A stage-by-stage look at the Giro Women’s route. It will run from Saturday 29 May to Sunday 6 June.

Stage 1 starts on the roads where Tirreno-Adriatico also begins every March. Four climbs to Pitoro define the stage, it’s got three kilometres with a 7% average but it’s irregular, twisting uphill and the slope hits 10% towards the top. Crucially there’s 20km to get back in time for the finish through Camaiore into Viareggio so if teams want to drop the sprinters they’ll have to make the race hard for the duration of the climb.

Stage 2 sees the race track the Tuscan coast before heading in land for the Passo del Bracco, “hound pass”, a long climb but it’s bark is no worse than its bite, mainly a gentle climb although there is 3.5km at 6-7%. There’s more ups and downs including the Passo di Ruta at San Martino before the finish in Genoa. Like the previous stage this climb could split things up but there’s time to regroup on the Via Aurelia coastal road.

Stage 3 starts in Cogorno and heads into the Apeninnes. The Passo del Bocco is probably the gentlest crossing, 5% for 15km and then a long ride to Viadana on the left, Lombard bank of of the Po river.

Stage 4 is the first mountain stage with 3,500m of vertical gain. It’s a hipster tour of Lombardy with some roads used for the autumn classic midway before the uphill finish. A summit finish? The question is because the road climbs gently to the finish for the most part, it’s only the last 4km that it gets to 8%.

Stage 5 has a loop into the flat countryside before four flat laps around Cassano, an obvious sprint stage and also a recovery day for the GC contenders.

Stage 6 is only 137km but it ought to be plenty as it packs 3,550m of vertical gain. The Passo San Marco is a giant 20km long and the upper slopes are 8% or more. A long descent and then plenty of road roads on the valley lead to the start of the Passo della Spluga, aka Splügenpass but before the top of the pass a right turn and the finish in Madesimo with some 10% ramps to the finish. The men’s Giro came here in 2021 but the finish was different.

Stage 7 for a sprint stage after taking a sweep around the towns and villages north of Milan including Cambiago where Ernesto Colnago set up a workshop. The finish in Rho is flat and for trivia a rare place in Italy with the letter “H” in its name.

Stage 8 and while some websites probably list the start and finish in Valdigne that’s impossible as no town as 11km long and spans this range of altitude. Instead this is a term for the upper Aosta valley, it’s really a time trial from Pre-Saint-Didier to La Thuile, as in the first half of the Colle del Piccolo San Bernardo, aka the Col du Petit Saint Bernard pass. It’s a ski station access road, complete with a fun series of hairpins soon after the start where the slope kicks up but otherwise it’s 4-5% most of the way. Some flat portions along the way could reward using a time trial bike.

Stage 9 has 3,950m of vertical gain inside just 132km. There are three hard climbs on the northern side of the Aosta valley which mean they face south and can be hot and then it’s across to the Colle San Carlo. This is a very hard climb, 10km at 10% makes it comparable to the Mortirolo, the only help is that it’s on a more even road, if the slope does get to 12% it is steady most of the time. This is where the 2019 men’s Giro was won, when Richard Carapaz attacked and left Primož Roglič and Vincenzo Nibali marking each other, the same for the descent which uses the previous day’s time trial route in reverse before taking the main valley route to climb to Courmayeur and a finish below Monte Bianco, as in Mont Blanc and western Europe’s highest mountain.

The Verdict
Glance at the map and it clearly doesn’t tour Italy, just Tuscany, Liguria, Lombardia and Aosta. There could be a way to range widder, starting south and threading a mix of sprint stages and mid-mountain days in the Apennines before an Alpine conclusion but this can’t reasonably be achieved every year for a race that lasts a long week. The northern route of 2027 goes big on the Alps.

Structurally the course is interesting for the overlap with the men’s races, RCS is taking this race to sites where it runs other races, whether Tirreno-Adriatico, Il Lombardia or the men’s Giro. Inevitably any Giro will overlap with these routes but the proximity seems more than coincidence and suggests the kind of cross-selling we see with ASO’s portfolio.

It’ll be up to the women to write their own story but already the cast of characters will be limited. This is a highly selective route with three mountain stages in the Alps, plus an uphill time trial too. Consequently we should get a convincing winner but possibly at the expense of suspense to the end.

The post 2027 Giro d’Italia Women Route first appeared on The Inner Ring.

The 2027 Giro d’Italia route has been unveiled. Here’s a stage-by-stage look at the men’s race and some thoughts and data on the course.

It runs from Saturday 8 May to Sunday 30 May 2027.

When once an “iron curtain” fell between Italy and Slovenia, Stage 1 celebrates gives a literal meaning to the “sinews of peace” as riders will strain theirs while celebrating the open border as they criss-cross between both countries. The hilly finish with three marked climbs and more in the final 40km could drop some sprinters but several ought to be able to hold on.

Stage 2 starts in the Slovenian capital and goes to Koper, a seaside town where hopefully some entrepreneur has a bar called the Kabana. What’s certain is it’s a regular stage, via the main road from the capital to the coast. The final climb is a wide main road but just enough to eject some sprinters.

Stage 3 looks flat with two little bumps but the second of these is a hard climb. When the Giro went over the Mostaccin in 2016 the peloton split and in just three kilometres at 9% we got a selection worth of an Alpine climb with several GC candidates clear and some caught out behind. A few riders, and plenty in the race convoy, will remember this which could make for a self-fulfilling outcome.

Stage 4 is the first obvious sprint stage with a finish on the Adriatic coast by Rimini using the Misano motor racing circuit. The map is not out yet but the course could have some twists around Cerasolo but that’s about it for surprises. It’s all on the home roads of the Bardiani team but it looks like they won’t be there.

Stage 5 and the first summit finish. The Giro pays tribute to Michele Scarponi with the start in Filottrano. The finish is new for the Giro but a classic in Tirreno-Adriatico where Simon Yates and Mikel Landa have won; this is not one of those first week big ring climbs the Giro sometimes has, even in May it’ll be more selective.

Stage 6 is an uphill finish of sorts to Lanciano. The towns is perched on a ridge and if we can see the profile it’s worth waiting for the details because today’s profile has come out but not the micro details. Is this going to be a twisty finale in town over ancient flagstones to finish by a landmark, or will it end up by an industrial estate on the edge of town for the sake of convenience?

Stage 7 is the first time trial of the race and if the profile makes it look like a mountain time trial, it doesn’t quack like one. It’s main roads with steady gradients, often 4% and so everyone will use time trial bikes but it’ll feel like a course to test back muscles as much as legs. This will frustrate a rider like Ganna but equally leave pure climbers floundering.

Stage 8 and the race returns to Napoli again, the race has a deal with the city. Note the uphill finish, the line appears to rise, and even higher than the Monte di Procida climb before, so expect a different kind of finish than last year’s Mario Kart course or other flat sprints. If the race always visits hopefully the seemingly habitual rain – at least from the last two years – stays away.

Stage 9 goes to Monte Livata, tested by RCS recently in the U23 Giro when Lorenzo Finn won the stage and time gaps go wide. The 17% label feels excessive but the first three kilometres are over 10% so it’s another selective summit finish. Probably not race defining but hard again, don’t expect a large group of GC contenders to trundle to the line behind the breakaway as gravity will impose.

Stage 10 is a long day across the Sibillini mountains including the Presta climb, it’s ripe for a breakaway thanks to the uphill start to help the breakaway form and the distance where several teams might be content to let the “right” move stay away.

Stage 11 passes by plenty of climbs but sticks to the flat of the Arno valley all day except for the one climb, branded as Vetta le Croci but looking a lot like the Passo dell’Alberaccio before dropping down to the finish on the Mugello motor racing circuit. The climbing again should be enough to eject and deject some sprinters.

Stage 12 and a Tuscan stage that might bring back memories for some as the finish is in Lunigiana, once an old province and today, at least for the peloton associated with one of the best junior stage races, where past winners include Tadej Pogačar, Remco Evenepoel and Paul Seixas and plenty more. The Zum Zeri climb is a ski station summit that’s sparse in winter and summer alike and another steep finish.

Stage 13 is a dash to Reggio for a likely sprint finish.

Stage 14 is an alternative giro di Lombardia, ticking off the Ghisallo climb but in the reverse direction to usual. And more mountainous than the classic, 4,900m of vertical gain ending in another summit finish. Bobbio comes after 10km at a tough 9% and while almost a road to nowhere, first a climb up a valley alongside a white water river, then after Valtorta it gets much steeper and then ends on ski slope with only a rough concrete track for vehicles. The delighted local papers talk of roadworks but they’ve get to happen and so we’ll see if this finish stays as rough as it looks.

Stage 15 is a time trial from Monza’s motor racing circuit to Milan, the same start and finish as 2016’s final stage but this has added kilometres.

