021).

The Zoncolan was first introduced to the Giro on stage 10 of the women's race in 1997, where Fabiana Luperini took victory. A legend of the Giro and the holder of the most titles in what was then called the Giro d'Italia Femminile, Luperini said there was "a lot of fear of a climb like the Zoncolan" and that "To win on a climb like the Monte Zoncolan is a great thing, so I feel proud of my victory there." Victory there propelled her towards the third of her five eventual titles.

Six years later, it made its maiden appearance in the men's race, where Gilberto Simoni conquered the steep slopes en route to his second maglia rosa triumph in '03.

However, on both occasions, the riders started the climb from the less steep and steadier side in Sutrio. It was from this side, too, that the Zoncolan last featured in the Giro in 2021, with Lorenzo Fortunato taking a stunning breakaway win in the fog and cold, as Egan Bernal extended his overall lead.

Bernal's impressive performance saw him break Simoni's record from the Sutrio side by more than a minute, but it's the Ovaro side the Giro peloton will be concerned with in 2027, and it's here that the Italian still holds the record from his 2007 victory.

Four years after its maiden ascent, the organisers introduced the steeper and now more traditional side to the Grand Tour, but it was Simoni who still emerged on top. By this point, he was 35 and sat fourth in GC, but alongside teammate Leonardo Piepoli and Andy Schleck, still had the climbing power to distance maglia rosa Danilo Di Luca on the steepest sections.

Crossing the line alongside his fellow Saunier Duval teammate, Simoni and Piepoli hold the climbing record from Ovaro to Zoncolan to this day at 39:03.

The stage profile for the 2027 race is similar to that from the 2010 edition, when Ivan Basso dropped everyone on the steep slopes and defeated World Champion Cadel Evans in the rainbow bands by more than a minute.

Having started the day 7:43 off the lead, it served as a major gain in Basso's GC fightback against David Arroyo, taking back 3:50. He went on to complete the pursuit of pink four days later as he left Arroyo behind on the Mortirolo alongside teammate Vincenzo Nibali and Michele Scarponi en route to Aprica, where the latter won the stage, but Basso took hold of the maglia rosa.

Returning a year later, the Zoncolan stage was marked by controversy and shortened, with the removal of the brutal Monte Crostis climb being announced to fans' disappointment the night before the race. A replacement climb was inserted up the Tualis, but the race route was eventually diverted to avoid the village where the volunteers protested against the judges’ decision.

The drama didn't stop when the rider finally reached the Zoncolan either. Anton won the stage solo, attacking in the steepest sections, but the most important battle was happening around 30 seconds behind him between Alberto Contador and crowd favourite Vincenzo Nibali.

Contador was booed by the vociferous fans, accusing him of playing a role in the Crostis' removal, and after he waited in Nibali's wheel and eventually dropped him in the final 500 metres, a move which the Italian described as showing "a lack of respect from him". Neither would end up as the overall winner of the 2011 Giro, though, despite Contador originally triumphing in pink, as he was stripped of his title in February 2012 for doping and Michele Scarponi was named the champion.

When the Zoncolan returned in 2014, the stage was taken by the breakaway instead of the GC favourites, but this didn't mean it was without more controversy.

On paper, it points to Michael Rogers riding away solo from the remnants of the early 20-man move, but he was actually locked into a close battle with Francesco Manuel Bongiorno until the final 3km.

As Rogers took his hands off the bars several times to part the crazed fans in their thousands, it was the Italian rider who actually came undone by the actions of a supporter; a fan in a rainbow jersey's decision to try and push him forward in excitement led to the Bardiani rider unclipping and putting a foot down as Rogers powered away to the win.

By this point on stage 20, Nairo Quintana already had the GC sewn up, comfortably defending his lead up the steep slopes of the Zoncolan. With it, he became the first Colombian to win the Giro d'Italia, and the first South American Grand Tour winner since compatriot Luis Herrera at the 1987 Vuelta.

The most recent ascent up Zoncolan from Ovaro dates back to the 2018 race, when eventual winner Chris Froome attacked away 4.3km from the summit and held off a late charge from maglia rosa Simon Yates in the final few hundred metres.

After a slow start at the Giro, Froome had started the day way down in 12th overall, jumping up seven spots to fifth with his exhibition on Zoncolan. Way down on his best, it looked somewhat like a consolation prize for the four-time Tour de France champion, but his best trick was still to come on the Colle delle Finestre four stages later, where Yates completely capitulated, and Froome's audacious 80km attack saw him move into pink at the last gasp with a second stage win.

In the same season, Annemiek van Vleuten became the first and to date only woman to win a professional race atop Monte Zoncolan starting from the Ovaro side. Taking victory ahead of Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio, the Dutch star claimed the summit with a dominant solo victory en route to the first of her four pink jersey Giro titles.

Who will join the list of winners in 2027, and what drama will come on the brutal steeps of the Monte Zoncolan? That will have to wait until stage 20 in May, but if history is anything to go by, the modern icon of the Giro d'Italia is just awaiting its next chapter.

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The route of the 2027 Giro d’Italia Women was revealed on Tuesday and presents the peloton with a tough nine days of racing. With four mountain days, including an uphill time trial, and five flatter stages, it will be interesting, but it seems a little like an enhanced version of the 2026 race, won so brilliantly by Demi Vollering (FDJ United-SUEZ), with everything turned up to 11.

Since taking over the organisation of the women’s Giro in 2024, RCS, which organises the men’s event, has done a good job in modernising and increasing the visibility of what remains the second biggest race in the women’s calendar. Of course, visibility was helped this year by the date change, which the previous organisation requested, but with the power of RCS behind it, the race has been to places and climbs it would otherwise have been unable to reach.

However, despite that obvious progression, the 2027 race route is not a step forward, just much, much more of the same. The race has been made punishingly difficult, thus reducing the number of riders able to compete for the podium, and it could either be won on the first mountain top finish on stage 4, or we may be faced with a desultory stand-off, riders waiting for the final day.

The 2027 Giro is, in fact, shorter than this year's edition, though not by much. Organisers have slated 1,132km, as opposed to last year’s 1,151, which was reduced from the original distance after the Colle delle Finestre stage was truncated for safety reasons.

However, next year’s race includes a whopping 17,450m of vertical ascent, more than 5,000m more than 2026. And we all know by now that harder is not necessarily more entertaining.

Of course, we don’t yet know whether Vollering will defend her title next year, but she has developed into the most outstanding stage racer of her generation, able to climb better than almost everyone, with the punch to create gaps and the engine to maintain them. With more climbing and the retention of the mountain TT from the 2026 race, the route plays into her hands, reducing, rather than increasing jeopardy.

But it’s not about whether Vollering wins or not; whether the race was harder or easier she would probably still win, such is her class and strength and that of her French team. It’s about entertainment and engagement, getting eyes on the sport and keeping them there, and for that, as in all sports, there needs to be jeopardy.

Jeopardy is why the 2026 Giro was so brilliant. With 40km of the final stage left to ride all three places on the general classification podium were up for grabs until Vollering played her card, eventually winning the GC by 30 seconds with a jaw-dropping ride. I was on my feet from the moment she attacked until she triumphantly crossed the line, awestruck by her performance while simultaneously feeling for Anna van der Breggen (SD Worx-Protime) as her grasp on the pink jersey slipped away. The day had everything I wanted from sport.

And all that happened on a stage with only 2,100m of vertical ascent, just a bump in comparison to next year’s trio of Alpine stages.

Bigger isn’t better, harder isn’t more entertaining

Let’s start with the mountain time trial. It’s the second consecutive edition with such a stage, and last year the TT set up that thrilling final, Van der Breggen’s win startling her rivals as she moved into pink. But such a stage influences the GC hugely, and to include a near facsimile the following year is too much. In a race of only nine stages, to have such a similar defining stage each year lacks imagination.

Like the entire race, this year’s TT is shorter than in 2026, but unlike last year, it’s unrelentingly uphill and will produce some notable time gaps. Better might have been a more sporting time trial, flatter, allowing those specialists who are slightly less capable in the mountains to stay in touch with the overall lead and add some of that crucial jeopardy into the final day.

Don’t get me wrong, of course there is a place for brutal TTs, but we had one last year, so why do it again so soon? Even in a nine-day race there’s also a place for stages with 3,500m climbing, we had one last year, after all, but three in one week? Add in that TT, and we have four stages in the mountains likely to produce sizeable time gaps, especially when two of them are mountain top finishes.

Perversely, those mountain top finishes could be the saving grace, allowing the real lightweight climbers like Petra Stiasny (Human Powered Health) and especially Sarah Gigante (AG Insurance-Soudal), who came close to winning the 2025 race, to challenge. For them descending is the problem and without that to challenge them they could challenge Vollering.

The first of those 3,500m days comes on stage 4 with the final climb to the Passo della Presolana, if that doesn’t decide the final podium, stage 6 will, with even more vertical ascent over two climbs of almost 20km.

The one saving grace about the three Alpine stages is that they get progressively harder, but we really could see the GC all but decided on day four, and if it’s not we could have three days of pure grinding stalemate, the favourites waiting for the final day to make their bid for glory.

The flatter days are the saving grace

On the other hand, RCS has provided some real interest for the five flatter days, even if they do all contribute to the total amount of climbing metres.

Last season the same sprinter won each of the three opening stages, Elisa Balsamo (Lidl-Trek) eventually taking four victories in total. This year there’s less for the fast women, with each of the opening three days covering much more climbing than last year’s corresponding stages, the second stage has as much as 2,100m of climbing, though the run into Genoa is relatively flat before an uphill kick to the line.

Perversely, this could be very good for Balsamo, who deals with punchy climbs brilliantly, but it doesn’t matter who wins, it matters that the race interesting and entertaining, and stages like these invite attacks, uncertainty and miscalculation in the chasing bunch. It doesn’t even matter if they all end up in bunch sprints with the same rider winning, provided there is some of the crucial sporting ingredient: jeopardy.

While it won’t affect the racing, the location of the route also fails to show off what is arguably the most beautiful country in the world. When we first saw the overview map of the nine stages the first thing we noticed was a huge expanse of empty space – where is the race? It seems as though the entire event has been geographically swept into the top left-hand corner.

Of course, nine stages limit where the race can go, and long transfers are hard on riders and race staff alike, but with its diversity and distinct regions, it’s a shame we won’t see more of Italy.

The Giro is always a great race, and since RCS has been in charge it’s far better organised and executed, with better coverage and more fans at the roadside. That is to be applauded, what is not is constantly making races harder but not more interesting, and we should hope for a more even parcours in future years.

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The Vuelta a España's hardest climb may just be getting even tougher in future as a gravel sector could be added to the Alto de l'Angliru.

According to a Eurosport report, a former local mayor has proposed the addition to the Vuelta race director, Javier Guillén, who is set to consider it.

José Antonio Muñiz, the former mayor of Riosa, a municipality local to the 12.4km 9.7% climb, reportedly outlined two options for adding gravel sectors to the Angliru in future.

"The ascent of the Angliru is bordering on extreme difficulty, with large crowds of spectators. We are open to studying its feasibility as long as it increases the interest and spectacle of the stage without overloading the riders or compromising safety. We listen to all ideas, although only some can be put into practice," Guillén said at a ceremony at the climb where La Vuelta Femenina was awarded a gold badge by the 'Association of the Friends of the Angliru', led by Muñiz, this week.

Guillén had previously not been a fan of gravel sectors before the addition of a sector on the final climb of stage 6 at the men's Vuelta this year. The gravel sector was a success, as eventual champion Enric Mas chased down Tadej Pogačar, and Guillén conceded later that gravel will have a place in future editions, too.

