26 predictions for 2026
The Cycling Podcast returns for the new season with a deep look into the crystal ball
The Cycling Podcast returned ahead of the 2026 season with the now traditional Speculation Episode. It’s a tradition that stretches all the way back to 2021 and it’s an episode that pushes Lionel out of his comfort zone before the season has even got underway.
Nevertheless, Daniel, Lionel and a selection of our regular correspondents gazed into the cracked crystal ball to see what the 2026 road racing season has in store.
With the Tour Down Under in full swing, it won’t be long before the Classics are upon us, and then it’ll be head-long into another busy summer with daily coverage of the Grand Tours recorded on location. The Cycling Podcast Féminin will be released monthly, with the first episode of the year imminent. Arrivée episodes will cover the biggest one-day races, and our programme of KM0 episodes for Friends of the Podcast subscribers will be released throughout the year.
In The Speculation Episode Daniel mentioned he’d made 26 predictions for 2026. Here they are, along with Lionel’s (reluctant) attempts to see into the future.
Daniel’s ’26 predictions
Protests about a political, social or environmental cause will disrupt a major race.
Even more carbs.
The German media will desperately try to push a Lipowitz vs Remco storyline in the second half of the year. If they get any help from the two riders, it’ll also be the most intriguing subplot of the Tour.
The Seixas hype train will be the most terrifying white-knuckle ride of 2026.
Giulio Pellizzari will be Jonas Vingegaard’s biggest rival at the Giro.
A rider colliding with a spectator will significantly impact the outcome of a major race, probably Paris-Roubaix.
Polynesian Noni fruit will be the breakout legal performance enhancer/nutrition fad.
At some point in the year we’ll see a team employing a galaxy-brained and doomed Pog-slaying tactic that, we’ll learn later, has been concocted either by AI or the team’s data analyst.
EF Education-Easy Post will give us two strong contenders for the title of 2026 breakout star – Markel Beloki and Mattia Agostinacchio
One fairly major WorldTour team will run into life-threatening financial difficulty. I have an idea who but won’t say just yet.
Jonas Abrahamsen will win another Tour de France stage – Foix or Voiron would be my bets.
Our Giro podcasts will feature tedious complaints about a final week that looks to have been designed by someone who learned logistics from Ryanair’s definition of ‘Paris’.
Visma-Lease a Bike’s Anton Schiffer will have a ‘moment’, if not for a performance then something he says in an interview or becoming the WorldTour’s first ever rider-coach (he’s a Sports Science graduate).
Simon Yates won’t be spotted at a single bike race.
We and everyone else will continue to call the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes ‘The Dauphiné’.
There’ll be a moment, probably very brief, when we in the media will be reading the last rites of the ‘Pogačar era’.
There’ll be more than a moment – probably about eleven-and-a-half months – when the inherent boredom of the ‘Pogačar era’ will be the dominant and, yes, most boring trending media topic.
Matthew Brennan will win Paris-Roubaix
Enric Mas, who always does well in ‘even’ years, will enjoy a career remontada at the Giro, maybe even finishing on the podium.
The ‘comeback of 2026’ won’t be Mas’s but he will feature in it: cycling’s best ever fly-on-the-wall streaming series, El Día Menos Pensado, returns early in the year and should be a banger.
Unibet Rose Rockets will realise their dream of not only starting the Tour but also winning a stage. Victor Lafay will get it…then immediately announce that he’s quitting cycling with immediate effect, not to open a fromagerie in Japan, as he threatened last year, but to become the world’s first skateboarding ventriloquist. Marc Soler will steal the fromagerie idea and relocate from Andorra to Okinawa, yet still commute to Spanish stage races.
Oscar Onley will make a mockery of ‘Second Season Syndrome’ to establish himself as the best climber and stage-race rider in the world behind the Pog-Ving axis of excellence.
I’ll successfully complete my mission to achieve universal adoption of ‘The SlovALIEN’ as Tadej Pogačar’s nickname.
Paul Magnier will win Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and Gent-Wevelgem
One of the sleeper, back-channel debates of 2026 will be about whether sprinters are heading for extinction. I sort of think they are – with caveats.
At least another 15 riders will give interviews out of which the same pull-quote about cycling not being ‘100% clean’ will be crowbarred onto social media.
Lionel’s ’26 predictions
Soudal-Quick Step will do the ‘Opening Weekend double’ winning Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne. After that, it’ll be a barren spring campaign for the Belgian team.
Tadej Pogačar won’t win Strade Bianche – but only because of an unfortunately-timed puncture…
…He will, however, win Paris-Roubaix after a long-ish solo attack.