Stage 16 is the tappone, the big stage. At 192km it’s not the longest distance but could last the longest given the 5,700m vertical gain – weather permitting for 25 May – and the severity, the Mortirolo is climbed twice and each time via the hard “Pantani” route from Mazzo. The Gavia is the literal high point of the race and features a novelty with a “new” cycle path. Towards the top there’s long been been a tunnel and outside this, a small gravel track hugging the cliff face – immortalised by Jobst Brand – but now this path been cleared of debris, paved and the fencing improved. It’s only half a kilometre but it’s only just a car width wide so team cars might have to take the tunnel and spectators could be blocked but the plan is to promote the cycle path for cyclists. The Mortirolo features again as a sadist gesture and the road to Aprica is awkward, not as steep as what’s come before but by now very tiring.

Stage 17 goes to Vo’ which briefly became internationally famous in 2020 when the Covid-19 outbreak started in Italy and in February the first observed fatality. The town was quarantined, as in closed off to outsiders and has since been studied. Now it’s open to all with two climbs in the Euganei hills to thwart the sprinters. The race can show the enduring scenery and charms of this place, displacing its brief viral fame.

Stage 18 is a mountain stage but accessible to many, the two climbs of the Durone (“callous pass”, was it a hard walk in old boots?) are almost big ring kind of climbs but the mid-stage Daone will get front and rear mechs moving with its sustained 11-12% slopes. The final climb sees the slope ease, infamous for Pantani’s Giro ejection, the race has returned several times since and Ben O’Connor won here in 2020.

Stage 19 is ripe for a third week breakaway as tired riders confront the desperation of a last shot at the win.

Stage 20 with the Zoncolan. It’s climbed via the hardest side, last used in 2018 when Chris Froome and Simon Yates duelled, often just seconds away from each other. This is a climb whose name has quickly become a brand, a yardstick: “Is it as hard as the Zoncolan?” Today lower gearing means it’s not the dreaded experience it once was but it remains fearsome, because if someone is to attack to win the race or make a late GC gain it requires so much force just to accelerate and take a few metres. The Zoncolan’s slopes will settle things, and all before the natural amphitheatre towards the finish where an expectant weekend crowd will roar home the riders.

Stage 21 is the regular Rome finish, a trip to the sea before laps around the city.

The Verdict
The first route of new race director Stefano Allochio. An ex-pro, he was sprinter but there’s no kindred sympathy here, three sprint stages look certain but it’s a stretch to get to five. Two time trials stand out and the distance of 50km sounds like molto but two years ago the total was over 70km, and flat.

There was talk earlier in the year the Giro would go piano on the mountains until later in the race but there’s plenty throughout, the summit finishes are all hard. 50,250m of vertical gain in 2027 is within the norms, there’s no inducement like 2024 to accommodate a Giro-Tour double. Six summit finishes – double the Tour – make the mountains as crucial to the winner as ever as well. With few sprint stages and regular 20-30 minute summit finishes there’s a Spanish feel. ¿La Vuelta de Italia?

The use of motor racing circuits isn’t novel but three in a year is; it’s hoped to boost safety but the climb before the finish on Mugello may do the trick as well. Other stages have a circuit feel; twice up the Mortirolo on one stage, double Durone on another, this is spectator-friendly and helps contain the course for the organisers too.

The Gavia, Mortirolo and Zoncolan all make welcome returns, the Giro as much, or even more than the Tour, needs its celebrity climbs as they supply box office appeal; plenty of other stages offer sport with surprises in the Apennines. The only thing missing from this Giro is the south of Italy, the race doesn’t venture beyond Napoli.

Today’s presentation was notable because it happened today, much earlier than usual. It wasn’t long ago that the race route was unveiled in January and teams had to be given a draft suggestion of the course ahead because they had plans to hatch. Now there’s plenty of time to review the route. To the point where today it’s unclear who will ride.

Remco Evenepoel? Two time trials totalling 57km make an invitation. The Giro needs a star rider each year, were these days included to tempt him? Only now the Tour is alluring with two flat time trials totalling 71km to punish Pogačar. Could Evenepoel do both? Possibly but the double is not easy for anyone and, as suggested here as a hypothesis, harder still for Evenepoel as he can drop to his climbing weight like a boxer for a bout but holding it for three months between May and July maybe too much. If RCS really want to invite Evenepoel perhaps the Monza to Milan TT needs to become Monza-Milan-Monza? Maybe Lipowitz goes for it?

One rider clearly fascinated by Giro is Paul Seixas. But next year is tied up with his contract, stay at Decathlon and he and the team can plan for the future including a Giro bid next year; sign elsewhere for 2028 and his last year with the Decathletes could see him obliged to the ride the Tour, hardly a punishment but a likely outcome.

Several teams have multiple leaders, it’s likely Felix Gall rides the Giro again especially as the Tour’s TTs look worse for him; is it back to the Giro for Antonio Tiberi after a discreet Tour or does Jacob Omrzel get first say and a chance to start in Slovenia? At Red Bull could Lorenzo Finn start; and is Giulio Pellizzari likely to come back for another go, probably as few time trial kilometres helps. UAE could see João Almeida restart his grand tour ambitions, but does Isaac del Toro now get priority? And so on, a vacuum into which we can only speculate. One certainty is that Tadej Pogačar won’t ride. This fact will inform some decisions in the coming weeks.

The post 2027 Giro d’Italia Route first appeared on The Inner Ring.

In January ten neo-pros were picked to watch. When predictions are made it’s helpful to return and see how things turned out so here’s a look at how their first season went.

Jarno Widar (Lotto-Intermarché) was top of the list in January. As an U23 he won the Giro della Valle d’Aosta, the Ronde de l’Isard the Giro Next Gen and the Alpes-Isère Tour, plus he was runner-up in the 2025 Tour de l’Avenir to Paul Seixas who’d dropped down from the pro ranks to bag the win. So almost the full sweep of every mountainous stage race going on the U23 calendar and done at the age of 18 and 19. Move over Remco? Not quite, and there was a tension between expectations for a rider who’d been so dominant in the amateur ranks and what kind of rider they’d become as a pro. Widar’s light build means he has plenty of punch and his stage race wins came in events without time trials; or just an 8km opener at the Giro. So mapping his results to the grand tours is another thing and he’s still adamant he’s a puncheur more than a grand tour contender despite obvious media interest. But what punch he’s got and fortunately we got to see some of it. Illness, then a knee injury meant the first half of the season was written off. He then rode the Vuelta and when Pogačar took his solo win in Andorra, Widar was second, leading in the likes of Gall, Onley and Roglič. Impressive but he did not sustain a GC bid and popped up for two more top-10s. The grand tour didn’t seem to tire him, he won the Tre Valli Varesine where he outfoxed Tom Pidcock in the sprint. Then he did the same again in Guangxi to win the race overall. Still 20 he’s already central to the Lotto team where his apparently stubborn personality needs to be managed carefully.

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Could Jakob Söderqvist (Lidl-Trek) get opportunities? He went into the pro ranks on a team stacked with classics talent but the answer was yes as rode plenty of races in the spring, possibly helped by injuries of others. He won the Tour of Hongrie, helped by bad weather prompting officials to stop a stage early where the Swede was up the road but you make your own luck. He got a season where doors opened for him and he was able to show what he could do. He had more TT wins later on in the season and it’s easy to see him as a TT specialist-classics rider-sprint train engine for the Lidl-Trek team to the point of where you wonder if they really needed to buy Filippo Ganna.

Senna Remijn (Alpecin-PremierTech) was tipped as a versatile finisseur, something we saw when he won the sprint of a select group in last year’s Tour of Luxembourg. We saw this again in the Deutschland Tour on the day when Pellizzari, Del Toro and Hirschi were up the road, he took the sprint for fourth from a big group. Otherwise there was plenty to learn, riding the Amstel Gold Race was apparently the first time he’d gone beyond 200km but he was active late in the race. So no wins, just the type of quiet results that bode well, and along with Debruyne and Verstrynge the team has options for hilly days when often they had none.

Jakob Omrzel has struggled to escape the “next Pogačar” label because he’s a talented Slovenian who’s won the Giro Next Gen and Paris-Roubaix Juniors alike. Then he won a stage of the Vuelta this year and ended up seventh overall too, which only reinforces clumsy comparisons given Pogačar thrived in his first Vuelta too. He’s had an excellent season, top-10s in GC in the Tour of the Alps, the Tour de Hongrie and third overall in the Tour of Slovenia behind Pellizzari and Lipowitz. He’s delivered plenty already to the point where it’ll be interesting to see what he does next, presumably more World Tour stage races and he’s on a team where he’ll get leadership opportunities.

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Maxime Decomble (Groupama-FDJ) was a ray of light for the French team. A small rider – shades of Charlie Chaplin? – he used to see himself as a climber but has started to flourish as a time triallist and he used this ability to place on the podium in the Etoile de Bessèges, to win the Tour du Poitou-Charentes overall and get a medal in the European TT championships. His team have moved to lock him down and are quietly confident about further improvement, next year will be about week-long World Tour stage races where he can combine his TT abilities and some efforts on shorter climbs.