Any possible addition of a gravel sector to the climb would come in the first 5km of the ascent, before the road reaches a false flat at Viapará.

The route would then rejoin the usual road for the final 6km and the climb's toughest section, where the gradients reach double digits, including the famous La Cueña les Cabres section, where gradients reach up to 23% in places.

Local newspaper La Nueva España explained the options laid out by Muñiz: "One of the options to include some gravel sections in the ascent to Angliru would be to ascend from the town of Muriellos along a track of about 4km, which combines concrete and dirt, until linking up at the Llagos curve with the traditional climb from Viapará.

"The other option would involve taking the road from Ablaneo to El Cabornín and then ascending a track that would also connect at the Llagos bend, before La Cueña les Cabres.

"Both options combine gravel with concrete on the steepest slopes and would make the legendary Angliru climb even tougher, although they would shorten some of the current 12km from La Vega to the Angliru"

It remains to be seen whether Guillén accepts the proposal for future editions of the men's and women's Vuelta.

The climb, without the gravel roads, has featured 10 times in the men's race, with riders including José Maria Jiménez, Roberto Heras, Alberto Contador (twice), and Primož Roglič triumphing at the top. It made its debut at this year's La Vuelta Femenina, with Petra Stiasny climbing to a final stage win while Paula Blasi took overall victory.

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Former Giro d'Italia winner Vincenzo Nibali has said that next year's route is one where Tadej Pogačar would be "the clear favourite" but that Paul Seixas is also ready to fight for the pink jersey.

The 2027 Giro route, which was unveiled on Tuesday, packs in the climbing and an uphill time trial on a difficult course that organisers RCS will hope can attract some of the peloton's top GC riders.

Giving his assessment to La Gazzetta dello Sport, Nibali – who won the pink jersey twice in 2013 and 2016 – praised the route and the slight changes made for 2027.

"It's a modern Giro, one that continues to innovate while not losing its ties to tradition," he said. "I spoke about it with [new race director] Luca Guercilena, maybe there's no longer a hat-trick of horrible stages, but the difficulties are more evenly distributed, and that's certainly a good thing."

The question of how the race plays out, however, will also be largely down to who decides to race, which we don't know much about just yet, but Nibali thinks the route would be perfect for the sport's biggest stars.

"Pogačar, if he came, would be the clear favorite. I think the route is very suitable for [Jonas] Vingegaard, too. It would be a good challenge for [Remco] Evenepoel," he said.

"And Seixas, after finishing fourth in the Tour on his debut, would do well to participate. I saw him in person at Il Lombardia and he impressed me, I think he's ready to fight for the win. He climbs very quickly and is no slouch in the time trials, far from it... I read that he's interested in coming, and it's no coincidence."

Whilst RCS, Nibali and many fans might hope to see Pogačar, Vingegaard and Evenepoel all line up for the Giro, the actuality seems unlikely, with Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe boss Ralph Denk already saying he's against the idea of Evenepoel doing the double with the Tour, and Pogačar more likely to target the Vuelta if he does a second Grand Tour in 2027.

As defending champion, Vingegaard could well opt to return and chase another pink jersey, whilst there are plenty of reasons why Paul Seixas might, surprisingly, opt for the Giro over the Tour next year.

Read more: Why Paul Seixas might not immediately return to the Tour de France in 2027

The hope of attracting international stars may be big, but the Giro can also count on a talented crop of home riders to battle for success in the race that no Italian has won since Nibali himself 10 years ago.

"[Giulio] Pellizzari, [Davide] Piganzoli, [Giulio] Ciccone: in a Giro like this, they'll have plenty of room to express themselves," Nibali said. Pellizzari has plenty of time to fix some lapses, Piganzoli is growing rapidly, and Ciccone will find further motivation from the change of team. They need to believe in it."

And in terms of the decisive stages, the monstrous stages 16 and 20 are of course at the top of Nibali's list, but he predicts the race would be open until the very end, such is the balanced design of the route.

"The Valtellina stage [16] is brutal. There's 5,700 metres of elevation gain, so even the thought of climbing it is difficult," he said. "And it's historic, because the Gavia Pass, in the middle of a double Mortirolo, on the toughest side, has never been seen before. A brutal, potentially decisive day.

"And then before the Zoncolan, I wouldn't underestimate the Madonna di Campiglio climb [on stage 18]. In short, you can't make a mistake in the final week. And with the Zoncolan on the penultimate day, the race could remain open until the end. Maybe someone could ride a bit 'conservatively', relatively speaking, and go all out on the Zoncolan."

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Hunt has been pushing the boundaries of the best road bike wheels for a while now. I remember kicking about on a set of Limitless wheels a few years ago, before wide road tyres had really taken off, and marvelling at how when I looked down I could see more rim than tyre. Wind on a couple of years and now it has come out with the 5AM Limitless wheelset, with the ‘5’ roughly denoting the depth and the ‘AM’ definitely not standing for ‘Aero Mullet’, but rather ‘Aero Maximised’.

Like it or not, the road mullet trend is here to stay, and this is another new wheelset with a deeper front wheel than rear. Hunt makes some bold claims, but we can park them for a second as the 5AM Limitless Ti-UD Carbon Spoke Disc (to give it its full title) came out as the fastest road bike wheels in our recent wind tunnel test. Wind tunnel numbers can only tell you so much, so I slapped ‘em on a Dura-Ace equipped Look Blade 795 RS, in place of the Scope Artech 6.A wheels it came with (I know, this job is hard and miserable and awful) and gave them a good seeing to.

The short version is they back up on the road what they promised in the tunnel. Well behaved, lithe and responsive, without that nagging feeling of fragility I sort of felt under me with the Scopes.

Design and aesthetics

Let’s start with the aesthetics before we move onto the design; these are good looking wheels. Maybe you don’t agree, but you’re not the one writing this review. The vast majority of road and gravel wheels now are matter black hoops with a white logo. Not only are these not black, but a lovely almost steel blue-grey, but they’re gloss. Long have I craved for gloss carbon to make a comeback, because it’s so much easier to live with. Moreover the logos are applied under the lacquer, which makes them look and feel more premium. I always find it incredibly frustrating when the logos start chipping off a set of Scope Artechs relatively swiftly, or even more so how a set of £4k Enve wheels just have vinyl stickers slapped on ‘em; it feels cheap.

The vaguely '80s vibe of the grey continues to the hubs, which also look very smart with the colour matched disc rotor lockrings. I know aesthetics don’t actually make any difference to performance, but I think if we’re all honest with ourselves we all want a set of wheels that look the business.

The rim dimensions are pushing the limits of what a ‘5’ designation can comfortably cover, with a 58mm deep front and a 55mm deep rear. While this is technically road mullet, in practice not even my beady eyes can perceive a 3mm difference in rim depth unless the bike is up against a wall and I’m thinking about it intently.

Width-wise, the front and rear differ slightly, too, with a 34.5mm external width up front for a claimed greater stability in the wind, and a 30mm at the rear, which I assume is also a play to keep the weight down as a system. Both rims have a 23mm internal width, and are hooked. This perhaps isn’t as wide as you’d like if you’re pushing the limits of road tyre widths, but if you’re cutting about on something 28-32mm it’s just right, and I suspect most of you considering buying these probably are.

The system weight is a claimed 1,212g (574g front, 638g rear). On our scales they weighed in at 1,229g, which is certainly acceptably close to the claim. It also makes them 78g lighter than a set of Scope Artech 6.A wheels, which have for some time been a personal benchmark for being both extremely aerodynamic and very lightweight.

Part of this weight saving is down to the low spoke counts; just 15 at the front, with a scant 5 on the non-disc side. At the rear you get a mere 18, with a 2:1 ratio on the driveside vs rotor side. In this guise the spokes are bladed carbon with Ti hardware at the hub end and hidden alloy nipples at the rim for another aero boost. The hubs can be upgraded from steel bearings to ceramic from Ceramicspeed, but come with low contact seals in either case. I tested the steel versions.

I shan’t spoil all the aero details, but if you are a real watt watcher and want to deep dive into just how these wheels performed then I implore you to go and read Josh’s incredibly detailed writeup of our latest wheels wind tunnel test. The short digest for the purposes of the review is that with a 28mm tyre fitted these Hunts were the fastest on test. The margins are small over the competition, but that’s how the data falls.

Performance

I’ve ridden a fair few very good wheelsets in my time, and while Hunt has been making fast wheels for some time it hasn’t necessarily had something in the superwheel category until now; something to challenge the Scopes of this world. Perhaps this is also because it does such a good job at disseminating its budget friendly wheels about the place that it slightly diminishes its more premium offerings, but here, with the 5AM Limitless, it has a superwheel that’s absolutely up there with the best wheels on the market.

I’m not going to claim I can feel the difference in aerodynamics between these and a set of Artechs; I can’t, and you wouldn’t believe me if said I could anyway, but from a performance standpoint these are the fastest by the tunnel data, and when paired with a bike of the calibre of the Look Blade 795 RS they absolutely flew along. The aero is a given, but they’re so good in so many other ways that I find them so hard to overlook in the ‘best road wheels on the market’ conversation.

First of all they’re hooked. Say what you like about hookless being fine if you do everything right, and I have never had an incident with hookless wheels (because I’ve done everything right) but I’d just rather have hooked road wheels and have one less thing to worry about. They’re also wider internally than the new Roval Rapide CLX III, which my colleague Tom noted made them perhaps a little dated already.

They’re also just about the lightest wheels we tested, besides the CRW Works Ultimo 6060. Weight isn’t everything, but to be the most aero and near as dammit the lightest too is quite something, and out on the road they feel much like the Scopes did when I had them fitted to a Pinarello Dogma F; fast on the flat, and then this feeling that they just keep being fast on whatever gradient you like.

Flat blasts are a joy, and while they aren’t as stable in the wind as the delightfully placid Reserves that I rode on the Cervélo S5, they’re extremely well behaved, but they also feel incredible if you like hitting out on punchy climbs. I matched my best ever time up my local test, a 200m all-out sprint at 12% average, maxing out at 17% in places. Close your eyes and you have a shallow, hyper-responsive climbing wheel.

I was a little worried the low spoke count might make them feel a little less stiff. They don’t feel quite as stiff as a set of Artechs, but this may also be a perception thing as I mostly just felt like I felt less road buzz and chatter through them, which to my eyes is a good thing. They’re more than stiff enough for all-out sprints, and feel great in cornering without being overly jittery.

They’re quiet, too. I have had a set of Hunt hubs in the past that were so loud they made a toddler cry as I rode past. The Scopes are louder even than those, but the Chase SLC hubs here are only moderately loud. If I had my way they’d be silent, but that’s not how ratchets work. The 7.5º engagement angle is sufficient for road, and I never felt like I was caught floating between teeth.

I also am pleased to say I accidentally tested the durability of these wheels. After a Wednesday night hill sprint session, followed by a couple of beers, I went to get some delicious takeaway Szechuan hot pot. So distracted was I by the promise of a warming, savoury, numbing broth (and absolutely nothing to do with the beers on an empty stomach after exercise) that I rode straight into a curb head on. It wasn’t overly fast, but it was hard, and I am pleased to say I neither dropped my soup nor broke the front wheel.

Value

More aero than anything else we tested. Lighter than all but one of the cohorts we tested, with performance on the road that backs up the lab testing numbers, combined with good looks, and all for a price that’s cheaper than the equivalent from Reserve, Parcours, DT Swiss, Roval, Scope, Vision, and Syncros. The only cheaper wheels we tested were Chinese brands, and they didn’t perform all that well in aero terms. Even with the ceramic bearing upgrade they’re still cheaper than most in this performance bracket, so it’s hard to not give them full marks for value.

