Will Van der Poel and Van Aert race, Brand's dominance, and Van Empel's return – The storylines to follow this cyclo-cross season

The road season is over, the clocks have gone back, and the temperatures in Europe are dropping, which can mean only one thing: cyclo-cross is here.

The 2026-27 season is actually well underway by now, with the action kicking off in the US and Europe in September, but most of the main series are just starting or yet to begin.

The HG Cross series, formerly known as Exact Cross, is underway, while the Telenet Superprestige kicked off in Overijse at the weekend. The X2O Badkamers Trofee begins with its most iconic round, the Koppenbergcross, this weekend, whilst the headline series, the UCI Cyclo-Cross World Cup, will start on November 27 in Czechia.

The busy season, with series crowns up for grabs, plus national, Pan-American and European titles, builds towards the World Championships, which this season will be held in Oostende, Belgium at the end of January.

Whilst many of the races and protagonists stay the same year to year in 'cross, the plotlines and points of intrigue change and evolve each season, with different and exciting narratives running throughout the season, from the overall standings of each series to the competition building towards Worlds.

From the will-they-won't-they around Mathieu van der Poel and Wout van Aert to the exciting return of the prodigious Fem van Empel, there's plenty of interesting stories already brewing this winter – here's some you should be following this cyclo-cross season.

Definitely no big three, but what about the big two?

For the last decade, most of the intrigue around the men's calendar has revolved around the so-called 'big three': Mathieu van der Poel, Wout van Aert, and Tom Pidcock. They were cyclo-cross stars before they ever made it big on the road, and even as their WorldTour careers have grown, they've almost always made time during their winters to head back to the mud, with their first appearances circled in everyone's calendar.

This year, though, we won't get the big three – and we might not even get the big two.

That's because Tom Pidcock has already confirmed he won't be racing CX this season, and perhaps not in the future either, with road and mountain biking taking up more and more of his time, and the lack of an Olympic slot for CX, it's becoming harder for the Brit to justify adding the discipline to his schedule.

However, whilst we've been getting used to Pidcock doing less and less CX, what might be new this year is that we may not see Mathieu van der Poel in action, either. Wout van Aert has announced his intention to race at least some CX this year, though probably not starting until December, but the eight-time world champion might skip it altogether. He, too, has been doing less in recent years, but the imminent arrival of his first child seems to have only made his return to the fields even less likely.

So could we really be looking at our first CX season in years without the stars that have defined the last decade of the discipline? It certainly looks that way. In some ways, it might be good for the sport, as it opens up opportunities for the specialist to take more big wins, rather than being steamrolled by the blockbuster names when they turn up for a few races. But for the casual fans drawn in by Van der Poel and Van Aert, it might make for slightly less enthusiastic viewing.

Fem van Empel is back, and doing things differently

In women's CX, the biggest story of the season is undoubtedly Fem van Empel's return to competition. Still only 24, Van Empel was a prodigious force in the discipline, winning practically at will for several seasons, but she stepped away last winter after repeatedly struggling with her mental health and motivation for racing.

No one knew then when she might return – if ever – but the Dutchwoman has found her groove earlier than expected, and is coming back to the sport this winter with Specialized TMRW, FDJ United-Suez's new off-road branch.

Formerly a prolific winner, it would be easy to expect Van Empel to return to those heights straight away. Instead, she and her team are doing things differently, making sure they don't repeat the mistakes of before, and that's really refreshing to see. For the moment, Van Empel is only racing a maximum of once per week, limiting the pressure on her and trying to enjoy being back first and foremost.

Of course, Van Empel's talent is such that even a gentle start has seen her already take fourth and fifth in her first races back, and it seems probable that she will return to winning ways this winter. But the important thing is that the pressure and tension is off, and Van Empel seems to have found the freedom to rediscover what she loves about racing. A winning Van Empel was good, but a happy one is even better.

Lucinda Brand just can't stop – but she will be challenged

Lucinda Brand has raced cyclo-cross since she was a teenager, and though she didn't start winning regularly at the top level until her sixth year as an elite, since then she's been a prolific victor and one of the most consistent riders on the circuit. So far this season, she's already won three of five races she's started, and she'll be chasing the whopping 20 victories she took last winter.

With the power of the rainbow bands, only the second time she's been world champion in her career, she's sure to be on another fantastic run, with zero signs of slowing down as she enters her final 18 months of professional racing.

However, if the races so far are anything to go by, it's not going to be a walk in the park for Brand, with other riders really stepping up to challenge her already. The returning Fem van Empel is an obvious candidate, but so are the likes of Blanka Vas and Shirin van Anrooij, who are changing teams this winter and returning to cyclo-cross with renewed motivation.

Among the specialists, Ceylin del Carmen Alvarado looked stronger than ever last winter and so far this year, while the likes of Denise Betsema and Aniek van Alphen haven't been much behind Brand either. Luxembourger Marie Schreiber seems to be finally finding a real groove, too, taking a big win at Nacht van Woerden, so the world champion certainly can't rest on her laurels.

Make way for the specialists

The upside to the absence of some of the big multidisciplinary stars this winter is that it will make room for more of the pure CX specialists to shine. These riders who commit their whole year to the discipline are sometimes outshone when the part-timers make their appearances, but with less of that on the cards this year, the series and big events should be contested more by the specialists.

On the men's side, Michael Vanthourenhout looks primed to step into the position of the season's dominant rider, and will perhaps be dreaming of a possible world title at the end of it, whilst riders like Cameron Mason look to be right on the verge of a first major level win. With younger riders like Niels Vandeputte and Witse Meussen on the up too, the men's series could be the most competitive we've seen in years, with plenty of chances of glory for the riders who make this discipline their bread and butter.

Who is going to have a breakout season?

And finally, on that topic, we'll be following closely to see who is going to make 2026-27 their breakout season, with plenty of talent rising to the top right now. There are a few names we have our eyes on already, but actually, the exciting thing is that there are a multitude of riders who could find that breakthrough result this year – the fun is in watching it happen, not trying to predict it in advance.

With the Belgian and Dutch riders naturally dominating the CX scene, even to this day, it's interesting to see who is coming up from outside the 'cross heartlands. US riders Mia Aseltine and Kaya Musgrave are both looking really strong on the European circuit, racing for Competitive Edge Racing, and Czech rider Kristýna Zemanová is on the cusp of a really big win – perhaps in one of the two World Cup rounds in her home country this November?

The calendar

All series except the HG Cross have an overall series standing competition. The World Cup and Superprestige overalls are based on points, whilst the X2O Badkamers Trofee establishes its standings based on cumulative time across the series.

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