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Noah Hobbs (EF-Easypost) took two wins, the Heistse Pijl and a stage of the Tour de l’Ain. He didn’t beat any sprint royalty here but in the Tour de Pologne he was running Paul Magnier and Jonathan Milan close. This has already made him a rider EF can back for results and points and it’ll be interesting to see their sprint configuration year, notably if Luke Lamperti becomes a lead-out again or is given his own chances. Note Hobbs’ younger brother Henry is riding for Visma and one to watch too. Mattia Agostinacchio (EF-Easypost) was hired straight out of the junior ranks and is a long-term project for the team. Illness ruined a lot of the season, it curtailed his cyclo-cross program and then he struggled again in the spring to the point where the team left him to take the summer off. So not much to write home about but don’t write him off.

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UAE only took on one neo-pro and it was Adria Pericas. He looks like a climber but had also won the Spanish junior TT title. He had a solid season with several top-10s in stage races, including the Volta a Portugal where he won a stage too. He rode Catalunya and Itzulia and the challenge will be to start more World Tour races next year while also finding days when he can race for himself.

Emmanuel Houcou (Pinarello-Q36.5) was second in a stage of the Tour of Oman and that was as good as it got. Sam Bennett’s illness and injury, including heart surgery, did not open any doors. He’s been a lead-out for house sprinter Matteo Moschetti but not regularly so. The team has been on a shopping spree but not gone big on sprinters so seeing how Houcou and new-signing Tom Crabbe can work together.

Pavel Novak was a surprise signing for Movistar who even sprung him out of the MHB Telecom team with a release fee. Going by results or points they’ve not got their money’s worth yet but he’s been dependable, taking one for the team at times by starting Paris-Roubaix and being dispatched to cover other races.

Riders who should have featured
Having added some rider revelations to the main “riders to watch review” post, a similar look at riders who could or should have been on the list. Mentioned in passing in January Luke Tuckwell (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) had an outstanding debut, his name sounds like a descender but he was impressing for his climbing performances – with sixth in Romandie and second in the Aura Tour where he tool yellow after going in a maxi-breakaway but did well to defend things after – and also a mature manner in front of the media. Team mate Callum Thornley thrived too, as versatile as he was in the amateurs as he seems to be able to climb and be strong on the flat. NSN’s Pau Marti had a good season and a specialist for uphill sprints already. Matys Grisel was Lotto-Intermarché’s sixth best points scorer, a win in the Tour of Taiwan was good for a debut but he was also getting podiums in gritty one-day races in Europe.

The post How Did The Neo-Pros To Watch Fare? first appeared on The Inner Ring.

Back in January ten riders were picked to watch. When predictions are made it’s helpful to return to them and see how things turned out.

Remco Evenepoel joined Red Bull in search of improvement, and beyond a salary upgrade. It was an open question if he’d find gains given the way some recent joiners had fallen off the radar. He started winning January, moves he later said were deliberate attempts to establish himself at the top of the team. A season on and it feels like Evenepoel has thrived, and on several fronts. Invincible in the time trial, he can also climb with the very best, albeit some of the time. But this appears to require sacrifice in lose weight that he can only sustain for a grand tour tilt rather than all year. To be clear he’s not hitting the frikandel and frites, think instead of a boxer who has to shed weight for a bout but just can’t sustain this. Once he’s got a couple of extra kilos he’s only stronger in the time trials as we saw in the worlds, even it cost him in the road race and Lombardia too. He’s worked on his sprinting, harnessing his power and also refining the tactics, flipping a liability into an asset. He’s still prone to drama, see his barracking of Florian Lipowitz after the Tour’s Tourmalet stage but this febrile side is much less in evidence on the bike, in fact several times he’s impressed for his resilience, finishing fourth in Lombardia was not the result he wanted but instructive because he kept going and then won the group sprint. Similarly we might now remember the Tour de France podium result but it almost didn’t happen when he was dropped on the stage to Le Lioran but fought back to finish second, passing those who’d dropped him earlier. All this and he’s added the cobbled classics to his range, third in the Ronde at his first go. If it wasn’t for Pogačar he could stake a claim to be the best rider in the world; maybe he’d lose to Vingegaard here or there but he can finish on the podium in events that the Dane doesn’t deign to depart.

Max Poole was supposed to be the saviour of Picnic-PostNL. Back in January he was said to be clear of the Epstein-Barr virus but the only thing that made a comeback this year was the virusand he only managed a week of racing in February before being unable to race and even train so there’s little to write about, and no illustrative photo either. However Picnic’s woes are not on him and the virus, assume he scored 2,000 points – comparable to Mattias Skjelmose, Matteo Jorgenson, Brandon McNulty, Primož Rogliċ or Tobias Halland Johannessen – and the Dutch team would only move from 30th on the rankings to 24th, sandwiched between Caja Rural and Burgos-Burpellet. Hopefully he’s on the mend and there’s gossip of a move to Decathlon-CMA CGM.

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Jan Christen was picked for talent and character, with an eye on whether he’d cope with the congestion at UAE. He took his opportunities, winning the Saudi Tour with some help from the convoy after he crashed and got towed back into contention and was second in the Faun Ardèche classic to Paul Seixas, albeit almost two minutes behind. He started and finished the Giro, his grand tour debut was marked by the exit of Adam Yates, Marc Soler and Jay Vine from a single crash and it was only because Christen had sat up to remove his rain jacket that he avoided the fall. But this stroke of luck didn’t seem to give him more space. After winning the Swiss road and TT titles he got a stage win at the Tour de Pologne. All this in his second season as a pro which is very respectable but these days not sizzling.

Kévin Vauquelin was the best rider from the old Arkéa team and the idea was to see if he’d progress as a punchy rider where his prodigious talents probably lie, or be drawn by the allure the Tour de France after a breakthrough performance in 2025. A weaker season wasn’t on the cards but hélas that’s what happened, not helped by breaking his ankle but by all accounts he recovered well. He won the Giro d’Abruzzo but as the only World Tour team in the race it would have been news if Netcompany-Ineos had lost. The late signing of Oscar Onley was a complication for Vauquelin as they are similar riders and a brief clash at the Aura Tour when Onley dropped his chain and the whole team sat up to wait to wait for him, this cost the team the win and Vauquelin the yellow jersey and he said all this aloud too. With hindsight the team should have taken the win but Vauquelin’s climbing to Crest-Voland, just the kind of shorter finish that ought to have suited, suggests the spell in yellow would have been brief. Paris-Nice might be a highlight for him, a team time trial stage win on the way to fourth overall but an unusual edition thanks to the frigid Uchon stage and then the climb to Isola being removed.

Mathias Vacek was picked as a raw talent to follow but could he get opportunities at Lidl-Trek given the depth of riders? He was a core rider for the team, part of their cobbled classics squad and also the Tour de France where each time he was there for Mads Pedersen. He got carte blanche at the Tour de Suisse and finished third overall. Even if this race has been lamentably condensed to five days and didn’t have as much of the high mountain glory that has defined it, who would have imagined him on the podium here?

Matthew Brennan kept on winning. Often the triumph feels inevitable, the sense we’re watching a replay even if the TV screen says “live” in the corner. One part of this is the way he rides the finish in a big gear, as if he’s still waiting while others go beserk. His win in Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne was as cool as the weather that day. His season will be remembered for the five Vuelta a España stage wins but his Vuelta a Burgos wins said plenty too, the first day’s win on the Alto del Castillo finish was impressive because no other sprinters got near, to repeat the point made in January it’s said he’s got as much power as Olav Koiij only he’s seven kilos lighter. With Visma or whatever they will be called next year often keen to name their Tour de France squad over winter it’ll be interesting to see if he makes it. Because the one thing he did not do this year was land a sprint win against any sprinting aristocracy, no wins against Kooij, Merlier or Milan. Would the team want to see this before selecting him? A lot can be modelled and practiced already so perhaps not but it’s the next challenge for him.

Ben Healy was a pick because at the Tour de France most days belong to Tadej Pogačar or a select group of sprinters, only the Irishman is able to win on the other days. This time not and he didn’t get a win all season. As remarked in January for him to win can require a lot of set-up work from team mates and Healy was co-opted into this role at times to help Richard Carapaz. So if Healy did not find a way to unpick an elusive Tour win, his team still did with Carapaz. Now the onus might be back on Healy for 2027 given Carapaz has been released to NSN.

When Tibor Del Grosso won the NXT Classic at the start of April one immediate thought was “here we go, a pick for the year” but unfortunately that was his only win even if was enhanced because he proved to be one of the few riders to outfox Mauro Schmid this season. If he didn’t storm any barns he was central to Alpecin’s classics squad and started Paris-Roubaix.