I am writing this assuming of course that you’re after the fastest, or indeed the lightest. There’s every chance you perhaps budgeted a lot less that £2k and found your mind wandering, and in broad terms the differences are tangible but small to cheaper wheels. While we haven’t directly compared, the wattage gulf will be one that is easily traversed, perhaps a couple of watts in it really, and a small gram penalty too thanks to the law of diminishing returns. Despite this it’s hard to not see these as exceptionally good value wheels given how well they perform against far more premium competition.

Verdict

I think these might be the best road wheels on the market right now. Maybe Hunt doesn’t have the brand cachet of Reserve, Roval, or Vision, but it’s created a set of wheels that rides fantastically on all terrain, with sensational aero and weight figures that beat the competition in almost all circumstances, and all for a price that’s lower than almost all the mainstream competition too.

My caveat to this is that, for example, if you were building up an S-Works Tarmac SL9, then a set of Rovals will have been designed to work with that frame in a way that may surpass what these are capable of. Likewise the Reserves in the Cervélo S5, but even then the price differential is such that I could look past it, as there’s almost £1,000 between these and a set of Rovals.

The director of the Giro d'Italia has stated the somewhat obvious in saying that Tadej Pogačar would be very welcome at next year’s race, but insisted that the route's incursion into Slovenia is not designed as a bid to tempt the world's best rider onto the start line.

Pogačar has enjoyed taking the opportunity to race on home soil in the past, as evidenced by his two titles at the Tour of Slovenia and his huge disappointment at having to miss this year's European Championships in Ljubljana.

The route for the 2027 Giro d'Italia, unveiled on Tuesday, features two stages on Slovenian soil, with the opening stage crossing the border between the start and finish in Trieste, and the second stager taking place entirely in Slovenia, between Ljubljana and Koper.

This has widely been viewed as an attempt to lure Pogačar to the Giro for only the second time in his career, three years on from his dominant victory in 2024, but this notion was played down by the new Director of Cycling at race organiser RCS Sport, Luca Guercilena.

"Tadej is clearly the man of the moment, so he would be more than welcome at the Giro d'Italia, absolutely," Guercilena said in a video interview published by La Gazzetta dello Sport following the route presentation in Rome.

"The stages in Slovenia are made primarily for the Slovenian fans. Given the proximity of Slovenia to Italy – and specifically to the Friuli Venezia Giulia region – which plays a key role in this Giro, it felt like the right thing to do.

"From a purely cycling perspective, Slovenia is currently producing a great number of champions for our beloved sport, so it felt only fitting to pass through Slovenian territory. If Pogačar were to come, he would certainly be welcome."

'The goal is to attract top-tier riders'

As for the rest of the route, Guercilena insisted it was a balanced one, even if it leans towards the climbers – certainly compared to the 2027 Tour de France, which treads lightly in the mountains and features 71km of time trialling.

The Giro, by contrast, has 57km against the clock, but 19km of that is in an uphill time trial, while there are seven summit finishes and key climbing tests even before we reach the brutal final week with a monster queen stage 16 and the final act atop the Zoncolan on stage 20.

"I believe this Giro is well-balanced. While the mountain stages are truly significant and demanding, the race’s defining characteristic is the alternation between these tough stages, easier ones, and time trials. This gives all athletes, regardless of their individual strengths, a chance to shine," Guercilena said.

"The goal is to attract top-tier riders, who will surely recognise that an iconic stage like the one to Aprica, featuring two ascents of the Mortirolo and the Gavia, is a gift to the fans, as well as a chance for riders to add a legendary, high-profile stage win to their palmarès."

Pogačar tempted but unlikely to attend

As for whether Pogačar will be attracted, it seems unlikely at this point, even with the Slovenian stages. The five-time Tour de France champion has already indicated his preference for combining the Tour with the Vuelta a España, where he has unfinished business after crashing out while in the lead this year.

A Vuelta title would round out Pogačar’s palmarès as a winner of all three Grand Tours, and would leave more space in the Spring to target the Classics, with Paris-Roubaix similarly the final Monument on his checklist.

"Even though I'd rather ride the Giro, I'll have to tick off the Vuelta at some point too. I think that will be the goal for next year," he said recently.

"I think I still need some time to really analyse what I really want for next year. And I think the final decision will be done in December, where we have another training camp."

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After winning Liège-Bastogne-Liège Juniors and then spending three years of his time in the U23 ranks across two development squads, Tomos Pattinson is now ready to step up to the WorldTour in 2027 with EF Education-EasyPost.

The 21-year-old British rider started out with the Team Visma-Lease a Bike Development team through 2024 and 2025, though he had triggered the interest of EF Education before that point.

“Tomos is a really interesting rider. We looked at him as a junior, but we didn’t have a development team at that point. He signed for another team, and he stood out at all levels, but from what I’ve seen and what I believe, he’s a rider with enormous talent,” said head of scouting Sebastin Langeveld.

“We got in touch again in 2025, and he had a really good meeting. This season, he came back from a small injury, but when he’s going well, he’s a super strong addition for the team. I think we can develop a lot of his skills over the coming years, and he can go long in breaks and be a strong all-rounder who can help the team.

"We’re really pleased to have him on board for the future. We’ve not seen the best of him yet, so it’s a really exciting move for him and the team.”

Pattinson swapped over to EF Education-Aevolo at the start of this season and was quick to jump into the WorldTour team for some races during the year as well, racing Tour de la Provence, Settimana Internazionale Coppi e Bartali and Tour of Austria with the team.

Results while riding with the development team this season also included a sixth at the Visit South Aegean GP, eighth overall at the Circuit des Ardennes and sixth at Coppa Città di San Daniele, his season closing race.

“I’ve had a good season, and I’ve learned a lot from the experiences," said Pattinson in a team statement. "I’ve raced a lot with the WorldTour team throughout the year, so I’ve gained a lot from that and become more mature. I’m happy with my results in races like the Ardennes and in Greece at the start of the year."

The season ahead, however, is one where the rider from Dudley hopes to deliver even more with the aim being to improve in "as many areas as possible".

“Of course, I’m excited. This is a dream, and it’s something that I’ve wanted to do since the start of my U23 career,” said Pattinson.

“I’m looking forward to getting started with EF Education-EasyPost next season. Since I was a kid, I’ve been watching cycling, and being a pro cyclist, being able to call yourself a pro cyclist, is really cool. I like the Cannondale bikes, too. I’ve raced on them when I was a junior, and this was definitely the place that I wanted to be when it came to joining the WorldTour."

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• Start: Trieste
• Finish: Rome
• Distance: 3,418.9 kilometres
• Climbing: 50,250 metres
• Dates: May 8, 2027 - May 30, 2027
• Summit finishes: 7
• Time trials: 2

The route for the 2027 Giro d'Italia was unveiled in Rome on November 3, with a route that Cyclingnews' senior staff writer, James Moultrie, describes as a 'climber's paradise'.

With seven summit finishes, plenty of punchy terrain, and some brutal high-mountain stages particularly in the final week, not to mention one of the race's two time trials being uphill, the 2027 Giro certainly leans towards the climbing specialists.

It all kicks off on Trieste on May 8, 2027, and finishes in Rome on May 30, covering 3,418.9 kilometres and taking in 50,250 metres of elevation gain in total.

Here, we go through the route stage-by-stage to see what's in store for the pink jersey hopefuls next May.

Stage 1: Trieste – Trieste, 172km

The first pink jersey looks to be going the way of a puncheur, with an opening stage that ventures over the Slovenian border and features three short climbs in the final 40km, plus a downhill run to the line. It should be an explosive and exciting start to the race.

Stage 2: Ljubljana – Koper, 166km

After the stage 1 foray, stage 2 takes place entirely in Slovenia, and it's another punchy one, with a short sharp climb topping out just 3km from the line and followed by a fast dip down into Koper. Attacks will fly.

Stage 3: Cervignano del Friuli – Possagno, 163km

A third successive stage that suits puncheurs and aggressive riders, with two modest categorised climbs and a false flat drag towards the finish another chance for the attackers to get rid of the sprinters.

Stage 4: Argenta – Misano Adriatico, 151km

The pure sprinters finally get their chance on stage 4, with very few complications on the run from Argenta towards the Marco Simoncelli motor racing track, where the sprint will be contested.

Stage 5: Filottrano – Sarnano-Sassotetto, 139km

The proper climbing action comes early, with a first summit finish on stage 5. The organisers have only given this a three-star difficulty rating but the final climb to Sarnano-Sasotetto measures 13.1km at an average gradient of 7.4% and maximum pitches of 14%. It's a rude awakening and will provide an early indication of who's where in the fight for pink.

Stage 6: Alba Adriatica – Lanciano, 148km

Stage 6 is another stage that could see a sprint, or could something a bit more dramatic, with 1,700 metres of elevation gain on a route that climbs steadily for the final 10km.

Stage 7: Sulmona – Campo di Gove, 19.6km (ITT)

The second big general classification test of the 2027 Giro comes with the first of the two time trials, this measuring 19.6km but crucially heading uphill for pretty much the whole thing. The categorised part of the climb to Campo di Giove measures 12.5km at a modest average gradient of 4.4% but there are pitches of up to 9%. It's not quite a pure mountain time trial but it's far from a flat one and should provide an interesting test between the pure time trial specialists and the climbers.

Stage 8: Trasacco – Napoli, 219km

Napoli is most openly associated with sprints, and we should see another one again here, though the undulating terrain in the finale and the rise to the line make it one for the lighter and more versatile of fast men.

Stage 9: Itri – Subiaco-Monte Livata, 180km

An action-packed opening week closes with a second summit finish and third obvious GC flashpoint. The final climb of Monte Livata measures 13.9km at an average of 6.9%. Bigger mountain stages follow later in the race but by this point, after the time trial, things will be taking some sort of shape, and the favourites will surely hit out against each other towards the top of the climb.

Stage 10: Palombara Sabina – Norcia, 218km

The second week opens with an interesting stage that features a tricky pair of climbs in the finale and a fast descent to the finish in Norcia. It looks like prime terrain for a breakaway.

Stage 11: Gualdo Tadino – Scarperia, 220km

Another sprint stage with a complication. Some teams may look to use that late climb of Vetta Le Croci to drop the pure sprinters, but they have just under 30km to get back in to try and contest the victory, on another motor racing circuit.

Stage 12: Montecatini Terme – Zeri (Loc. Passo due Santi), 173km

Our third summit finish of the Giro takes us up the Passo Due Santi, a short one at 8.7km but viciously steep at an average of 8.7% with pitches well in the double digits. We're not expecting huge gaps but it's an important test where any weakness can actually be punished heavily.

Stage 13: Borgo Val di Taro – Reggio Emilia, 176km

There's still a climb in there, but finally, something pretty much nailed on for the pure sprinters, so expect a drag race in Reggio Emilia.

Stage 14: Cantù Arena – Piani di Bobbio/Valtorta, 187km

We've already had plenty of summit finishes but stage 14 marks the heaviest climbing stage so far, with 4,900 metres of elevation in this route that sets out from the Lombardy region and heads over the Madonna del Ghisallo climb used in Il Lombardia. Three further ascents follow before the final climb up the Piani di Bobbio, which measures 10.1km at an average of 9%. That's brutal, and coming at the end of a heavy climbing day, it's a huge day for the general classification contenders.

