The return of the greats, cycling's newest mega talent and 'grande ciclismo' – What I'm excited to see at this year's Strade Bianche

The 2026 season has been underway for six weeks and the Classics season kicked-off at the weekend with Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, but Saturday's Strade Bianche marks a new high-point of the cycling season and the start of two weeks of Italian grande ciclismo.

Everyone has a favourite race of the season and Strade Bianche has become mine in recent years. I'm biased because it is my 'home' Classic, but Strade Bianche encapsulates everything that is magical about bike racing.

Stephen Farrand

I've reported on every edition of Strade Bianche, including the 2020 rescheduled Covid-19 edition raced in 35°C August heat and those raced in the cold and rain of early spring. I've seen Fabian Cancellara use his power to conquer the Tuscan 'sterrati' and these days I understand how the demanding course means Strade Bianche is now out of reach for most Classics riders.

Modern-day Strade Bianche needs superb spring form, Ardennes climbing physiology and gravel racer bike skills. It is Liège-Bastogne-Liège combined with Paris-Roubaix. That is why Tadej Pogačar, Demi Vollering and Tom Pidcock excel and why sadly Mathieu van der Poel has opted to stay away this year.

Pogačar and Vollering are the big favourites for this year's race but anything and everything can happen at Strade Bianche. These are the things I hope to see and will be watching for on Saturday.

The sport's biggest stars return with a splash

I'm fascinated to see how Tour de France winners Tadej Pogačar and Pauline Ferrand-Prévot perform on their season debut against riders who have already won major races in 2026.

The racing at Strade Bianche always provides drama and emotion, but the presence of Pogačar and Ferrand-Prévot raises the bar a whole lot higher. A win for either would be further confirmation of his or her status as a great of the sport. If anyone can beat them, it will be one of the biggest moments of the 2026 season.

Pogačar is making his season debut late because he has chosen another intense Classics calendar that includes five major objectives between now and the end of April, including Milan-San Remo, the Tour of Flanders, Paris-Roubaix and Liège-Bastogne-Liège.

Even Polymarket – the platform making headlines this week for its ability to predict world events – is unable to understand Pogačar's true fitness before his season debut and work out where he will attack on Saturday. However, he is the natural favourite to win Strade Bianche for a fourth time in five years.

In 2025 he surged away with 64km to go and soon dispatched Tom Pidcock on the final gravel climbs. In 2024 he attacked alone with 82km to go on the long gravel sector of Monte Santa Maria. A similar performance this year would be a foretelling of what is to come this spring and summer, as he chases more accolades and records.

Pauline Ferrand-Prévot has enjoyed a similarly lowkey winter, that included extending her contract with Visma-Lease a Bike until 2028. She has recently trained at altitude at Mount Teide and so should be on form for her season debut.

On her return to full-time road racing in 2025, she suffered at the UAE Tour but then was third at Strade Bianche. Demi Vollering is in superb form but if anyone can beat her on the climbs and on the dirt, Ferrand-Prévot can.

The unique fascination of Strade Bianche

The Flemish Classics are unique for their cobbled climbs, cycling culture and great racing, an identity build over decades, but in just 20 years, Strade Bianche has matched them for mystique and become one of the most dramatic, most entertaining and most loved races on the calendar.

This year is the 20th edition of the men's race and the 11th edition of the women's race. Strade Bianche is the youngest Classic on the calendar but has rightly earned the unofficial title of the sport's sixth Monument and captured the hearts of the Italian tifosi and thousands of other global cycling fans who travel to Tuscany to ride the Strade Bianche sportive on the Sunday.

Strade Bianche was created after the success of the L'Eroica event, where anyone can ride on the gravel roads of southern Tuscany, as long as they use a pre-1982 bike with toe-clips and caliper brakes.

The pro race is raced on aero bikes and 30mm tubeless tyres but over the dirt roads of the pre-war heroic era of cycling. Every pro rider loves to finish in the centre of Siena whatever their result, their dusty, pain-racked faces a badge of honour and satisfaction.

Race organisers RCS Sport have created a fan zone on the Tolfe sector of Strade Bianche, that is covered twice in the men's and women's races. The steep gravel climb has often inspired the decisive attacks. Expect the climb to be packed with screaming, arm-waving, emotional tifosi on Saturday. It is the apotheosis of pro cycling.

Cycling's next mega talent takes on Pogačar

Tadj Pogačar often appears unbeatable but Paul Seixas has shown he is also a generational talent and the 19-year-old French rider is peaking for Strade Bianche. If anyone can even begin to challenge Pogačar at Strade Bianche on Saturday, why not Seixas?

The way Seixas distanced Matteo Jorgenson to win the Faun-Ardèche Classic was Pogačaresque. He led from the front and calmly sipped on a bidon as the American hit his limit and lost contact.

Seixas has improved significantly since his WorldTour debut in 2025, with his latest Strava times showing the benchmark and improvement – he recently took 34 seconds off his ascent of the Saint-Romain-de-Lerps climb compared to when he climbed it in last year's European Championships behind Pogačar. He was also 16 seconds faster than Pogačar's time on the descent. He is young and still inexperienced but actually has more race days on the Eroica roads than Pogačar after riding the Eroica Juniores Nations' Cup stage races in 2023 and 2024.

Seixas is also a talented and experienced cyclo-cross rider, meaning he has the potential to match or even beat Pogačar on every terrain at Strade Bianche. That would be special to witness on Saturday.

Witnessing an icon at her best

Demi Vollering is captivating to watch when she is at her best, when she dominates her races, but also when she falters, shows she is human and is openly honest about it.

The Dutch rider has been one of the biggest driving forces in the global development of women's cycling in recent years and like Pogačar, she can win both Grand Tours and the toughest Classics, a true measure of her talents and ambitions.

After her dominance at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad it will be fascinating to see what she can do at Strade Bianche. Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney was able to go after her on the Muur van Geraardsbergen on Saturday but had no response in the sprint. We could see a similar scenario on the dirt roads in Italy before Vollering surges away on the Via Santa Caterina climb and wins alone.

That's what she did in 2025, dispatching Anna van der Breggen to then win alone. In 2023 she beat Lotte Kopecky in a sprint, showing her determination into the final corner in central Siena.

Vollering could win Strade Bianche for a third time on Saturday, matching Fabian Cancellara and Tadej Pogačar. A third win would earn her a special milestone on a sector of Strade Bianche – the first woman to achieve this – and cement her place in the history of the race.

An emotional return to Siena?

Wout van Aert's 2026 season has endured a disrupted start and his recent illness may mean he is not a contender at this year's Strade Bianche. But he will still ride, after learning to love Strade Bianche and the emotions of grande ciclismo.

If Van Aert ever decided to have a tattoo to commemorate Strade Bianche, it could simply be 'Love-Hate'. He has hated Strade Bianche several times, from his debut in 2018 when he had to climb off his bike at the top of the Santa Caterina to a disappointed fourth place in 2019.

He loved Strade Bianche when he won in the August of 2020 but in recent years he has opted to miss the race, preferring to train at altitude or peak later in the spring. His love returned in 2025 when he won the gravel stage of the Giro d'Italia to Siena, across the same sterrati of Strade Bianche.

"This is where my road career started back in 2018, and to win this stage after a long period without delivering, finally again it feels so good," Van Aert said after his win last May.

"Siena is a special place to me, and I'm an emotional person. Places like this motivate me, they inspire me, and I just feel like it was meant to be."

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