Mathys Rondel just needed a win to cap off a solid season. Eighth in Paris-Nice, 11th in the Giro for his grand tour debut, to look at his results is to see beaucoup top-10 finishes. Victory though is elusive as he isn’t the fastest climber nor the fastest finisher. His GC results are often higher than this stage placings along the way, for example fifth in the Tour of the Alps when he didn’t place higher than seventh on any stage. But this is a sign of consistency and the relative latecomer to cycling has only recently turned 23. On a team keen to score points to secure World Tour promotion, he was their second best scorer behind Marco Brenner and ahead of Michael Storer.

Jørgen Nordhagen went from neo-pro to watch in 2025 to rider to watch in 2026 because Simon Yates had just announced a surprise early retirement. He might have wished Adam Yates had quit instead, as the Briton beat him to the win in O Gran Camino. Still 21 he rode his first grand tour at the Vuelta and was strong in the third week but no breakthrough.

Riders who could have been tipped
If January’s crystal ball gave mixed tips, which riders should have been picked with hindsight, or if the post could be edited ex post who would be dropped in today? January’s piece cited ten riders and then named more including the pleasing picks of Tobias Lund, Paul Seixas, Tobias Halland Johannessen, Romain Grégoire and Milan Fretin.

Mauro Schmid had a great season including a Tour stage win. Davide Piganzoli is a contender for the most improved rider of the year, solid at Polti-Malta but went up more than a level at the Giro where he seemed able to win a stage and place on GC but ably supported Jonas Vingegaard. And he wasn’t tired, winning the Route d’Occitanie in June before making Visma’s Tour squad and finishing 14th overall. Plus a prestige win in the Giro dell’Emilia. Enric Mas for the Vuelta, with hindsight of course. Felix Gall was surprisingly good and his move to Lidl-Trek is interesting because he could walk in and appoint himself as their grand tour leader given he’s finished second at the Giro and third at the Vuelta, a lot better than Juan Ayuso, Mattias Skjelmose or Derek Gee but he’s not the bombastic type but only yesterday HLN wrote Skjelmose wants to leave. Lenny Martinez could have been a pick, his plan was to target one week stage races overall and then aim for daily success at the grand tours, only he delivered on the first part with fifth in Paris-Nice, second in Catalunya and third in Romandie… and then fifth at the Tour without going for stages or the mountains jersey. Finally a stealthy one could have been Jenno Berckmoes (Lotto-Intermarché) but now we’re onto the riders to watch for 2027.

The post How Did The Riders To Watch Fare? first appeared on The Inner Ring.

A look at the Tour de France Femmes route for 2027. It runs from Friday 30 July to Saturday 7 August.

Stage 1 has a Friday start to incorporate the long weekend in Britain. This is a trans-Pennine route with the climbs mid-way to encourage a breakaway and riders to go get the polka-dot jersey. The climbs are the set-piece difficulties but the terrain is often exposed so the weather on the day can shape the race.

Stage 2 and it’s Manchester to Sheffield the long way, via the Peak District. The climbs total 2,800m of climbing which should thin down the field a lot. Do Bradfield, Oughtibridge and Jenkin Road ring any bells? Certainly the latter might be famous even in Sicily as it’s where Vincenzo Nibali attacked in 2014 to take the stage and yellow jersey, these final climbs look smaller on paper but coming late they offer a good chance to attack a depleted field.

Stage 3 is a team time trial in London to showcase plenty of familiar landmarks alongside the Thames. It’s the first time a TTT had featured in the Tour de France Femmes revival. While we’ve got used to “Paris-Nice rules” in Paris-Nice and now the men’s Tour with Barcelona last summer, the 2027 Tour de France Femmes stage will use the classic rules with the time taken on the fourth rider. Why? Probably because there’s no hill where the leaders can sprint up to make the difference so the traditional rules are deployed. This stage can be a selection trap for teams where management will think a lot about who to bring for this stage in order to deliver a good start but at the risk of things unravelling later; something we saw in some teams with the men’s TTT in Barcelona last July.

Stage 4 and there’s no rest/transfer day, the hop to Calais is short. This is stage tracks the “opal coast” including its cliffs and after 40km picks up the same route along the cliffs as used in 2022 for Stage 4 which saw Wout van Aert win after dropping the field including Adam Yates who was the last rider to try and stay on his wheel. Hopefully this gives riders inspiration for this stage.

Stage 5 is the cheese stage, the start is known for its cheese and the finish is where Paris-Camembert starts. It has almost 2,000m of vertical gain and a series of climbs in the final 50km. They don’t look like much on the profile above and they’re not that much in reality either. But the difficulty comes in the rapid succession and the routes départementales, the narrow tertiary roads and with this the self-fulfilling battle for position which should make for a frantic final hour. It’s close to Paris too, Magnanville is next to Mantes-la-Jolie and a commuter train away from the capital.

Stage 6 and the organisers have managed to find over 800m of vertical gain when there could well be 80m, this is all flat terrain, think wheat fields and windturbines only it’s rarely that windy in summer to provoke crosswinds. Sport doesn’t supply certainty but this is as sure as it gets for a sprint finish. Who can see past Lorena Wiebes already?

Stage 7 sees the race head south through the Allier départment, it’s all flat for 100km. The terrain changes gently after with more woodland and forests and then in Laprugne a surprise climb to the Point du Jour hamlet – which presumably gets its name from being atop a hill that faces east to catch the sunrise – and is a steep rise on a narrow road. It’s back to Laprugne and then the road tips down to lead into the road to La Loges des Gardes. When your blogger first did a recon ahead of the 2023 Paris-Nice it was little more than a car park with some bins but it’s been a tough, selective climb when it’s been raced. 6.7km at 7.1% is hard but it’s more like 8-9% most of the way because of a flat section that even includes a small descent that doesn’t show on the profile. It’s enough to create big time gaps and reveal the podium contenders.

With one summit finish done and another coming the next day don’t call Stage 8 an interlude as it’s arguably as hard as the previous day and the next, it just lacks a summit finish. This is a hard stage with 3,000m of climbing to the point of leaving out things like the unmarked climb out of Picherande to Super Besse, it’s the Col de la Geneste. The finish is tough, dropping down into Clermont only to climb back out via the old Charade motor circuit and there’s a fast descent to the finish.

Stage 9 is, like the city of Clermont-Ferrand itself, dominated by the Puy-de-Dôme. There’s 150km to get there and on lumpy roads with 3,000 metres of climbing. Then the legendary climb to settle the race, the road winds up around the volcano cone at 12% for the final four kilometres.

The Verdict
If the 2026 route got the verdict of the best route so far this time last year it’s a crown that’s not troubled by this 2027 edition but all this is based on the map and if the peloton makes the racing even better than 2026 then it’ll be a pleasure to be wrong.

There are always complaints about the foreign starts of the Tour among online comments but the lament here isn’t nationalistic. Rather three stages in Britain means a significant proportion of the race is used up and the regret is that the subsequent transfer is only across the Channel to Calais where the race encounters more mild hills for days and as charming as the Auvergne can be, it feels like the race stops short. It can be liberating to skip the Alps or Pyrenees but the stage after stage seems to reward the same type of rider. Similarly the Loges des Gardes climb is fine but it’ll be a 25 minute climb; the Puy-de-Dôme is similar in length. All this is easier to type rather than implement of course but it’s written here from the position of wanting more racing and more scenery.

One consolation is that it sounds like we’ll get spectators for the final stage after the men’s last visit was closed to the public. Local newspaper La Montagne reports there could be 3-4,000 fans and let’s hope the plans work as visually and audibly the crowd are what makes the Tour, men’s or women’s so appealing.

There is novelty as the team time trial is not a regular in the women’s calendar, except at the Vuelta and long ago at the Vårgårda race in Sweden. This ought to be visually appealing as it passes the London landmarks. At 18km it’s short but limit the time gaps which can be good for the racing if the yellow jersey is only one or two 10 second time bonuses away; and means the more modest teams aren’t left trailing.

The finish on a Saturday feels like the race is missing a trick not taking an extra day to finish on the Sunday but perhaps it’s because the 2028 race is planned already and if starts on a Saturday it’s hard to make the race longer one year if it has to regress the next?

To end with some optimism to chew on from here to July maybe it’ll all work out a treat. Think of Paula Blasi as the upstart towed around London by Marlen Reusser and taking on Demi Vollering for the final weekend. This scenario might work better on these 25 minute climbs rather than a trip to, say, the Galibier or other hour long ascents? Vollering has enjoyed a Pogačar-esque season and this course ought to keep a lid on things.

You can find the men’s route stage-by-stage at inrng.com/2026/10/tour-de-france-route-2027

The post 2027 Tour de France Femmes Route first appeared on The Inner Ring.

The Tour de France routes for 2027 are out and here is a stage-by-stage look at the men’s course. It runs between Friday 2 July and Sunday 25 July 2027.