Stage 15: Monza – Milano, 37,3km (ITT)

The second week closes with another huge test for the pink jersey hopefuls, in the form of the race's second time trial. Unlike the first, this is pan-flat, from Monza to Milan, and pretty long at 37.3km. It's one for the pure TT specialists, and one where the weaker of the GC contenders against the clock could take some pretty heavy blows from a time-loss point of view.

Stage 16: Sondrio – Aprica, 192km

The final week opens with one of the hardest Grand Tour stages we've ever seen. There are 5,700 metres of elevation on this brute, which is extraordinary. What we have is a sandwich of Giro icons, with a double ascent of the mighty Mortirolo either side of a first trip up the Gavia since 2014. The Mortirolo has seen some historic Giro moments over the decades, with savage gradients, while the Gavia takes the riders up into the snowline at 2,600 metres of altitude – it's the 'Cima Coppi' as the highest point of the Giro. The final climb to Aprica is more of a drag but by that point the race will be in pieces and riders will be only be dragging their weary bodies towards the line. A monstrous day.

Stage 17: Chiari – Vo', 194km

After that mountain monster, we pick up the theme of the opening days with a largely flat stage that throws a couple of short climbs into the finale – perfect launchpads for late attacks.

Stage 18: Rovereto – Madonna di Campiglio, 154km

The second of three big mountain stages in the final week, this one features 4,500 metres of elevation over the course of five big climbs. The final climb to Madonna di Campiglio, at 12.5km and 5.7%, is not super difficult, but it's what comes before that matters, and that will drain the legs well in advance. This looks like one of those classic Giro mountain stages where there's a huge fight for the breakaway and chaos ensues for basically the whole day.

Stage 19: Rovereto – Sacile, 199km

Another interruption to the climbing-fest in the form of yet another largely flat but still punchy day of racing. At this point, how many sprint teams will be left, and how much strength will be left? Stages like these so late in a Grand Tour are often ripe for breakaway action.

Stage 20: Pordenone – Monte Zoncolan, 180km

The Giro d'Italia will be decided at the summit of the Zoncolan, a beastly climb measuring 10.1km at a barely believable average gradient of 11.9%. It's fairly new to the Giro, with no visits before the 21st century, but it's becoming one of the race's icons, and is certainly in a bracket with the Angliru as one of the hardest climbs in professional cycling. With 3,600 metres of elevation, this stage is the lightest of the final week's mountains stages on paper, but this final climb overcomes those statistics on its own, to make this a pivotal – and final – juncture in the battle for the pink jersey.

Stage 21: Rome – Rome, 131km

The 2027 Giro concludes with a short stage in Rome made up of laps of a circuit through the Italian capital. Whatever sprinters are still standing will have the chance to fight for the final stage win before the overall champion is crowned.

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The route for the 2027 Giro d'Italia has been revealed as a climber's paradise, with three of Italy's most difficult and iconic ascents set to feature as the highlights in May next year: Passo del Mortirolo (twice), Passo Gavia, and Monte Zoncolan.

At the presentation in Rome on Tuesday, race organisers RCS unveiled the 3,418km route from Trieste, near the Slovenian border, to Rome, with a major focus on the north of Italy, two individual time trials, and some days on offer for the sprinters and breakaway experts.

After two years of foreign starts, the Grande Partenza returning to Italy will see racing kick off on Saturday, May 8, with two rest days breaking up the 21 stages and 50,250m of elevation gain before the finale on Sunday, May 30.

The real showpieces of the route will be the mountain stages, with the first return to the 2,600m-high Gavia since 2014 being sandwiched between a double ascent of the brutal Mortirolo on the queen stage 16, finishing in Aprica.

There are seven summit finishes in total, ranging in difficulty across the Apennines and Alps, with the GC also set to be shaken up by two time trials – one being a mountain race against the clock to Campo di Giove, and the other taking in the Monza motor racing circuit on a flatter test.

10 years on from Tom Dumoulin's maiden Grand Tour triumph at the Giro, this opens the door to a time trial specialist potentially dominating the road to Rome, though those aforementioned mountains will bring only the most complete riders to the fore in contention for the maglia rosa.

With the duo of time trials, RCS will be hoping to attract the likes of Remco Evenepoel as the leading star, with defending champion Jonas Vingegaard not expected to return, and 2024 winner Tadej Pogačar likely to opt for the Tour de France and Vuelta a España in 2027. Though the Belgian is all but certain to return to the Tour, a combination may not fit with his team's plans, so the organisers may have to look elsewhere for their headline name on the start list.

For those not chasing the iconic pink jersey, there will be between six and eight possible opportunities, though the pure sprinters see their chances squeezed as several uphill kicks and stages featuring late climbs offer up ground for opportunistic attackers or breakaway hunters to make their moves. All in all, it's a typical Giro route with something for everyone, albeit the first one not designed by Mauro Vegni – the previous race director who retired last year.

Week one

Trieste to Monte Livata

In an ideal world, organisers RCS would have hoped that a Grande Partenza in Trieste and early foray across the Slovenian border would've attracted the likes of 2023 winner Primož Roglič and 2024 champion Pogačar. However, with the former still having not signed for a new team for 2027 and the latter wanting to complete the Grand Tour set with the Vuelta, neither look like probable starters for May.

That being said, several of the world's best riders will descend on the northeast corner of Italy in Friuli-Venezia Giulia for the first Grand Tour of 2027, where the chaos, unpredictable weather, and brutal climbing of the Giro will be back at its best for the 110th edition.

The first pink jersey will be decided in Trieste on a punchy opening day, where three short hills in the final 30km should pit the top puncheurs against the versatile sprinters, with the GC favourites just trying to stay out of trouble and potentially fight out a small group sprint.

Stage 2 will be battled out entirely in Slovenia from the capital city in Ljubljana to Koper, with another undulating route opening the door to the same types of riders who starred on stage 1. The same can be said of stage 3, when racing returns fully to Italy for a gradually rising uphill run to the line in Possagno in the Veneto region – again the puncheurs should have their day.

Following a longer transfer down to Argenta in Emilia-Romagna, the sprinters will have their first guaranteed opportunity of the 2027 Giro on stage 4, finishing at the MotoGP circuit, Autodromo Marco Simoncelli in Misano, near the Adriatic coast.

The first mountain top finish of the race arrives a day later on stage 5 to Sarnano Sassotetto, where the initial movements in the GC race will be made on the 13.1km ascent which averages 7.4% gradient. Only ranked with three stars of difficulty by the organisers, it's more of a GC loosener than a decisive day, with significantly easier climbs approaching the finale in the Marche region, but it will indicate who has survived the initial salvoes best in the fight for pink.

Stage 6 fits into the same category as the opening three days of racing, where a breakaway could easily jump up the road to fight it out on the east coast from Alba Adriatica to Lanciano, where undulating and dragging roads will lead to the finish.

The GC favourites will be looking to survive that ahead of the first really crucial day in the overall race. On stage 7, the action is the mountain individual time trial from Sulmona to Campo di Giove, where19.6km of racing and a testing 12.5km should completely reshuffle the standings and potentially the pink jersey holder. It's the first mountain ITT at the Giro since the race was decided on the penultimate day in favour of Roglič in 2023, but at just a 4.4% average gradient on the climb – which is almost 5km longer – it isn't as vicious as the 11.2% average from three years ago.

Stage 8 brings the 2027 Giro back to Naples for the sixth season in a row, and while it has typically been a sprint stage in that time, the profile points to more of a punchy finale, with several short kickers in the final 30km.

The first week comes to a close with the second summit finish of the race, albeit on a mountainous stage 9 with just over 3000m of elevation gain. After a flat opening 70km, the stage win will be battled out to Monte Livata (13.9km at 6.9%), where the hardest gradients are all packed into the first 4km of the climb – it hasn't featured in the Giro before, but was used in the U23 men's Giro last season, where eventual winner Lorenzo Finn won solo by 52 seconds.

Week two

Monza time trial sets up final week

After the first rest day, the Giro gets back underway with two chances for the breakaway on stage 10 and stage 11, the former finishing with two climbs in the last 30km and a long downhill run to the line, and the latter would be a certain sprint stage, if not for a final short sharp climb arriving with 28km to go.

It doesn't take long for GC action to resume with another summit finish on stage 12, as the race heads through its one and only stage in Tuscany towards the Passo due Santi on the border with Emilia-Romagna. It's 8.7km at 8.3%, and could prove the next major point in the maglia rosa fight, with the final 2.4km to the summit averaging more than 11% in gradient.

Stage 13 to Reggio Emilia is one of the almost guaranteed sprint stages, but the focus will quickly turn to those chasing the overall in Italy after a long transfer north into Lombrady. Stage 14 will he the hardest stage of the race so far when it arrives, taking the riders across just under 5000m of elevation gain en route to Piani di Bobbio. Four shorter climbs will precede the final 10.1km ascent which averages 9% gradient – a true brute in the Bergamasque Prealps, where if someone doesn't already have a commanding lead, this will be the best chance to take control yet.

The second week concludes with the second individual time trial of the race, a 37.3km pancake flat race against the clock on stage 15 from the Monza F1 circuit to Milan. If Evenepoel isn't present, then it should emerge as a day for the likes of Filippo Ganna, where all the GC hopefuls will need to have recovered from the day prior's big mountain test.

Week three

Mortirolo double and Zoncolan to decide pink

In typical Giro fashion, the hardest stages of the 110th edition are all backloaded into the final week, and there is no such thing as a slow restart from the second rest day here, heading straight for the queen stage 16 on Tuesday, May 25, from Sondrio to Aprica.

192km in length, with 5,700m of elevation gain, and featuring some of the most feared ascents in the Italian Alps, the organisers have opened the door to the race being completely flipped on its head with the Passo del Mortirolo being tackled twice in the same stage, with a return to the Passo Gavia sandwiched between the double header.

At 12.8km and averaging 10.1% gradients, the Mortirolo is a true icon of the Giro, but after the first time up, the riders won't have any respite as they descend back to the valley and begin the climb to the Gavia – a 16.5km brute with a more regular average gradient of 8%, but one which ventures to 2,600m in altitude. Following that with another rep up the Mortirolo and then a final climb to Aprica should make it one of the hardest races of the entire season, and where pink could be decided once and for all.

If, and only if, the sprinters have survived this long, they could be rewarded by a sprint stage 17 into Vó, but two late hills in the last 20km could complicate that, and after such a brutal mountain stage, the breakaway hopefuls may be more likely.

With the legs still screaming from two days prior, the GC riders will have to go again on stage 18, with a 4,450m elevation gain day to another summit finish at Madonna di Campiglio, but not before taking on the Passo Ballno, Passo Durone (twice), and Passo Daone. This final climb is much shallower at 5.7% average, so may be one for a break to get up the road as the GC favourites await the Zoncolan.

Stage 19 should see the sprint teams come to the fore again, but early climbs heading out of Rovereto will give a strong break an opportunity to form – but the fast men will have been so starved of opportunities at this point that staying away could prove very challenging.

The last time Monte Zoncolan characterised a route of the Giro d'Italia, it was barely seen in all its glory, with a foggy and cold day in 2021 being captured by Lorenzo Fortunato. The penultimate day of the race on stage 20 will give someone a chance to join him, Chris Froome, and Michael Rogers as modern winners on this iconic mountain in the Carnic Alps. With the race returning to where it started in the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region, the 10.1km climb at 11.9% average gradient should provide one final chance to capture pink, or to reaffirm dominance on a backloaded final mountain stage, with 3,600m of elevation gain packed into the final 50km of the route.

Whoever is in pink at the summit will be crowned the winner of the 2027 Giro d'Italia, with only the processional sprint circuit in Rome left to be completed on stage 21 after a long transfer south to the capital.

