The main feature of the year ahead is the new "everything Worlds" which feature the assorted disciplines of cycling all having their individual World Championships as a collective event. These are being held in Scotland in early August - mostly in Glasgow, with the Para events in Dumfries & Galloway and the mountain biking up in Fort William. This is one of David Lappartient's whizzy ideas in his attempts to become a major IOC bigwig, and he's already deemed it enough of a success for there to be another multi-Worlds in France in 2027, it seems that the long term intention is for this to be a four-yearly event. I suspect what will happen is that there will be so much going on that a lot of stuff will just fly below the radar and news and events just get smothered. Not mad keen myself on the splitting of the elite road races so that the men go one Sunday and the women the next.
The Giro and the Tour announced their routes in the autumn. The Giro is time trial-tastic, including a mountain TT in Trieste on the penultimate day following which there is a ridiculous transfer to Rome for the last stage. Remco Evenepoel is going for this, so we should finally get an answer as to whether he really can do big high altitude mountain racing - the evidence was inconclusive from his Vuelta win where they barely went over 2000m. Geraint Thomas, Primoz Roglic and Joao Almeida are also targetting this. The Tour has gone the other way and there is a whole 22k of time trialling, during the final week. That'll be Tadej Pogacar v Jonas Vingegaard again. Pog was out and about doing cyclocross the other day. Winning the Tour last year seems to have taken a lot out of Vingegaard, he barely raced during the autumn and hasn't given any big press interviews or the like. Where Egan Bernal fits into this remains to be seen, he got back racing towards the end of last season but it feels a stretch to see him contending. INEOS have signed Thymen Arensman from DSM and I think he could do very well indeed for them, at the Tour or somewhere else. The Vuelta route isn't out yet, we know it will start in Barcelona, there's expected to be a Tourmalet finish and another on some ridiculously steep goat track to a weather station, think we'll get full details in the next couple of weeks.
Mark Cavendish still hasn't confirmed a team for the season. The assumption is that he will go to Astana - my feeling is that the announcement is being held back until New Years Day so he can be pictured in their kit, but if there's nothing by the end of next week then that will mean questions get asked again. Geraint Thomas is in the final year of his INEOS contract and the word is that there is no desire on either side to do a further deal so we'll see whether he retires or goes somewhere else.
Annemiek van Vleuten is supposedly retiring at the end of the season, although it would not be remotely surprising if she decided to carry on and have a final go at the Olympics the year after. Lizzie Deignan is due back in May after giving birth and I expect she'll retire after the Olympics as well. The Tour de France Femmes looks to have kicked on with its choice of route, AVV will win that given the Tourmalet finish.
The Tour of Britain has announced that their race will start in Manchester and finish in Wales, assume they're going to steer clear of Scotland given the Worlds a month earlier. There's also been no announcement about what will happen with the Isle of Wight stage that got Queened off last year. No details yet on the Women's Tour other than the dates in early June. The organisers of the RideLondon Classique have promised there will be live telly coverage every day so it controversially kept its Women's WorldTour status on this basis.
The Australian swing is back for the first time since 2020, the women get three stages starting on January 15th and the men go two days later for six stages including a time trial which is being held on road bikes and a finish on something called Mount Lofty. There's all the usual build up as well, cycling's equivalent of "playing your local non league club to start pre-season" takes place on New Years Day with the first of the Bay Crits.
The Giro and the Tour announced their routes in the autumn. The Giro is time trial-tastic, including a mountain TT in Trieste on the penultimate day following which there is a ridiculous transfer to Rome for the last stage. Remco Evenepoel is going for this, so we should finally get an answer as to whether he really can do big high altitude mountain racing - the evidence was inconclusive from his Vuelta win where they barely went over 2000m. Geraint Thomas, Primoz Roglic and Joao Almeida are also targetting this. The Tour has gone the other way and there is a whole 22k of time trialling, during the final week. That'll be Tadej Pogacar v Jonas Vingegaard again. Pog was out and about doing cyclocross the other day. Winning the Tour last year seems to have taken a lot out of Vingegaard, he barely raced during the autumn and hasn't given any big press interviews or the like. Where Egan Bernal fits into this remains to be seen, he got back racing towards the end of last season but it feels a stretch to see him contending. INEOS have signed Thymen Arensman from DSM and I think he could do very well indeed for them, at the Tour or somewhere else. The Vuelta route isn't out yet, we know it will start in Barcelona, there's expected to be a Tourmalet finish and another on some ridiculously steep goat track to a weather station, think we'll get full details in the next couple of weeks.
Mark Cavendish still hasn't confirmed a team for the season. The assumption is that he will go to Astana - my feeling is that the announcement is being held back until New Years Day so he can be pictured in their kit, but if there's nothing by the end of next week then that will mean questions get asked again. Geraint Thomas is in the final year of his INEOS contract and the word is that there is no desire on either side to do a further deal so we'll see whether he retires or goes somewhere else.
Annemiek van Vleuten is supposedly retiring at the end of the season, although it would not be remotely surprising if she decided to carry on and have a final go at the Olympics the year after. Lizzie Deignan is due back in May after giving birth and I expect she'll retire after the Olympics as well. The Tour de France Femmes looks to have kicked on with its choice of route, AVV will win that given the Tourmalet finish.
The Tour of Britain has announced that their race will start in Manchester and finish in Wales, assume they're going to steer clear of Scotland given the Worlds a month earlier. There's also been no announcement about what will happen with the Isle of Wight stage that got Queened off last year. No details yet on the Women's Tour other than the dates in early June. The organisers of the RideLondon Classique have promised there will be live telly coverage every day so it controversially kept its Women's WorldTour status on this basis.
The Australian swing is back for the first time since 2020, the women get three stages starting on January 15th and the men go two days later for six stages including a time trial which is being held on road bikes and a finish on something called Mount Lofty. There's all the usual build up as well, cycling's equivalent of "playing your local non league club to start pre-season" takes place on New Years Day with the first of the Bay Crits.
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