Beginning on a Friday in order to fit the British grand départ into a long weekend Stage 1 is a road race from Edinburgh to Carlisle. It’s the most northerly start of the Tour ever, anecdotal perhaps but means talk of heatwaves and forest fires will be unlikely. There’s one marked climb to award the mountains jersey at Melrose which suggests a tame stage but wait for the weather forecast as there’s plenty of exposed moorland and the first days of the Tour are always high stress.

Stage 2 features more moorland and if the stats on the climbs look tame, zoom in. The Trough of Bowland might be 2km at 5% but it has plenty of 10-14% slopes towards the top to blunt the legs of some heavyset sprinters and the climbs mid-stage should be spectator hotspots, a chance for locals to see riders go past slower and for TV viewers to sample the crowd size compared to the festivities of Yorkshire in 2014, forever the standard against which grand départs are measured. It’s a long stage and the weather could make things harder still giving this the feel of a classic more than regular sprint stage.

Stage 3 is another hard day at 223km again and will have plenty of team managers fretting because a mistake or mishap here could sink a GC contender’s season. But it’s nothing savage, there’s 3,000 metres of vertical gain on the way to Cardiff, too much for most sprinters but the climbs are largely on wide roads, it’s the repetition that will shrink things down and hopefully open up space for attacks.

Stage 4 and after a transfer by ferry to Cherbourg, a circuit race around Normandy peppered with sharp climbs that are often exposed and along the coast concluding with the uphill finish in 2016 where Peter Sagan, Alejandro Valverde and Julian Alaphilippe contested the win. In today’s terms we could see Tadej Pogačar and Mathieu van der Poel duking it out.

Stage 5 and a start in Pontorson, population around 4,000 a first for them to host the Tour because another nearby candidate said non to ASO over the costs but the strain on French finances is a story for another day. Live TV will show the Mont-Saint-Michel but this day is probably all about the second day of consecutive uphill finishes, this time in Plumelec, twice up the Cadoudal climb used in a variety of races before like the GP Morbihan, the 2016 Euro champs and both the men’s and women’s Tours too.

Stage 6 is a flat sprint stage to Angers which as we’ve seen from Paris-Nice finishes is a calm place despite the name and if you don’t like wordplay then skip this day given it starts in Vannes too. The brief sporting aspect is that final metres drag up to the line, reaching 5%.

Stage 7 is the first time trial in the Loire valley to Chambord, which for trivia is the largest of the châteaux in the Loire and if you read it here first, chance are you’ll hear it 36 more times in July . It’s 38km long which makes it the longest TT in a Tour since 2022’s 40km race to Rocamadour. Crucially it’s flat, talk on the day will also be about who has the biggest chainring as it’s accessible to the pure time trial specialists and GC contenders alike. Assuming no mishaps on the preceding stages and Remco Evenepoel can dream of the maillot jaune many times between now and July.

Stage 8 and the longest stage of the Tour, just. There’s déjà vu with a similar day to Le Creusot as Stage 7 in 2021 won by Matej Mohorič. It’s similar but not identical, but like then it features the Croix de la Libération and then the tricky Signal d’Uchon which you might remember from Paris-Nice back in March too with biblical weather and bib longs. This should again be one the “breakaway world championships” stages with waves of riders trying to land an elusive win.

Stage 9 goes into the Jura mountains where the three mid-mountain passes along the way are tiring but have no surprises and suit teams trying to set tempo rather than providing ambush terrain. Then it’s the Grand Colombier, tackled from Culoz via the lacets which means it’s hard from the start with a brief respite and then unusually steep again almost all the way to the top. Race director Christian Prudhomme says he wants the race to unfold slowly but this is big climb, a 40 minute effort, that should shape the overall classification at the risk of setting it, and all by the end of the first week. A rest day in the Alps awaits.

With the route leaking long before, Stage 10 from Annecy to Sallanches sounded predictable but who would have guessed this course? The Salève is back after last summer but it’s a gentler route along the mountain rather than up a cliff face. Instead the déjà vu comes from the Brison climb which is the lower half of the Plateau de Solaison which also featured on the same day. Next, Domancy is a predictable as a nod to the upcoming World Championships here. But the climb to Le Bettex is via a small back-road and similarly many standing will be standing on the pedals to get to up to the Plateau d’Assy before another time up the steep Domancy climb and a fast run to Sallanches. It could be a hard one to control but equally big teams will be content to see a breakaway go clear so their leaders can save something for the following day.

Stage 11 is a big day in the Alps only 150km but 4,750m of vertical gain and this year’s visit to the Alps only briefly spends time above 1,500m above sea level. It’s all via climbs that are steeper than normal for the Alps, achieved via back-road climbs like the Col du Pré and if the finish is in the ski resort of Les Saisies, it’s via the Bisanne route which the hardest way up with only a short transition across to the finish line so we’ll count it as a summit finish. Expect lively crowds as it’s on 14 July, aka Bastille day. And that’s it for the Alps.

Stage 12 is a transition stage out of the Alps and to the Rhone valley. It’s hilly and should be a sprint finish in Valence but could still be worth a go for the breakaway.

Stage 13 is even flatter and so even more likely to finish in a sprint in Montpellier but the obligatory mention of the ability of the Mistral wind’s ability to make mischief.

Stage 14 leaves Montpellier for Mende via plenty of rough roads and 4,300m of vertical gain. A mountain stage? Almost. The final “Laurent Jalabert” climb to the aerodrome is always selective so while Michael Matthews got a masterpiece win from the breakaway on this finish in 2022 we had GC action behind. This time the approach from the south instead of the north is significantly harder. If you wanted to ride a stage for the sake of it, this is a good choice for the scenery, like the cirque de Navacelles, empty roads and it borrows roads described in Tim Krabbé’s The Rider.

Stage 15 might be flat enough for a sprint but with a week left in the race many teams will be desperate for a stage win and will try to get in the breakaway. You can see some of the climbs on the profile but there are more than suggested in the final hour.

Stage 16 is a second individual time trial that starts in Toulouse and heads south following one bank of Garonne river back before returning back on the other side of the river into the city via the wall-like Pech David climb used in 2025 before big boulevards to the same finish.

If the weather is good then the Pyrenees will be visible on the horizon for hours as Stage 17 heads west from Muret to Pau for a likely sprint finish. There are some small climbs to exploit but they’re less launchpads and more hurdles for bulkier sprinters.

Stage 18 is the “Queen Stage” of the Tour with 5,400m of vertical gain and via the aristocratic ascents of the Soulor and then the Tourmalet where the race climbs beyond 2,000 metres for the first time before the upstart additions of the Hourquette d’Ancizan, first climbed in 2011 by the Tour, and then the “new” climb of the Col du Portet, which as a reminder is the Pla d’Adet climb before turning onto a ski lift access path that was tarmacked in time for the 2018 Tour and is now the highest official paved pass in the French Pyrenees. Nairo Quintana won here in 2018 (and Chris Froome was yanked off his bike by a gendarme) while Tadej Pogačar won in 2022 after nearly 50 minutes of climbing time, making this the key test of the race.

Stage 19 is the hipster Pyrenean stage, starting in Hasparren which was once famous for making shoes, it’s via the Burdincurutcheta which as well as being a tongue-twister is a lung-buster with plenty of 10-12% slopes. The Soudet is a backroad route to the La Pierre-Saint-Martin ski station before the Marie Blanque which is climbed, of course, via its steeper side before the descent to Laruns where Tadej Pogačar won his first Tour de France stage.

Stage 20 is a flat stage to take the riders to Libourne for a probable sprint finish and handily it has its own TGV station to take the race to Paris.

Stage 21 and where Champs-Elysées and Rue Lepic now go together like steak-frîtes or jambon-beurre and hopefully we get another Paris match thriller.

The Tour in Numbers
Flatter in feel with only three summit finishes this time when 2026 had four in the Alps alone. There are seven likely sprint finishes when last time there were five, and more time trials too. The 2027 Tour de France route feels like a calmer edition where the imported mantra of citius, altius, fortius is reset. But what do the numbers say?

The most solo kilometres since 2012 and as the chart shows, above average but not exceptional. Where the difference comes is the manner, 2027’s vintage is – with the brief exception of Pech David – all flat, these are TT stages that will appeal as much to Filippo Ganna and Josh Tarling as to Tadej Pogačar and Paul Seixas while Remco Evenepoel will be licking his lips at the possibility of stage wins and time gains, if he can take a second per kilometre on Pogačar in last summer’s Evian-Thonon TT and two seconds, then he ought to be able to take more on flat courses and profit from the 71km.

This chart says it’s not actually a flatter Tour at all, 53,450 metres of vertical gain is well above average for the Christian Prudhomme era. But again it’s the details within the stages that count, plenty of climbing in 2027 but far fewer set-piece mountain stages with summit finishes.