2027 Giro d'Italia stage information

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The organisers of the Giro d’Italia Women unveiled the route of the 2027 race in Rome on Tuesday, and while the race is shorter than last year’s, it has far more climbing, favouring the mountain goats once again.

While this will be the 38th edition of the women’s Giro, the 2027 edition will be only the fourth organised by RCS, the company which runs the men’s event, and they continue to make the race more challenging.

In total the race is slated to cover 1,132km, some 20km shorter than last year, but with 500m more vertical ascent on the cards, and with three stages climbing 3,500m or more, the 2027 Giro will suit the purest climbers more than ever before.

Next year’s race takes place over nine stages, beginning with a lumpy opening day in the seaside resort of Viareggio on May 29, and concluding on June 6 with a brutal third Alpine road stage organisers have named the 'Monte Bianco stage', on the Italian side of Western Europe’s highest mountain, Mont Blanc. And it's a tough way to end the week the riders tackling almost 4,000m of vertical ascent.

The entire race is set in the north-west, starting in northern reaches of Tuscany before heading along the coast into Liguria. There's a brief visit to Emilia-Romagna as the race moves into Lombardy for a first visit to the mountains. The final two stages, including a mountain time trial, take place in Italy’s smallest region, the Valle d'Aosta

With such a challenging route, including two mountain top finishes, a mountain time trial and that brutal final day in the Alps, organisers will be hoping the route tempts the sport’s biggest star, Demi Vollering (FDJ United-SUEZ), to defend the maglia rosa she won last year, though whether she takes the bait is to be seen.

After her second place at the 2026 Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, it’s a race suited to Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney and her new Lidl-Trek team, while after her win at the Vuelta España Femenina, the new GC star on the block, Paula Blasi, may opt for the Giro, especially as the course is suited less to her new Movistar teammate Marlen Reusser.

After finishing second overall in 2026 and with the Canyon-SRAM Scalable Capital team leadership in her hands, Antonia Niedermaier is another candidate for success, especially with the mountain time trial featuring again. However, such is the the amount of climbing , we could see pure climbers like Vuelta stage winner Petra Stiasny (Human Powered Health) and Sarah Gigante (AG Insurance-Soudal), who won two mountain stage on her way to third overall in 2025, among the suitors to the maglia rosa.

But before we get too deep into who may win, here's what the route will look like next May.

Where the race will be decided

While the GC riders will need to be attentive over the three flatter opening days, the 2027 Giro will be decided over four mountain stages, which include two mountain top finishes, a time trial and the final Alpine day.

Stage 4 features four classified climbs and 3,500m of vertical ascent and the week’s first mountain top finish, stage 4 is the first GC battle of the week. Covering 131km between Credaro and Passo della Presolana, the stage heads into the Bergamasque Prealps, the day’s final climb the perfect platform for attacks with its relatively even gradient edging between 5% and 10% over almost 12km.

If one strong climber emerges on stage 4, we may see a procession two days later when stage 6 takes us into the Central Alps for another mountain top finish, this time at Madesimo above the Valle Spluga. With more climbing than the previous mountain day, the stage also includes the Cima Alfonsina Strada, the race’s highest point, the Passo San Marco, some 1,987m above sea level.

Read more: A history of the most iconic climbs of the Giro d'Italia Women

A brute of a climb, the gradient averages 7.4% over its whopping 19.6km length, though the top comes still with 80km to the finish, and ahead of the ascent to the line, which also approaches 20km in length.

The stage 8 mountain time trial will be crucial for those looking to challenge the general classification. It’s the second consecutive edition of the Giro with an uphill TT, and this is harder than the one Anna van der Breggen (SD Worx-Protime) won last year, even if it’s 1.7km shorter, there's no respite over the 11km, the gradient ramping up to 10%.

The TT crosses the path of the final stage, and both will force some reshaping of the GC, though with almost 4,000m of vertical ascent in the shadow of Mont Blanc, the final day should be hugely dramatic, and could even see the GC turned on its head.

Only 132km, the day takes in four classified climbs in total, though it is the final one, the Colle San Carlo, which is likely to have the most effect, not only coming on the final day, but averaging almost 10% gradient over its 10.5km. Interestingly, it tops out 25km from the line, with a descent and a short kicker to the line, creating opportunities for some fascinating racing.

Where else can riders shine?

Despite the huge amount of climbing on the route, there are a good five opportunities for sprinters and opportunists.

While we could even see five bunch sprints, at least three of the days are lumpy enough to upset the fast women, and after missing out on the pink jersey after being disqualified from the 2026 Giro when her bike was judged to be underweight, Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx-Protime) is likely to be disappointed with the opening stage. Starting and finishing in Viareggio, on the Tuscan coast, the 124km stage takes place over four laps, each with an early climb, and though Wiebes may be able to survive, it will be far more complicated, especially with plenty of other riders aiming for pink.

Stage 2 heads up the Ligurian coast between Massa and Genoa and is a similar lumpy day, though with much of the climbing coming early on, it’s more likely to end in a sprint than the day before. However, if a breakaway is still out front when the race reaches Genoa, the sprinters’ team will need to take care to bring it back.

At 171km, stage 3 is the longest of the nine, though, along with stage 5, it's the first of only two where a bunch sprint is almost guaranteed. A long early climb will bring a fight for the breakaway, though it will be comprised of eternal optimists, as the final 150km are downhill and the day should be easy to control on the road to Viadana.

With only 300m of climbing, stage 5 is the flattest of the week, flatter even than the time trial, and is the second nailed on opportunity for the fast women, especially if they’ve struggled for success up to that point. Another circuit race, the stage takes place around the town of Cassano d’Adda, closing with four almost pan-flat laps.

Though on the face of it stage 7 looks like another sprint day, it's sandwiched between a brutal Alpine stage and the mountain time trial, so is ripe for breakaway success. At 147km between Carugate and Rho, there is only one classified climb and some gentle undulations, so any escapees will need to work hard to the line or they’ll tempt the sprinters to take control.

Stages in full

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Long-standing women's Continental team Hitec Products-Fluid Control will close at the end of 2026 after 18 seasons in the professional peloton, team manager Karl Lima announced on Monday evening.

The Norwegian team was founded in 2009 by Lima, and has been a stalwart of the women's peloton, with hundreds of young Norwegian and international riders passing through their ranks, often onto WorldTour teams and big success.

In the early days, the team was home to stars like Elisa Longo Borghini, Emma Johansson, Kirsten Wild, Ashleigh Moolman Pasio and Audrey Cordon-Ragot, winning major Classics and Grand Tour stages as one of the best teams in the women's peloton.

More recently, the team has acted more as a development pathway, with success in that mission, too. Just this season, Hitec Products graduate Sigrid Haugset took a memorable stage win at the Tour de France Femmes, in her first year in the WorldTour after four seasons racing for the Norwegian squad.

Hitec Products, where Lima is technical manager, has supported the team since 2009, acting as title sponsor for 16 of their 18 seasons, with brands like Norwegian supermarket Coop and energy company Repsol also supporting the team over the years.

However, the team has not been able to secure the sponsorship to continue for a 19th season.

"After 18 seasons, it is with a heavy heart that we announce the end of Hitec Products Fluid Control," Lima wrote in a post on the team's social media. "Unfortunately, a lack of funding means that we are no longer able to continue."

Norwegian at its core, many of the team's success stories have been with home riders, like Katrine Aalerud, Susanne Andersen and Haugset, but they've played part in the careers of dozens of international riders, too.

"Since 2009, 111 riders, including 47 Norwegians, have been part of our team. Together, we have won championships, competed at the highest international level and, most importantly, provided young female cyclists with a platform to develop, grow and take the next step in their careers," the team said.

"A heartfelt thank you to all the riders, staff, sponsors and everyone who has believed in and supported our team throughout these years. We are incredibly proud of what we have achieved together."

The team's announcement has been met with support from the women's cycling community, with messages from riders like Julie Leth, Jolien D'hoore and Elena Cecchini.

The closure of Hitec Products means that there will be no more Norwegian teams at women's Continental or ProTeam level, though the nation is represented in the WorldTour through Uno-X Mobility.

The loss of the team also comes after the demise of the Ladies Tour of Norway, showing potentially worrying signs for women's cycling in the country. There were 10 Norwegian riders in the Women's WorldTour and ProTeams in 2026, many of whom came up via Hitec Products.

"The talent is there. We sincerely hope that Norwegian women's cycling will continue to have the opportunities and platforms needed to develop future generations of riders and help them reach the highest level," the team's statement concluded.

Of the team's 14 riders in 2026, only three have confirmed contracts for 2027, with Oda Gissinger heading to Uno-X, Julia Borgström returning to the WorldTour with Fenix-Premier Tech, and April Tacey signing for Smurfit Westrock.

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After an all-conquering final season in the U23 ranks, Lorenzo Finn and Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe are attempting to manage expectations as the Italian prepares to assume fully-fledged professional status from January 2027.

The German team announced on Monday that the 19-year-old super-talent will graduate from the 'Rookies' development squad to the WorldTour team in 2027 – a move which had already been baked in for several months.

In fact, Finn – three months younger than Paul Seixas – had the opportunity to turn professional in 2026 but, after winning the U23 road race world title in 2025, preferred to spend another year in the development ranks, and went on to dominate the Giro d'Italia Next Gen and Tour de l'Avenir.

Aside from claiming those big U23 titles, he rode extensively at pro level, representing Red Bull's WorldTour squad on loan at several lower-level races, including the Sibiu Tour, which he won. He also elected to ride in the elite category at the World Championships, placing 55th in a race most didn't finish.

"Becoming a professional cyclist is a dream that is now coming true. You have to take a moment to pause and tell yourself: I haven’t reached my ultimate goal yet, but I’ve made it as a pro. It’s something I’ve wanted since I was a child," Finn said in a press release from Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe.

'I still have time'

The same press release insisted that the "gradual approach to his development will continue as he makes the step up", and part of the puzzle will be managing expectations after this year so clearly marked him out as a future superstar. The success of Seixas hardly helps, with the Frenchman already having two pro seasons under his belt, this year winning a Monument and placing fourth at the Tour de France.

"Now I must not put too much pressure on myself," said Finn, who is tipped to rival Seixas and others for Grand Tour titles in the future.

"First, I need to get used to the level. I don’t have any specific expectations for my first year as a pro. I want to keep developing throughout the season and help the team.

"I still have time. I’m a long way from reaching my full potential. But I’ve reached a level where I can be confident in myself. Now I feel 100 per cent ready to take the next step."

As for the biggest hurdle to overcome in the pro ranks, he said: "The race distance. I’m now coping well with the U23 distances. But when I see how long the Monuments and the major professional races are, there’s still a lot of work to be done.

"That’s normal and will be my most important area for development. But I also believe that I’ll improve simply by riding these races. Ultimately, it’s about being able to perform even after five or six hours."

Finn's race schedule for 2027 has not been mapped out but he indicated his desire to race a first Grand Tour in his first pro season.

A milestone for Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe

As for Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, Finn represents a success story, given that, after riding for the Auto Eder junior squad, he becomes the first rider to graduate through each level of the team's development structure to reach the WorldTour.

The Auto Eder squad has long been affiliated with the professional squad of the organisation managed by Ralph Denk, with the Rookies programme launched in 2025 in Red Bull's first full season of title sponsorship.

"Developing our own riders is a central part of our strategy. Our goal is to provide young athletes with a clear pathway to the WorldTour," said the team's Chief of Sports, Zak Dempster.