The new name for Gent-Wevelgem, In Flanders Fields from Middelkerke to Wevelgem, won’t catch on.
Ben Healy finishes on the podium at Amstel Gold, Flèche Wallonne and Liège-Bastogne-Liège – winning Amstel.
Thibau Nys will win his first WorldTour one-day race, Flèche Wallonne.
Jonas Vingegaard wins the Giro d’Italia but is pushed all the way by João Almeida and pays the price at the Tour, missing the podium for the first time.
The Giro d’Italia will confirm plans for a grande partenza in Abu Dhabi (or Saudi Arabia) in 2027 or 2028.
UAE Team Emirates and Pogačar will dominate the opening team time trial at the Tour de France meaning Pogačar leads overall from start to finish as he joins the five-time winners club.
Olav Kooij will win the first bunch sprint stage of the Tour de France – but will have to wait until the race reaches Bordeaux because of the breakaways and GC riders.
Mads Pedersen will win the green jersey at the Tour de France.
The same rider will win both Alpe d’Huez stages at the Tour de France.
The independent law firm instructed by Ineos Grenadiers to investigate the allegations levelled against the team’s carer David Rozman last year will finally publish its report.
As extreme heat becomes more common, technological improvements lead to the creation of a streamlined ice vest that can cool riders for much longer periods and most of the riders start wearing them on very hot days.
Gear ratios continue to get bigger and someone rides a time trial with a 70-tooth chainring, larger than the 68T Tobias Foss used a couple of years ago.
Groupama-FDJ will be the last of the WorldTour teams to win a WorldTour race – at the Tour of Poland in August.
Pogačar will keep everyone guessing about his Vuelta a España participation until the very last moment – confirming his place on the start line in Monaco just a few days before the race. He will go on to win overall, followed by a third consecutive rainbow jersey in the road race, and another European title, on home soil in Slovenia.
Matthew Brennan will be the star of the Vuelta – winning a small handful of lumpy stages with punchy finishes.
A sports director will reveal the extent to which AI is being used to determine race strategy and tactics.
A recently-retired rider – or a rider nearing retirement – will say in an interview that professional cycling has got far too serious, too obsessed with carbs, watts and riding to numbers, mourning the loss of a carefree era that never really existed.
Time trial helmet design will get even more extreme. To comply with the new UCI rules regarding ‘traditional’ helmets for road racing, someone will unveil a lid that conforms to the letter of the law with the right number of vents and so on but looks absolutely ridiculous.
Anticipating the UCI’s decision to award points for other disciplines from 2027, capitalising on the buzz around the World Championships in Rwanda, and building on the growth of events like the Nedbank Gravel Burn, there are proposals to include a gravel stage race in the WorldTour.
The United Arab Emirates’ involvement in the conflict in Sudan provokes nothing like the level of protest or comment as Israel’s actions in Gaza and UAE-Team Emirates face little outcry.
Team infrastructure begins to creak at the sheer demands of the WorldTour schedule and there are calls to reduce the number of events and eliminate calendar clashes. Proposals include a two-tier system with development squads eligible to ride the lower-ranked events leading to a complete overhaul and revamp of the entire professional calendar.
A group of team owners will reveal plans for a new ‘league’ to revolutionise professional cycling’s business, sponsorship and broadcast model.
Now it’s over to you! My tolerance of speculation has been stretched to breaking point so send your ideas and I’ll read out some of the best, funniest or most outlandish in a future episode, or reproduce them in The 11.01 Cappuccino. Email us at contact@thecyclingpodcast.com, reply to this email or comment on this article to make your predictions for ’26.
Catch up on KM0
While we had a break over the holiday period, we released a few episodes of KM0. Daniel’s three-part series, Trapdoor, looked at the battle to avoid relegation from the UCI WorldTour. XDS-Astana survived, Cofidis did not, and Uno-X took one of the available places among the elite. The series provides some illuminating insights into the strategies the teams employed.
Last winter, Lionel travelled to Cardiff to meet the people behind the Maindy Flyers, the junior club where it all began for Geraint Thomas. There was a conversation with James Startt, a photographer and journalist who has spent the last 36 summers on the road at the Tour de France. And, with Simon Yates announcing his retirement, we delved into the archive for an episode recorded just over a decade ago when Lionel travelled to a Lancashire cafe to meet Adam and Simon when they were still in the early days of their careers.
"extent to which AI is being used" - and this reveal will come in the context of that same team having made some absolute shockers of dumb strategy decisions in races, thanks to said AI.
(As my daughter says, it's ABNI: "Artificial But Not Intelligent", ABI / "Anything But Intelligent" works too).