The Verdict
A vanilla route even if the Tour is rarely plain given the quality of riders and intensity of racing. The 2027 edition doesn’t have any wow factors, no cobbles nor gravel and little novelty either, no “new” mountains. Visiting the Basque Pyrenees is enticing because it’s rare rather than new, likewise tackling Mont Aigoual. Instead it’s defined by fewer summit finishes and more time trial kilometres. Will this make the race closer? To wonder which rider it suits the feels like a dead end given Tadej Pogačar’s record of five wins but if the Tour presentation gives us embers to keep burning during the dark winter nights, one of the brightest flames must be for Remco Evenepoel who now has three weeks in July with a route that flickers with a yellow flame.

This post looks into the men’s route, a follow-up doing the same for the women’s route will appear soon.

The post 2027 Tour de France Route first appeared on The Inner Ring.

The 2026 season has finished and here is a look at the UCI rankings for the year. There’s the three year promotion and relegation contest to note. More immediately we can see which teams are eligible for invites to the major races next year, assuming they’re viable.

The chart shows the top-30 teams, blue are the 18 WorldTeams, red are the second-tier ProTeams.

UAE lead the rankings for the fourth straight year while Red Bull are second, a big gain from sixth last year and with help from Remco Evenepoel and his score of over 7,000 points. Visma-Lease a Bike slip to third, the first time outside the top two since 2021 and are set to go into 2027 as Team Yellow B, the name of the legal entity behind them as there’s no news on a search for a replacement title sponsor yet but they’re undewritten by Dutch billionaire Robert van der Wallen.

Decathlon-CMA CGM are up from seventh to fourth, in part thanks to their nouveau riche status but signing Olav Kooij on a mega contract has only brought 1,600 points after he resumed racing mid-season; Felix Gall delivered double that and Tobias Lund delivered more points than Kooij too, all while Paul Seixas is their obvious big scorer but not yet their big earner as contract talks continue.

Elsewhere Lidl-Trek are a flop in fifth, this is visible in the rankings but see the internation ructions with management this year and the shopping spree they’ve been on lately. XDS-Astana played the system well last year to stay in the top flight and have kept this up.

Netcompany-Ineos finish the season in eighth, their worst position since… well last year when they were eighth too which was their lowest since the UCI team rankings started a decade go.

Uno-X have done well. 11th last year was impressive and gave them just enough points to pip Cofidis for the World Tour but this late promotion could have overwhelmed them. Instead they’ve finished 9th and got some high profile wins, built a foundation to secure them in the coming seasons and all retaining an underdog image.

Alpecin-PremierTech finish 11th. Their top scorer is… Jasper Philipsen who scored 3,665 points compared to 3,404 for Mathieu van der Poel. The pair earned two thirds of the team’s points.

Next come a bunch of teams with little more than a thousand points between Pinarello and NSN. Movistar owe plenty to Enric Mas who got a quarter of their haul thanks to his Vuelta a España win but also second in Lombardia and more. Kudos if you can know their second-best scorer, it’s Natnael Tesfatsion. EF were lingering in 21st place at times during the year but have moved up only they lose Richard Carapaz and clearly the search for a replacement title sponsor has yet to find one, perilous but Jayco only have one year’s funding from sugardaddy Gerry Ryan to bank on so they’re arguably in even more need of something and a reminder that while these rankings look back at 2026 we need to see the teams as much for what is coming next.

Promotion-relegation
The red line sits between 18th and 19th place and marks the promotion and relegation zone but we’ve just finished the first year of the 2026-2028 cycle. Pinarello-Q36.6 and Tudor look set to join the World Tour for 2029 especially as they’ve made strong signings for next year so ought to score more. NSN will hope that signing Richard Carapaz gives them a boost.

Groupama-FDJ are in trouble but only 500 points adrift, so trouble rather than doom. Saying it’s only one year and there’s time to turn things around may prove comforting but there’s little to suggest they can reverse the trend. Romain Grégoire is a big scorer for them and so they’re at risk if he is injured in the spring; they’ve lost big names like Stefan Küng and Valentin Madouas but the budget has not been deployed on big scorers, much of it gobbled up by contract inflation.

Auto Invites
Assuming 18 teams in the World Tour then under rule 2.1.007 bis the best three teams outside the World Tour get automatic invitations to World Tour stage races and one day events: this is Pinarello-Q36.5, Tudor and Cofidis. These are elective, for example this year Cofidis could have ridden the Giro but declined. But team management has said it intends to do the Giro in 2027, both title sponsor Cofidis and their equipment suppliers all have business interests there.

Wildcards
Under the same UCI rule there are two wildcard invites for a grand tour next year, as long as it makes the top-30 in this year’s final rankings. Alas Bardiani-CSF slipped to 31st at the last minute so a Giro d’Italia without the green-clad squad looks likely for the first time since 2012. Organisers RCS will likely pick among Unibet Rose Rockets, Polti-Kometa, SolutionTech-Nippo-Rali and MHB CSB Telecom Fort. However we shall have to see for the viability of these candidates, Polti may have stopped as a sponsor; Telecom Fort too and so on. RCS doesn’t have to decide yet.

Vuelta a España organisers Unipublic have tended to rotate among the Spanish teams and thanks to some eleventh hour wins in Panama last weekend, Euskaltel-Euskadi move up to 28th place and look likely to get an invite, given Mikel Landa as a their new signing. Caja Rural sat out this year’s Vuelta so could start especially as 27th placed Kern Pharma is stopping. But Burgos-Burpellet-BH have been bolstering their squad.

Which teams go to the Tour de France? Total Energies may not survive, more on this below. Unibet Rose Rockets could be a pick especially if they can say “no thanks” to the Giro to better save themselves for July but they don’t have a must-have roster and their selling point of being strong on social media is no asset given the Tour hardly needs a boost here but in the past Christian Prudhomme has used the UCI rankings as a yardstick, it was cited as one reason why Caja Rural got invited this year instead of the Rockets and if so then the Franco-Dutch team qualifies. Burgos-Burpellet-BH have signed French riders from the Total Energies exodus but the Tour is a big ask.

UCI Licence Review
Made sense of it all so far? It’s not certain that the teams cited above are all licenced for 2027. Yesterday evening the UCI published the list of teams applying for next season and there was a gap between the number of teams applying and the amount listed in the press release. Jayco and Picnic-PostNL were missing from the World Tour teams; TotalEnergies absent among the ProTeams. It happens, teams may not be able to send every document ahead of the 15 October deadline and have until December to fix this. We know Jayco’s finances are tight and Picnic-PostNL are struggling on several fronts; the Dutch team got a warning last year from the governing body about its viability already.

Total Energies is the one that looks in real trouble. We know the French oil major is stopping sponsorship having pivoted to fund Netcompany-Ineos. Team founder Jean-René Bernaudeau has talked a good game lately saying he’s lodged a wage guarantee and other paperwork with the UCI but what’s missing is a title sponsor contract. Only this is fundamental to the team’s future. It’s here there’s a Catch-22 scenario because the team is eligible to for a Tour de France wildcard if they can find a main sponsor to keep the show on the road. But this may not be sufficient, if the roster is weak then ASO may just prefer another team. But there’s a prize awaiting: a viable title sponsor, a couple of signings and it’s bonjour to the Tour for 2027 and beyond. This is appealing but these deals typically take years or months to land and there are only weeks left.

Conclusion
These rankings can tell us which teams had a good season or not but they’re also used for next year and beyond. Pinarello-Q36.5 and Tudor are looking like World Tour teams already, their signings for next year consolidate this and they can and will race all the major events in 2027.

Outside of the World Tour there’s a tricky game of musical chairs where only a few surviving teams compete for the places left. If Euskaltel-Euskadi get to ride the Vuelta next year then Gotzon Martín’s win last weekend in the 2.2 Clásica Provincia de Chiriquí helped deliver this, arguably more than signing Mikel Landa even if more of the team’s late-season haul came from scoring in Binche-Chimay-Binche and the Tour de Vendée rather than Panama or the Hong Kong Cyclothon. If teams are trying to game the system and going to far-flung places, well it’s not a bad outcome to populate smaller races as a way of attending the bigger ones.

All teams face two races, the one to win events, land results, earn publicity and with this to get the points they need whether to top the table or qualify for races or the World Tour. The second race is existential, to be a viable team and to stay on the road. Here the promotion and relegation race ahead is fraught because some teams racing this year will no longer be around by 2029 or perhaps earlier.

The post UCI WorldTeam and ProTeam Rankings first appeared on The Inner Ring.

Did you notice the rider protest and eloquent speech calling for improved rider safety and expressing the fear of the risks involved? You might have heard Remco Evenepoel’s version but Dorian Gordon also made an appeal at the start of Paris-Tours on Sunday. It didn’t resonate as much in the media. Both speeches and rider actions were poignant but they were too modest.

“Through these words I’m speaking for all cyclists, male and female. For those still here, but also those who have deceased. As riders we’re unified to denounce the irresponsible behaviour and unnecessary risks we’re exposed to.”
– Dorian Godon (translated) .