"Lorenzo is the first rider to have followed that pathway from the junior ranks onwards. It confirms that our concept works. At the same time, it sends a clear message to the best young talents around the world: if you want to develop over the long term, Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe offers the right environment to do so."

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With the road cycling off-season now in full swing, Remco Evenepoel is still not sitting still, heading from wind tunnel testing, sponsor commitments, and an early look at the 2028 Olympics course in California to Tokyo in Japan.

During his trip to the US, Evenepoel took time at Specialized HQ in Morgan Hill to fine-tune his time trial skills, but also took the time to complete a 65km recon of the Griffith Observatory course in Los Angeles, where he will defend both of his Paris 2024 road gold medals in two years' time.

Evenepoel has been off the bike on his latest trip, but is keeping the kilometres ticking over with his legs, running 10.6km on Sunday and 11.8km on Monday around the capital city in Tokyo at a brisk 4:45/km pace as he took in views of the skyline and Imperial Palace.

Running is far from uncommon among the big names in the peloton, including those from the past, with former Giro d'Italia winner Tom Dumoulin clocking in a 2:27:12 marathon personal best in New York this past weekend.

Having come to the end of a long first season with Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, in which European champion Evenepoel won 14 times across his 54 race days, the Belgian has already said he is eyeing a later start to his 2027 season. In 2026, he got going in Mallorca in January and raced all the way through to Il Lombardia in October.

"What is certain is that I will not enter competition as early as I did this year," he said last month. "As a newcomer to the team, that was somewhat normal. I wanted to prove myself, integrate into the group as well as possible, and win as quickly as possible. Next year will be different."

Evenepoel's plans for 2026 are all but certain to include a return to the Tour de France, following his runner-up finish to Tadej Pogačar in July, especially with 71km of individual time trials on the route and without an abundance of brutal mountaintop finishes – where he is likely at a disadvantage to Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard.

Dumoulin is one of several commentators to note how the route brings the balance towards the favour of Evenepoel, saying that, "I think the Tour organisers are clearly keen to find some way to keep the dominance of UAE and Pogačar in check. By designing a route that keeps things competitive until quite late in the Tour. The only way to beat Pogačar is through time trial kilometres."

The question mark that remains is whether he will also combine the Tour with the Giro d'Italia. He didn't rule out a first return since 2023 to the Italian Grand Tour, speaking before Il Lombardia, but his team boss Ralph Denk has already said his preference would be for his star rider not to do the double.

On Tuesday, November 3, the route for the Giro d'Italia will be revealed in Rome, and while there are expected to be two time trials on the route – the same as the Tour – the total number of ITT kilometres is reportedly set to be less than 60km, with one flatter day against the clock in Monza, and the other being a mountain ITT from Sulmona to Campo di Giove.

Evenepoel's full schedule for the Classics, one-week stage races and Grand Tours will be revealed at Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe's media day at their first training camp for 2027 on December 11 in Mallorca.

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The Cyclists' Alliance annual survey found that 43% of Women's WorldTour respondents earn more than €100,000 per year, up from approximately 27% in 2025.

The TCA annual survey, which is anonymous, asks professional female cyclists a wide range of questions about working conditions, racing, salaries and more, with the intention of creating a yearly report on the state of women's cycling.

Whilst the survey often highlights the concerns and problems facing the women's peloton, with safety and stability key themes of this year's report, there are positive facts and figures too, particularly in the area of salaries in the WorldTour.

This year's report surveyed 118 road riders, including 42 WorldTour riders, of whom 18 reported earning over €100,000 per year, two of which reported salaries of €200,000-300,000 per year, and two in the €400,000-500,000 bracket.

In the same report last year, 27% of a 79-rider pool reported earnings of over €100,000, with some WorldTour riders even reporting earnings of under €20,000, contravening minimum wage requirements.

This year, all WorldTour respondents reported earning over €35,000, with 29% earning up to €65,000 and 24% between €65k and €100k. A small portion of riders preferred not to share their salary.

Whilst only 42 riders out of the 252 women racing for WorldTour teams is only a small sample this year, as noted by the TCA, the pool of respondents still offers and interesting insight into the salaries earnt in the women's peloton, with respondents reporting earnings in every bracket from €35,000-40,000 (where the WWT minimum wage sits) to upwards of €400,000.

Though the figure of 43% likely can't be extrapolated exactly across the whole WorldTour peloton, that figure combined with the data from last year's survey, which had a larger sample of WorldTour riders, does strongly suggest that the number of riders earning above the €100k threshold is on the up.

According to the TCA report, it took until 2020 for the first €100,000+ salaries to be reported, with 3% of all respondents earning that much in 2020, compared to 16% of all respondents in 2026.

Whilst no rider salaries are publicly confirmed, it is believed that the handful of top riders in the women's peloton are now earning up to and around the €1,000,000 mark, and it seems a fair amount of riders are also earning over six figures now.

Growth at the top, but not everywhere

This year's TCA survey had a strong focus on Continental riders, who made up 52 of the 118 road respondents, and as such it is hard to make direct comparisons between the overall results of this year and previous years, given the significantly different demographics surveyed.

However, the results from this year's survey do show that whilst there are positive salary trends at the top of the sport, that is not necessarily being replicated across the tiers, and the situation at Continental level is particularly concerning.

Whilst WorldTour riders are earning well into the six figures, a whopping 98% of Continental riders reported less than €20,000 a year, with 75% earning no salary at all. Those that do take a salary are often earning less than €5,000, with very few reporting salaries higher than that.

With more than half of the Continental respondents also reporting unpaid travel and medical costs, most at this level have to pay to race.

There is no minimum wage requirement, or requirement to pay a wage at all, at the Women's Continental level.

At the ProTeam level, which does have a minimum wage, the majority are earning between €20,000 and €45,000, with one respondent earning €55,000-60,000, and another rider an outlier with a salary of €95,000-100,000.

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Victor Lafay has not definitively called an end to his cycling career but he has confirmed he will not be racing in 2027 as he continues to search for answers to his long-running and ongoing health problems.

When the Frenchman won a stage of the 2023 Tour de France it seemed like a breakthrough moment, but he has endured a living nightmare ever since. His move to Decathlon CMA CGM for the 2024 and 2025 seasons was beset by knee injuries, and his move to Unibet-Rose Rockets this year has borne no fruit – in fact, he hasn’t even pinned on a race number for the Dutch team.

Lafay has been waylaid all year by extreme fatigue, without yet knowing the underlying cause, and he has now come to the end of his one-year contract, meaning he is without a team for next year.

"What is certain is that I will not have a contract in January 2027 and, what’s more, I’m not looking for one," Lafay said in a weekend interview with French newspaper L’Equipe.

"Right now, I’m just looking for my health to improve. I’m already starting to reflect on other, non-sporting, projects."

Lafay's health problems reportedly first surfaced in February this year, following an encouraging first pre-season training camp with Unibet-Rose-Rockets. Nine months on, he is seemingly no closer to getting to the bottom of them.

“We’ve tested my heart, my lungs, and we’ve researched different types of virus – absolutely everything. All the results indicate that I’m in good health. We still don’t know what is provoking all of this. It’s tough to go through," he said.

"When I would go shopping, or go for some bread at the bakery, I only had one desire when I got back home: sleep. I am very quickly spent. It’s going a bit better now when it comes to day-to-day things, but sportingly, it’s a disaster. Last week, I went for a walk to climb up to a temple in Asia. Three years ago, it took me an hour. This time, it took four to climb up and four-and-a-half to come down.

"I’m still looking for answers as to what I have. I have to do more blood tests once I’m back in France. I’m going to a renowned virology centre in Paris. We’re posing the question of a tropical disease, long Covid…"

Lafay knows he won’t be racing professionally in 2027 and is already thinking about options away from cycling, but he has not completely confirmed his retirement.

"I don’t want to say it like that. In my head, it’s not official," he said, indicating his sense of "unfinished business" at not being able to race a single day in 2026.

"I still keep hold of a bit of hope. You never know."

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While many season round-ups focus on the headlines grabbers of the year, like those who have won the biggest races, the best teams and the most memorable moments, here we take a look at those riders who have made notable sacrifices in service of others.

From the Spring Classics to the Grand Tours and the World and European Championships, plenty of riders have excelled in a domestique role.

We've witnessed notable performances from riders working for their leaders, including Demi Vollering, Enric Mas, Lorena Wiebes, and Jonas Vingegaard, who have swept to glory at races throughout the season.

A host of riders, including several from many of the top teams of the men's and women's pelotons, could've made our list, but we've tried to limit the repeats. It's impossible to mention just one rider per team, however.

Read on for a selection of the top domestiques of the 2026 road racing season.

Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike)

Of course, Belgian racer Wout van Aert is a star in his own right. This year he won eight races, with his Paris-Roubaix triumph a career highlight before rounding off his year with points glory at the Vuelta a España.

He also won two stages at the Spanish Grand Tour, but his super-domestique work was just as notable. Van Aert did what few other stars of his calibre do and put his own chances aside day after day in service of his teammate, second-year pro Matthew Brennan.

The 21-year-old Briton was indisputably the best sprinter at the Vuelta, sprinting to five wins – in Manosque, Roquetes, Lorca, La Rábida, and Seville. His quintet of triumphs wouldn't have been possible without his Belgian teammate, who was the last man in the train.

"I'm with a team full of massive champions. You've got guys who have been on podiums in Grand Tours and won them as well, and you've also got guys who have won big classics in some huge races. The fact that they go for me each time is an amazing opportunity, and I'm really thankful that they go full gas for me," Brennan said after his stage 11 win.

Their teamwork in the breakaway on the road to Loja on stage 13 (Van Aert eventually won) was a highlight of the race, while Christophe Laporte also played a vital role in the team's lead-out.

Célia Gery (FDJ United-SUEZ)

Demi Vollering was the dominant force in this women's peloton this year. In her second year in FDJ colours, the Dutchwoman swept to victories at Opening Weekend, the Tour of Flanders, Liège-Bastogne-Liège, and two of cycling's three Grand Tours – the Giro d'Italia and the Tour de France Femmes.

Plenty of her teammates deserve a nod for their work in her service this season, including Lauren Dickson, Juliette Berthet and Evita Muzic on the climbs and Paris-Roubaix winner Franziska Koch on the flatter ground. It's French champion Célia Gery who gets the nod here, though.

The 20-year-old is a future star of the sport, and she's learning first-hand from Vollering, who she raced alongside at Flanders, the Giro, and the Tour, playing a pivotal role in helping her team leader win each race.

There was a brush with controversy along the way in France, but she and her team overcame it to seal the yellow jersey in Nice and, with it, Gery's reputation as one of this season's top domestiques.

"It does me even more good and gives me even more pleasure that Demi won given what happened alongside it. I'm really happy. It was a superb experience with the victory at the end of it. It's the dream scenario," Gery said after the race.

Gery will skip this winter's cyclo-cross season to undergo iliac artery surgery. She's hoping to be back to full fitness for the 2027 road season – will a Grand Tour leadership spot await her?

Quinn Simmons (Lidl-Trek, USA)

Quinn Simmons was voted the best domestique at the season's biggest race, the Tour de France, by the race jury, so it's only natural he makes our list.

He won the prize for the second summer in a row after featuring regularly in breakaways during the Tour, doing plenty of work for Mads Pedersen as the Dane stormed to his first green jersey victory.

Simmons and Lidl-Trek teammate Mathias Vacek proved vital for Pedersen in the breakaway to Foix on stage 4, setting up the former world champion for his and the team's sole stage win of the race.

His domestique work wasn't limited to the Tour, either, with Simmons also playing a major role in Brandon McNulty's surprise Road World Championships win. He and his US teammates – including another standout teamworker in 2026, Matteo Jorgenson – took to the front in the final 100km of the race in Montreal and tracked move after move in the final.

Simmons, who covered a major Mathieu van der Poel move for 50km before the chasers caught back and McNulty launched his solo move, played a key role in bringing the rainbow stripes back to the USA after a decades-long wait, part of one of the best displays of teamwork all season.

Jasper Stuyven (Soudal-QuickStep)

As with many other riders on our list, Belgian Classics man Jasper Stuyven is a leader in his own right, but this year his work for Soudal-QuickStep's sprinters shone even brighter than his own success.

Stuyven's first campaign at the leading Belgian squad brought an uptick in personal form, including podium finishes at Paris-Roubaix, Paris-Tours, and two stages of the Giro d'Italia. He also played a major role in their sprint successes as they re-established themselves as the world's best sprint squad.

Stuyven spent much of his season racing alongside Tim Merlier and Paul Magnier, racking up 60 race days with the sprinters and helping them deliver 11 wins.

Those wins include Magnier's trio of triumphs at the Giro d'Italia, where Stuyven worked as the last man in the lead-out (almost winning himself in the chaotic finale in Naples), and Merlier's three in France, where he stepped up after designated last man in the line Bert Van Lerberghe crashed out on stage 6.

The new-look Soudal-Safety Jogger will continue to retool following Remco Evenepoel's departure, continuing to emphasise the Classics and sprints next year. Stuyven will undoubtedly continue to play the key role he did this season.

Femke Markus (SD Worx-Protime)

It's hard to pick a standout domestique on a team with the best sprinter in the world, but even Lorena Wiebes can't do it all herself. Femke Markus is our pick from SD Worx-Protime this season, the Dutch racer having played a role in 15 of the team's 39 wins.

Markus has been by Wiebes' side for 10 of her 24 sprint wins, including the dominant showings at the UAE Tour Women and Tour of Chongming Island and her In Flanders Fields victory.

Elsewhere, Markus was part of the team that came away with three wins and second overall at La Vuelta Femenina, while she also scored two wins herself – at the Antwerp Port Epic and a stage of the Eneco Tour. She's played multiple roles for the team this year, including controlling breakaways, aiding leaders as a Classics lieutenant, and working in the lead-out train.

Markus is one of seven riders departing the Dutch squad for 2027. She'll head to Visma-Lease a Bike, where she'll get more Classics opportunities and assist up-and-coming sprinter Nienke Veenhoven in the battle against Wiebes.

Davide Piganzoli (Visma-Lease a Bike)

Jonas Vingegaard dominated the Giro d'Italia in May, winning five stages on the way to an overall victory by over five minutes. But he didn't do it all by himself.

24-year-old Davide Piganzoli joined a growing Italian contingent at Visma-Lease a Bike over the winter and showed this year just what the Dutch team saw in him during three years spent with Polti-VisitMalta.

The climber was Vingegaard's right-hand man during the Giro, often operating as his last man in the high mountains even with Grand Tour winner and long-time super-domestique Sepp Kuss in the squad.

Piganzoli joined Visma with 13th and 14th overall finishes at his home Grand Tour already to his name. He certainly stepped up another level this time around, though, with a series of eye-catching rides in service of Vingegaard en route to eighth overall. Another new addition for this season, Tim Rex, also put in a notably big support ride through the mountains on stage 14.

He and Kuss picked up the pieces at the Tour de France after Vingegaard's crash and abandon to finish in the top 15 in Paris, while he also won the Route d'Occitanie, Tour de Luxembourg, and Giro dell'Emilia. Don't be surprised if he's handed Giro leadership next May.

Antonia Niedermaier (Canyon-SRAM)

Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney may not have been able to replicate her 2024 Tour de France Femmes victory in another duel with Demi Vollering this summer, but her second place was certainly aided by a rider who looks set to ascend to outright leadership at Canyon-SRAM next season.

German 23-year-old Antonia Niedermaier has already shown what she can do at the Giro d'Italia, with her second place this season following previous sixth and fifth places. She showed her strength again on her Tour debut in August, though.

Niedermaier was by Niewiadoma-Phinney's side throughout the week, aiding her in tricky hilly stages to Belleville-en-Beaujolais and Tournon-sur-Rhône before racing with her leader on the lower slopes of Mont Ventoux as she ascended into yellow.

In the end, it wasn't to be for the Pole or her team as Vollering proved too powerful on the closing stages in Nice. But Niedermaier showed she was the Tour's top super-domestique, helping Niewiadoma-Phinney to second overall while finishing fourth in the best young rider's jersey.

Nils Politt (UAE Team Emirates-XRG)

Such is Tadej Pogačar's dominance throughout the season that some fans joke he can win races without a team. In recent seasons, his biggest triumphs have often seen him simply solo away, sometimes hours from the finish, and finish minutes ahead of everyone else.

That's not true, of course, even if he is by far the best rider in the world at the moment. Pogačar has an expensively assembled squad of some of the best domestiques in the peloton, including a host of riders who would lead plenty of other teams.

Among them are top GC riders such as Adam Yates, Isaac del Toro, and João Almeida, and a rider strong enough to win the Worlds, Brandon McNulty. Also on the list are the team's workhorses, Vegard Stake Laengen, Mikkel Bjerg, and Nils Politt.

The trio can often be spotted stationed at the head of the peloton, where they spend hours doing the less glamorous but important work of keeping the breakaway close and dragging back moves before Pogačar and other leaders do their thing.

This season, Politt took on that role in a trio of Pogačar-dominated races, Tour of Flanders, the Tour de Suisse, and Tour de France, and so his place here is well-deserved.

Enric Mas' Vuelta teammates (Movistar)

Few had expected Enric Mas to come away from his eighth Vuelta a España with the red jersey, given Tadej Pogačar was racing. The Slovenian's mid-race crash and abandon put Mas in the lead, though, and from there he was impervious as he raced to glory.

The 31-year-old was the strongest rider the rest of the way in Spain, and his Movistar teammates, missing Cian Uijtdebroeks after an early crash, stepped up in a big way, too.

Each played their part in the win, including Carlos Canal, Jorge Arcas, and Orluis Aular, who controlled the peloton day after day, and Raúl García Pierna and Pablo Castrillo, who raced in break after break to assist late on pivotal mountain stages. Iván Romeo, meanwhile, did plenty of work on the front when the road angled uphill, as it often did.

This is really a place for everyone on the Spanish team's Vuelta squad, but García Pierna, Castrillo, and Romeo were the standout performers during the toughest stages of the race as Mas had to fend off the likes of Felix Gall, Primož Roglič, and Richard Carapaz. Stage 14, when García Pierna and Castrillo made the break before working with Mas on the summit finish to Sierra de la Pandera, was a standout example of their teamwork.

Riejanne Markus (Lidl-Trek, Netherlands)

Femke isn't the only Markus family member on our list this season, as she's joined by older sister Riejanne.

The 32-year-old was a key cog in the Lidl-Trek machine during the season but also played an important role in the Dutch squad at the end of the season as Demi Vollering swept to World and European Championships glory.

Before that, Markus was prominent during the Tour de France Femmes in the summer as Lidl-Trek tried to disrupt Lorena Wiebes' sprint train in Geneva. Her 40km solo ride, only caught in the final kilometre, meant SD Worx-Protime burned their support riders, even if Elisa Balsamo couldn't overcome the Dutchwoman in the sprint.

After helping Isabella Holmgren to an impressive top-10 on her Tour debut, Markus later made the Netherlands squad for both major season-ending championships alongside Amber Kraak, Puck Pieterse, Femke De Vries, and Karlijn Swinkels.

Yes, they had the strongest teams in Montreal and Ljubljana, but Markus was still on hand to play her role in delivering two gold medals for Vollering and her nation.

Silvan Dillier (Alpecin-Premier Tech)

Swiss racer Silvan Dillier is another entry in the category of riders doing the hard yards at the front of the peloton for hours on end.

Almost a decade ago, Dillier raced to second at Paris-Roubaix and a Giro d'Italia stage win. Now, the 36-year-old firmly occupies the road captain role at Alpecin-Premier Tech.

2026 was his sixth season at the Belgian squad, and he's a trusted lieutenant to the team's stars, Mathieu van der Poel and Jasper Philipsen, spending 46 race days with the Dutchman and 39 with the Belgian this year.

He was there for all the biggest triumphs of the season, then, including the three Tour de France stage wins and the victories at the E3 Saxo Classic and In Flanders Fields. Of course, he wasn't the last man launching Philipsen in the sprint or pulling off the front as Van der Poel powered clear. Instead, he does the monotonous work on the front to set it all up.

His value as a domestique is perhaps best summed up at a race his team didn't win – Milan-San Remo – where he raced on the front for much of the longest race on the calendar, averaging 340 watts for four-and-a-half hours.

"I try to think about nothing, kind of meditating on the bike. I definitely try to stay positive in my thoughts, but the easiest way to do this is just think about nothing," Dillier told Cyclingnews afterwards.

"I try to break down my whole effort into smaller pieces; I had these 15-minute markers where I would eat something or drink something. And then, yeah, after a couple of these, when you really start to get into your rhythm and flow, 15 minutes actually passes by pretty quickly."

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Pauline Ferrand-Prévot has proven to be a master at putting everything into a target race, preparing meticulously and then reaping the rewards. In recent years, it has delivered two of the biggest prizes in cycling: an Olympic gold medal in mountain biking and a Tour de France Femmes yellow jersey.

Though that laser-sharp focus didn't yield the same result for the French Visma-Lease a Bike rider in 2026, with her hoped-for Tour de France Femmes title defence ending with a DNS on stage 8 and a harsh reality off the bike as well.

"I was so over focus[ed] on winning Tour again that I lost the joy of the everyday life. It was all about being and doing more to be the best," said Ferrand-Prévot in a post on social media, where she reflected on her off-season.

"Strangely I faced some down times in my career before, where I felt sad and lost, but I never really experienced the fact to do everything so good and to ended up with nothing. And I think it’s one of the reason of my "non-understanding" state of the last few months."

Ferrand-Prévot hasn't raced since not lining up for the penultimate stage of the French Grand Tour, leaving her with just 19 race days for 2026.

"My never-ending off-season was so needed," said Ferrand-Prévot. "It will be a long way to find a [decent] level again, as I’m fully unshaped. But the most important for now is to find back the joy to be on the bike."

Just in the way she found the joy off it, as while this year has also presented its challenges off the bike, with partner Dylan van Baarle being involved in a bad training accident, it has also delivered the highest of highs.

"I remembered being happy when winning the Olympics, Tour, or Roubaix, but this feeling of getting married to Dylan with the presence of the most important people in my life was another level of joy, happiness and fulfilment," said Ferrand-Prévot, who signed off from her post as Pauline van Baarle.

"Experiencing this feeling of being so happy while not sacrificing everything or being extreme was something I never experienced before. On that last sentence, I will take note for the future. Again, MERCI for the support over my difficult 2026 season. I’m sure I will come back stronger."

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At 27, with just one UCI road race to her name and no experience racing for a professional team, South African Lisa Bone has secured a two-year contract with EF Education-Oatly. It is an extraordinary journey, and potentially an important moment for African women's cycling.

At this time of year, cycling transfer news comes thick and fast. Cycling sport's media are whirring, with contract extensions and rider movement rumours.

So, when a press release landed in inboxes on October 21 announcing that "Lisa Bone signs with EF Education-Oatly", it initially was just another transfer story.

Except it wasn't.