A five minute delay with a short speech is at the mild end of the scale. In 1978 a rider strike saw the Tour de France peloton protest half-stages by riding a go-slow and then dismounting to cross the finish line. However that did have an obvious policy outcome that was in the organiser’s power to stop. Things are more complicated now, you can’t write a rule that stops errant vehicles getting onto a race course… but you can write standards, set duties and even impose liability. The peloton might have the power to make this happen but more collective action will be needed, probably stronger measures.

CPA sidelined
Less important but the rider protests happened without the CPA rider union. It’s not crisis time for the union but is telling that this time the riders didn’t bother using it when normally a union ought to offer help for support, planning and so on.

Picnic-PostNL’s “culture of fear”
One thing where a union could act is workplace relations but the CPA seems missing in the news today from Dutch broadcaster NOS and podcast De Waaier that spoke to many inside the Picnic-PostNL team and its various incarnations over the last decade with talk of a “culture of fear” and where managerial hierarchy and strict protocols reach the point where the individuals and humanity seem to be sidelined. The team has responded, promising an independent investigation into this. As if their season could not be worse so far…

Picnic cheer

…but Frits Biesterbos has got Picnic-PostNL their first World Tour win of the season, beating Paul Magnier and Olav Kooij in a bunch sprint. They’d been the only World Tour team without a win at this level and close to ending the season without a win at the top level. Astana did this in 2022 when it only had five wins, two at .Pro level, one at .1 and of course two Kazakh national champs titles. Biesterbos has been making a name for himself – a great name, any more Dutch and he’d be riding in clogs drilled for cleats – with some sprint results and now his first win. He hasn’t popped up for the win by coming off someone’s wheel when racing into a headwind, instead he’s been able to have a lot of power on tap which suggests he can not only win more but also have range for the classics.

Down to the wire

There’s a battle for teams to get in the top-30 on the UCI rankings because only those in this group are eligible for a wildcard invite to the grand tours, so Euskaltel-Euskadi moving up to 29th place is some cheer for them and their marquee signing of Mikel Landa when it comes to starting the Vuelta. There’s a week left and so far Fritz Biesterbos’s win in the Tour of Guangxi and Alessandro Fancellu’s 6th place in the Giro del Veneto yesterday with 80 points imperils them. Meanwhile Bardiani are outside the top-30 and so, as things stand, ineligible even for the Giro next season. The UCI rule in question says teams have to be in the top-30 for this season but this includes teams that may not exist next year so you can make a case for it being re-written; equally the top-30 is a clear metric rather than second-guessing the viability of each team for next year. Final 2026 rankings will be published next Tuesday.

Deadline day
Talking of UCI deadlines, today is the soft deadline for teams registering for next year. Every pro team has to submit details to the UCI by 15 October with details such as their name for the following season, copies of signed sponsorship contracts, the rider roster and more. Teams can miss this deadline if the paperwork really is just days away from being completed but there’s a daily fine for the delay. It’s with this we ought to know whether Visma-LAB have managed to find a title sponsor for 2027, likewise EF’s sponsor search; probably not as neither has held a press release to unveil anything. Similarly we’ll see if the Total Energies team has found a backer for 2027 and beyond because it also appears not – no press release either – and so the team looks destined to vanish, or more likely drop down and continue as a third tier Continental team where it already has the Vendée U-Primeo Energie team. The UCI normally names all the teams involved in the review in a press release a week later with the approval or not due for November but it can stretch to December.

Staying the UCI, it’s announced reform proposals and in a separate announcement has mandated business consultancy Deloitte to help. Just as it did in 2013 when a similar set of reforms were suggested (calendar reform, no overlapping races, shrinking stage race length etc etc) right down to hiring Deloitte to gather feedback and put this into something that could be implemented. You can be forgiven for forgetting that episode as not much came out of it although the three year promotion-relegation system we have today and started in 2020 can be traced back to this. So will more happen this time? Possibly but ideas like shrinking the grand tours down to two weeks have already been shot down by race organisers to the point of why were they even evoked? It’s a challenge explored here before – On Calendar Reform, February 2024 – in that everyone will say yes please to “reform” but start to spell out the changes and you create winners and losers and it gets harder to advance.

Nairoman, no es un ciclista
Nairo Quintana has retired as a rider. An impressive palmarès and a massive personal legacy in Colombia where it’s been hard to overstate his popularity. In part because he represented his roots, once a boy who would rise early to run a vegetable stall, he spoke up on behalf of farm workers and small shopkeepers and also led campaigns for women’s rights and improved road safety. Only there’s a proverbial asterisk here, the trial of Arkéa team doctor Fredy Gonzalez concluded with a conviction but Gonzalez appealed this and there’s no timeline for the conclusion of this case. Which means the UCI, WADA and other anti-doping agencies are sitting on the sidelines waiting for the criminal and civil court cases to conclude before deciding whether to invite Nairo Quintana to a potential anti-doping hearing.

Lavresen’s wardrobe
Normally this blog’s Christmas quiz sticks to road cycling so no point saving this for December: track sprinter Harry Lavresen has just won his 22nd UCI world championship title in the keirin, that’s a lot of rainbow jerseys. Winning team sprint yesterday meant he was on 21 titles which makes him the most-decorated UCI world champion, surpassing the Pospíšil brothers who ruled cycle ball with 20 titles between 1965 and 1998.

To finish, some culture. While reading yet more about the 1989 Tour de France and runner-up Laurent Fignon, a mention that Studio Ghibli founder Hayao Miyazaki made drawings of runner-up Laurent Fignon, the Oscar-winning film maker and artist is interested in cycling. Going down an internet rabbit hole and then emerging, that’s the image above from 5 July 2009 with the title of “Fignon’s coming”, thanks to Paul from the comments below. One of the recurring themes in Miyazaki’s works is technology and how humans can find a balance between it enabling us but without dependency. Is Fignon escaping from his helmet, sunglasses and race radio or merging with them?

The post Thursday Shorts first appeared on The Inner Ring.

After a gradual, seated acceleration Paul Seixas rises up on the pedals to go clear on the Civiglio climb. This was the moment Il Lombardia was won.

Events began with the peloton in a row of honour to pay tribute to Bauke Mollema, Rudy Molard, Ion Izagirre, Odd Christian Eiking and Pello Bilbao, all starting the last race of their careers. No sign of Primož Roglič, who looks set for another season.

Then a five minute protest by the peloton as riders stayed put on the start line, something that took the organisers by surprise going by their body language. Remco Evenepoel’s appeal on the microphone about rider deaths and vehicles on race route was aimed at race organisers, he spoke in English and got a ripple of applause from the Bergamo crowd. Only in a press release organisers RCS wrote “the riders came together to send an important message, stopping for five minutes to urge all road users to behave responsibly and show mutual respect, both during races and in everyday life,” a rhetorical gap that points to the difficulties for the sport to advance collectively.

A group of 30 was away on the early slopes of the Selvino climb but this was too much for UAE and Decathlon who chased it down. A counter move launched by Uno-X’s Johannes Kulset worked instead, 12 riders and then 14 when two more bridged across. Once upon a time, not long ago actually, the early break would be allowed to build up time and those away might know they were only free for a few hours but they could enjoy the liberty. Here the 14 looked in agony from the start, backs hunched low as they made forceful pedal strokes, struggling to take even two minutes as they crested the early climbs, sometimes shrouded in mist.

Racing to the foot of the Ghisallo climb, the sun was coming out. Out of sight RAI TV reported Enric Mas had stopped in a tunnel because of “un problemo à la Dumoulin“, a label the Giro and Worlds TT winner can’t, ahem, drop. Mas’s stomach problems sounded ruinous for the day but that diagnosis would be proved wrong.

Giulio Pellizzari set a fast pace up the Ghisallo climb but was overtaken by an attack from Visma-LAB as Matteo Jorgenson went clear, taking Quinn Simmons, Brandon McNulty and Christian Scaroni with him. It was exciting to see the Ghisallo play a role but the quartet struggled both to take 15 seconds on what was left of the peloton, and too close in on the breakaway. Having a UAE rider in McNulty meant one less team to chase but Decathlon and Red Bull got the better of them, perhaps in part because McNulty could mark the move too. The world champion was sporting white shorts and it’ll take time to stop seeing him as some kind of body-double for Tadej Pogačar, even if his lively presence today means he’s no impostor.

As the race reached Como the riders cast long shadows, the photogenic “golden hour” started early. The breakaway was down to six riders but still had 1m30s for the first time up the San Fermo climb. Pellizzari led the chasers up the climb, this time all the leaders were close by with Paul Seixas, Remco Evenepoel, Giulio Ciccone, Tom Pidcock, Isaac Del Toro and Brandon McNulty just where they wanted to be.