Bone hasn't yet raced for a UCI-registered team and has contested just one UCI road race in her career outside national and continental championships. That was the now-defunct Pupkewitz Megabuild Windhoek Women Tour in Namibia in July 2025, where she finished tenth.

Yet she has secured a two-year contract with EF Education-Oatly and is only the third African woman to sign for a Women's WorldTour team, following Kim Le Court-Pienaar and the recently retired Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio.

Who is Lisa Bone?

Bone grew up in a modest family, with two working parents, and developed an early love of sport. Field hockey was her first passion, and she excelled at various levels.

However, two ACL injuries eventually curtailed her ambitions. During rehabilitation, she turned to cycling. An indoor trainer quickly became a road bike, and a new sporting passion was born.

Her introduction to competitive cycling came in 2023, after being spotted by Lincoln King, one of the founders of the Cycle Nation team.

"He saw me at a random race four years ago where I had no idea about racing, I had no idea what bike racing really entailed. He said that I just looked super eager to race my bike and that was enough for him," Bone said.

"I then joined the team with three huge names in cycling - Carla Oberholzer, Joanna van de Winkel and Cherise Willeit – multi-Olympians who have all raced in Europe and around the world. I was like a little side-quest for them, they wanted to help me develop."

Trajectory

Two years later, Bone has built an impressive domestic racing CV. She narrowly missed out on second place in the Women's Elite National Championships Road Race in January, claimed silver in the National Gravel Championships, won the prestigious Cape Town Cycle Tour in March 2026 and took victory in the UCI Gravel World Series race Around the Pot in August.

Her performances were beginning to attract attention overseas.

For Esra Tromp, general manager of EF Education-Oatly, Bone's appeal goes beyond her results. Her athletic background, professional maturity, and determination to succeed have all caught the team's attention.

"Lisa comes from a strong athletic background, having been a highly competitive field hockey player. She combined that with being a physiotherapist, then she replaced field hockey with cycling while continuing to work full time," Tromp said.

"All of this in a country that does not necessarily have an established pipeline to the World Tour. This tells me that Lisa knows how to create opportunities while having the confidence to make bold decisions."

Following several discussions with the team's management, a contract was signed, and the announcement was eventually made public. For Bone, it was a surreal moment.

"It was a real 'pinch me' moment. I could not tell anyone for a month what was going on. You sign a little piece of paper and then go tell your boss you are quitting your job! And that is it. I was recently added to a WhatsApp group with the riders, and it is now beginning to feel a bit more real. All the ladies have messaged me and welcomed me to the team," Bone said.

She is also relishing the tactical side of professional racing.

"I love the chess-game element of racing – reading what other teams are doing, knowing when to commit, when to wait and how several riders can work together towards one result," she said.

Bone will join her new teammates at the November training camp, alongside some of the biggest names in women's cycling, including 2026 top ten ranked Noemi Rüegg, 2024 Olympic Road Race champion Kristen Faulkner and 2025 World Champion Magdeleine Vallieres.

But her signing means more than another rider joining a World Tour team. Team AG Insurance-Soudal’s Le Court-Pienaar shared how important this news is.

“I am so excited and happy about this transfer news," Le Court-Pienaar said. "My dream to see more African women on the pro scene is getting more realistic day by day. It feels even more special when you have played a small role in the journey as well.”

Inspiration

Kimberly Coats, CEO of the Africa Rising Cycling non-profit, has spent twenty years creating pathways for African riders into the professional peloton. She believes Bone's journey can inspire a new generation of women across the continent:

“Lisa becoming only the third African woman in history to sign with a World Tour team is massive. For all of us who have spent years believing in and working to develop African cycling, this moment feels incredibly validating," Coats said.

"Lisa earned this opportunity, but what excites us just as much is what it means for the girls coming behind her. Somewhere in Africa, a young girl will see Lisa and think, ‘I can do that too'. This is a milestone for her, but it’s also a milestone for African cycling.”

And perhaps that is the most important part of Bone's story. She didn't follow the traditional pathway into professional cycling. She discovered the sport later in life, balanced a full-time career with racing and worked her way towards an opportunity few could have imagined when she first climbed aboard an indoor trainer.

Now she is heading to the WorldTour. For Bone, the adventure is only just beginning. For aspiring female cyclists across Africa, her journey might just show them what is possible.

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Once viewed as a pure domestique, Femke de Vries’ standout 2026 season has her dreaming of more for the future.

The Visma-Lease a Bike rider was among the peloton’s most improved riders this season, securing 6th place at the UAE Tour in February, followed by 6th at the Giro d’Italia Women and 5th at the Tour de Suisse, where she also claimed the opening stage in Sondrio - her first professional victory.

At the age of 32, De Vries has emerged as one of the Dutch team's leaders this year, having previously been exclusively utilised as a key part of the machinery, enabling the likes of Pauline Ferrand-Prévot and Marianne Vos.

Having finished the 2025 season strongly, De Vries targeted the early-season UAE Tour Women, hoping to test her legs ahead of bigger ambitions to come. She finished 3rd behind Elisa Longo Borghini (UAE Team l'Imad) and Monica Trinca Colonel (Liv-AlUla-Jayco) on the queen stage to Jebel Hafeet, beating several top General Classification riders.

“That third place in the UAE Tour just gave me so much confidence," she told Wielerflits. "I made that a big goal and it went better than expected.”

After a strong Classics campaign, in which she once again worked tirelessly for Ferrand-Prévot and Vos, De Vries’ attention turned to the Giro, going in as one of the team’s leaders alongside French youngster Marion Bunel.

With Bunel off form, De Vries found herself as the team’s leader after a strong time-trial. Two 5th places on the race’s decisive mountain stages secured 6th overall.

“I was really able to keep up there for so long,” she said on reflection. “I thought the gap at the top was quite small, so I was very proud of that.”

"If I had known this would be my season, I would have signed up for it immediately,” De Vries said, adding that she continues to find improvements in her training and hopes for more in the years to come.

“So far, it turns out that things can get better every year, and it goes better than expected every year. It will stop at some point, but for now, I still see little things that could be improved."

The target now is a shot at a Grand Tour podium.

“This is a dream that is fully on my mind. Every time I think about it, I get enthusiastic about training again. It is a big goal."

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French General Classification superstar Paul Seixas could race the Giro d’Italia next season after narrowly missing out on a Tour de France podium this year on his Grand Tour debut.

At just 19, Seixas carried the hopes of the people of France this summer, as the host nation continued its 41-year wait for a Tour champion.

Now, Seixas and his Decathlon-CMA CGM team are debating how to approach the 2027 season. A first start at the Giro d’Italia is an option on the table, potentially keeping the now 20-year-old away from the bright lights and expectations of the Tour de France.

“Certainly. Right now, anything is possible regarding next season's racing program,” Seixas said in an interview with Gazzetta dello Sport.

“We'll discuss it with the team and decide together what's best."

A final decision on Seixas' race programme is set to be made during a team training camp in December.

The route for the 2027 Giro d’Italia is due to be announced on Tuesday, November 3rd in Rome, with rumours of a brutal final week including the mythical climbs of the Gavia, Zoncolan and Mortirolo. The race will begin in Trieste on May 8.

While Seixas denies any negative impact to the pressure put on him during last year’s Tour, a start at the Giro d’Italia could allow him to race with lighter shoulders.

“Those aren't things that bother me. Nor do they distract me from doing my job,” he said when asked about the pressure of being the next great hope of France.

“I'm simply happy to have embarked on this journey. I don't know where I'll end up, no one knows, but 2026 has been excellent, I'm very happy about it.”

Since closing his 2026 road season at Il Lombardia, Seixas has taken a period of rest. He appeared on the pitch of his hometown football club, Olimpique Lyonnais, being announced to the crowd during their match with OGC Nice on 18 October.

As well as considering his 2027 race programme, Seixas and his personal team will also be discussing his future, with his Decathlon-CMA CGM contract due to expire at the end of next season.

Speaking to Gazzetta, Seixas also reflected on his second professional season in which he secured 11 UCI victories, including three stages and the overall at Itzulia Basque Country, La Flèche Wallonne and his first monument win at Il Lombardia.

The centre-point, however, was the Tour de France, his first Grand Tour. Seixas finished an impressive fourth place on the General Classification, a little over two minutes away from the podium places.

“The fact that I fought for the podium until the end makes it excellent, from a sporting perspective,” he said.

“I learned a lot that will be useful to me in the future. A three-week tour... is different from everything else."

Known for his climbing abilities, Seixas has wowed with his time-trialling skills this season, finishing third at the World Championships in Montreal and fourth in the stage 16 26km test against the clock in the Tour de France.

"I'm comfortable with the time trial bike and I want to take care of it regardless, not only because it's essential to my hopes of winning the Grand Tours. I'll stick with this approach that has worked so far," he said of his focus on the discipline.

Seixas is viewed as the pretender to the throne of Tadej Pogačar, the men’s peloton’s dominant force of the 2020s.

The Frenchman spoke of his respect for the UAE Team Emirates-XRG rider, saying that Pogačar is the rider he most wants to emulate in his career.

“Not just because he's the best, but for his style both inside and outside the race. He's on his way to becoming the best-ever,” he said.

“His presence motivates me and everyone else to improve. Maybe one day I'll catch up to him, maybe not. But I'll keep trying anyway.”

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22 years on from his first Grand Partenza, Italian veteran Domenico Pozzovivo could return to the Giro d’Italia next season as he looks to extend his stay with Italian ProTeam Solution Tech-Nippo-Rali into 2027.

Pozzovivo, who turns 44 in November, last raced the Italian Grand Tour in 2024, finishing 20th and announcing his retirement at the end of that season. He made a comeback to racing in 2026 with Solution Tech-Nippo-Rali and hopes to renew his contract with the team, saying that he has recorded some of his best-ever power numbers this year.

The lightweight climber scored more than 500 UCI points in 2026, finishing the year as the team’s second-highest scorer as they finished 26th in the team rankings, comfortably inside the top-30 places needed to be eligible to race a Grand Tour. With fellow Italian ProTeam Bardian-CSF-7 Saber failing to make the cut, Solution Tech-Nippo-Rali has a good chance of securing a wildcard invite to the 2027 Giro d’Italia.

Solution Tech-Nippo-Rali has not yet finalised its 2027 roster. Pozzovivo told Italian website bici.PRO in an interview that he is expecting to hear news on his renewal this month.

“The idea of ​​wanting to continue is there,” Pozzovivo said.

“I would like to continue with [Solution Tech-Nippo-Rali], since in the end they were the ones who had the courage to invest in a rider my age, with so many years of career behind him.”

“I hope to have everything finalised in November… For me, it would be very important to face the winter with a plan already in mind and an idea of ​​when and how to achieve the best performance.”

After first competing at the race in 2005, Pozzovivo has twice finished 5th at the Giro d’Italia, in 2014 and 2018. He won his one and only Giro stage in 2012 in Lago Laceno. His last WorldTour victory was a stage of the Tour de Suisse in 2017.

After initially retiring at the end of 2024, Pozzovivo joined Solution Tech-Nippo-Rali in April. The rider from the province of Matera in the south of Italy had an impressive 2026 season, finishing 3rd in the Czech Tour and Giro dell’Appennino.

Pozzovivo said that he has recorded his best-ever power numbers this season, aided by taking on the advanced nutritional and training methods which have swept the peloton in recent years.

“From a physical point of view, the values ​​I had already recorded in training were the best-ever,” he said.

“My contribution in terms of points, all of which were in Europe, was not marginal. I am therefore proud to have been able to keep the promises I made to the team when I joined.”

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