The breakaway split going up the Civiglio climb with Michael Leonard holding out the longest. Seixas has been labelled a diesel for his way of riding, but on the Civilgio it was as if he was running on bunker fuel. He hit the front but was it an attack? It was almost like watching a container ship leave port, his seated acceleration was barely perceptible on TV. Only his rivals soon felt it, McNulty was on his wheel and started to shake his head, a tell for his agony. It was only a full minute later that Seixas rose up on the pedals. This shook off McNulty and Del Toro. Tom Pidcock moved onto the Frenchman’s wheel, churning a big gear and bobbing to hold on. Another full minute later Seixas stood up again and only Pidcock and Mas could follow with Mas a few metres back. Another minute later and Seixas was clear. Pidcock cracked and Ciccone rotated his head in strigiform manner to observe Mas behind him rather concern himself with Seixas.

Ciccone and Mas were left as chasers while the group behind saw several pre-race picks in trouble. Pidcock said he paid for trying to follow Seixas’s pace, Isaac del Toro didn’t have it and the beefy Evenepoel hypothesis from the preview held up.

Seixas was away but there wasn’t the sense of inevitability. This will come to us the more he does repeats these feats but for now his 20 second lead was only one bad trajectory from coming undone, one exuberant loss of concentration; and given his cramp in the Montreal Worlds, could his legs seize up on the final climb of the San Fermo? He kept it all under control and extended his lead for 48 seconds on Mas who had dropped Ciccone on the San Fermo climb.

The Verdict
More suspense but not a lot more sport. The absence of Pogačar opened up the list of contenders but the race was ridden in the same format with a relentless pace from the start, and 1.5km/h faster than the similar course used in 2022. Matteo Jorgenson’s Ghisallo attack added spice but was a short story mid-race rather than a chapter that led to anything new. It came down to shoot-out on the steepest part of the hardest climb and one rider was clearly superior to all the rest. Seixas even set the record up the Civiglio, taking more than 30 seconds off Pogačar’s best.

Enric Mas is the runner-up again after 2022, impressive when he could have started on the sangria and croquetas following his Vuelta win. Giulio Ciccone seems to improve with age, often an artist on the bike who has frustrated managers for he is proving more able to guide himself to results.

Seixas becomes the youngest ever winner of Lombardia, pipping Giovanni Gerbi who was also 20 when he won the inaugural edition in 1905. The anecdote is worthy, even if it tells us as much about the structure of pro cycling today as it does Seixas, but the context is more remarkable. He started winning in February, won stage races and spring classics in April, crashed out of the Dauphine Aura Tour, finished fourth in the Tour, then aimed for the Canadian races in September and now rides the field off his wheel in October. Beaucoup as they say in France but still only 49 days of racing this year, although he plans to start Sunday’s Roc d’Azur MTB race which will take the count to 50. It’s also Decathlon’s first Monument win, topping second places from Alberto Elli in the 1998 Sanremo, Silvan Dillier’s second place in the 2018 Paris-Roubaix and Seixas’s own second place in Liège this year.

For Seixas it’s a personal triumph. The public self-flagellation following his ride at the Worlds was notable to the point of excessive but he clearly nurtured the sentiment for two weeks as a source of motivation and determination during the past two weeks and was able to deliver on it. Pleasingly though Lombardia was about more than making amends. He took pleasure in his post-race interview, despite years of rising up the ranks, winning at the top level is still a discovery for him. He told TV the 10 year old Paul Seixas would not believe what would happen, and that “the whole season was a dream for me”. Which races will he think about over winter? Or is his goal more personal: to dethrone Pogačar?

The post The Moment Il Lombardia Was Won first appeared on The Inner Ring.

Almost the last chance of the season to land a big win, only now it’s also the first chance for many to win Lombardia given five-time winner Tadej Pogačar is out.

The Course
Bergamo to Como, the long way with 239km, not the hardest route going but still 4,600m of vertical gain. If the start and finish have alternated over the years, the route in between has been more varied. Plus Como will host the finish for the next few years too. This time no Muro di Sormano, instead this vintage resembles the 2022 edition. It’s uphill from the start with the climb to Gavarno via the Colle dei Pasta, a gentle ascent and descent. The Selvino is next, a well-engineered climb with hairpins galore midway. There are no traps on the climbs of the Berbenno, Valpiana and Giovenzana, often big ring climbs.

With 70km to go the climb of the Madonna del Ghisallo begins. It’s in two parts and the hardest part is the start out of Bellagio with some 10-15% sections. It levels out through Guello before a more tame rise over the top to pass the chapel where the bells will ring for the race and then then a twisty descent down to Asso after which the road heads for Como.

There are three final climbs. The road to San Fermo della Battaglia is climbed, then there’s the ascent to Civiglio, then San Fermo again. Of the two climbs, Civiglio is harder but it opens with a long straight ramp up before the ten hairpins starts. San Fermo’s not easy, a tight turn to start with puts anyone ten wheels back in trouble to start with before the narrow road twists up through the woodland.

The Finish
Another time up to San Fermo, a series of 7% ramps winding up to the 5km to go point and then followed by a regular descent with tight bends which flattens out with just over 1km to go.

The Contenders

Absent Tadej Pogačar it’s a far more open contest, would it have been worth doing a preview if he was going to start? Isaac del Toro (UAE) makes for an obvious stand-in, the Mexican is in form even if he has talked about a knee injury this did not stop him going on the attack in Thursday’s Gran Piemonte. Brandon McNulty is a form pick but while he could drift away to open up a gap in the worlds, his rainbow jersey mean’s he’ll be heavily marked, no rider in a race debrief will want to say they let the world champion float away. Jan Christen fits the archetype but his form isn’t as obvious.

Second in Emilia last weekend and the Tre Valle Varesine in the week, Tom Pidcock (Pinarello-Q36.5) looks like a good podium pick and he can sprint well from a group to take the win. At 27 he’s the team’s totemic rider but will see competition on the roster next year with new signings and now would be a good time to land his first Monument.

Giulio Ciccone is likely to be a Pidcock team mate but has a shot now for Lidl-Trek. Smarting from his loss in the Euro road championships, he has a fast sprint and will like the hilly finish but can he put it all together? This would be his biggest win by far. Quinn Simmons thrived in last year’s edition, one of the few to try and resist Pogačar and looks to be in form. Juan Ayuso races, under the radar.

A year ago Paul Seixas (Decathlon-CMA CGM) was a very promising seventh. Now he faces the direct question of how to win? Render the race as hard as possible and then wear down rivals on the final climbs. His team will do their part to sap the field.

Without Pogačar Remco Evenepoel (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) is a deductive pick, the best of the rest on paper and he’s in form. But as we saw the worlds, he is beefier now than July and was beginning to struggle on the climbs; a challenge here with a course backloaded with harder climbs. But he’s far from ruled out, there’s no Sormano to shred the field. It’s just he might have to race tactically, getting ahead of rivals before they trade attacks on the Civiglio; or hoping things regroup. Giulio Pellizzari brings more options but looks to be coming off the boil, there’s a a strong team with Jai Hindley and Primož Roglič.

Visma-LAB have Matteo Jorgenson and Davide Piganzoli (pictured) as leaders and Louis Barré and Ben Tulett as outsiders. Jorgenson’s difficulty is winning from a sprint but this course is selective enough to rarely see a group contest the win. Piganzoli could well be the most improved rider of the year but even so, landing a Monument would be massive.

Enric Mas (Movistar) was second here in 2022 with the very similar route. As good as his form’s been, he can almost be excused for celebrating his Vuelta triumph. Christian Scaroni (XDS-Astana) is consistently good but can he win at this level? EF Education-Easypost’s Ben Healy is a long shot pick but does deliver from time to time. Bahrain have a cohesive team with Pello Bilbao as their leader in his last race, Lenny Martinez has punch, Jakob Omrzel just one to watch and Antionio Tiberi in form but probably deployed to help. Lotto-Intermarché have Lennert Van Eetvelt who is suited to the course and Jarno Widar who’s just won the Tre Valli Varesine. A late season race in Italy means Marc Hirschi can’t be ruled out but this is probably too hilly for him. Oscar Onley (Netcompany-Ineos) is an outside pick. Now that Tobias Halland Johannessen (Uno-X) has found winning ways he ought to land more but this is a tall order.

	–
	Del Toro, Pidcock
	Evenepoel
	Seixas, McNulty, Jorgenson, Ciccone, Scaroni
	Onley, Widar, Healy, Piganzoli, Simmons, Pellizzari, Bilbao

Weather: weak sunshine and 20°C, a pleasant autumnal day and almost no wind to mention.

TV: live from start to finish. KM0 is at 11.00am and the finish is forecast fro 5.00pm CEST. The Ghisallo climb will start around 3.00pm and the finishing climbs around 4.15pm.

It’s on RAI Sport then RAI 2 for locals and VPN users, otherwise Eurosport in Europe, Flobikes in north America and SBS in Australia which is also in English for any VPN users too.

The post Il Lombardia Preview first appeared on The Inner Ring.