Watching the peloton - Professional Road Racing thread 2026

Rás Cnoic said:
Also, remember for Aussies, this month is their one chance every year to preform for home crowds, get the local headlines and that must mean a lot to them, before packing up and heading to Europe for the next 9 months. Thinking about that - it's still bizarre to me that there isn't a single Pro Tour race in the US each year. Canada has those two Quebec/Montreal classics, surely it wouldn't be difficult to have a New York Classic or somewhere close to Quebec the following weekend as all the big names are over from Europe anyway. Obviously maybe not in current climate with border crossings being what they are, but in general it's a real head scratcher that a single day race or a week long hasn't been there since what, the Tour of California?
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We have UCI road races in the US:

Tour of the Gila, New Mexico, 4/29-5/3, 2.2 (stage race.class 2)
Gran Premio NYC. New York, 5/17, 1.2 (one day.class 2)
Philadelphia Cycling Classic, PA, 8/30, 1.1 (one day.class 1)
Maryland Cycling Classic, MD, 9/5-9/7. 2.Pro (stage race.UCI ProSeries)

You also have to include the US National Championships, which is a UCI race for UCI classes every year. Until recently, we used to have three UCI stage races in the US, The Colorado Classic, the Tour of Utah, and the Tour of California. It has nothing to do with politics and everything to do with sponsor money and the stain that doping has had on sponsorship. Bring up bike racing to any average American, and the conversation takes less than a minute to devolve into doping. Sponsors are not going to spend millions of dollars on a sport that's seen as tainted. The hypocrisy of it all is that pro sports in America are rife with legal and illegal drugs. That's life in a sport that barely surfaces in the mind of the public.

We also used to have a bunch of UCI permitted criteriums, which allowed organizers to ship in European domestiques to spice up the racing. These are all still around, but not as UCI races, because they priced themselves out of reach. The same thing has happened to our cyclocross races. Many have gone away completely, and those that are left oscillate between UCI and NGB permitting.
 
Bummer didn't realise the YT clip was disabled on other websites. Look up AlUla Tour on Youtube, should be there.
 
My biggest non-racing take-aways from the TDA.

1) Thank God Bianchi is with a better color-coordinated team in Bahrain Victorious! The Arkea/Bianchi color combo was just horrible.

2) No Arkea and Ineos switching to orange should make it a little easier to pick out teams in the peloton. Way too many red jerseys last year!

3) If it didn't clash so badly with my bike, I would seriously consider a Sweet Protection UnoX helmet. You can spot the whole team in the peloton in seconds.

4) I had to look up Groupama's kit. Wouldn't surprise me if it's the only time I see that jersey on a screen this year
 
BlackHand said:
My biggest non-racing take-aways from the TDA.

1) Thank God Bianchi is with a better color-coordinated team in Bahrain Victorious! The Arkea/Bianchi color combo was just horrible.

2) No Arkea and Ineos switching to orange should make it a little easier to pick out teams in the peloton. Way too many red jerseys last year!

3) If it didn't clash so badly with my bike, I would seriously consider a Sweet Protection UnoX helmet. You can spot the whole team in the peloton in seconds.

4) I had to look up Groupama's kit. Wouldn't surprise me if it's the only time I see that jersey on a screen this year
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I also pay a lot of attention to color — more than I should. Every color has its place, and I really love orange, but not a fan of that light coral Ineos picked — at least not in that context.

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Keep hoping that some team will pick up the gorgeous orange of the cape honeysuckle I'm lucky enough to ride and walk past a good part of the year.

Love everything about this GCN project — a flat-bar road bike based on an Orbea Orca frame. The orange turned it to pure lust.
 
I really wish that RCS would pick their US provider so that I know which streaming provider to sign up for ASAP. It should be HBO Max but maybe not.

Just pick one. This is ridiculous.
 
Speaking of color schemes, walked past this African flag today. Another beautiful orange!

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Funny what you can and can't get away with in color schemes. Nature more than gets away with intense orange and green here, but I wouldn't be eager to see it on a team uniform.
 
Ahem....!
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Though in fairness the Irish national team jerseys are usually green and or white with some orange trim. Here's Ben Healy rocking the Nat Champs Jersey few years back.


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As a National champ, you get to wear your national champions jersey all year round. And I think, you can keep using the trim forever(so in Ben's case the green white and orange sleeve trim). Same with World champions.

And finally I found this... National Gravel champ kit. (Who knew this was a thing?)

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Cuffs and sleeves forever, as long as you are riding it in the discipline that you won it in. In other words, if you won a CX national championship, you cannot wear the champion's jersey or the cuffs and sleeves in a road race unless you also won one of those, too.

As long as the UCI has a world championship for a cycling discipline, NGB's can have national championships, and so on down to the regional and state level.
 
Rás Cnoic said:
The kangaroo had the last laugh.
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At least the one that got away unharmed. Cycling Weekly said the other had be to euthanized for a leg fracture that "would never have healed in the wild".

And half a dozen significant fractures among the riders who had to abandon. Fortunately, none of them had to be euthanized.
;^}

At the finish line, Vine said that roos are the biggest risk when riding in Australia. “They wait and they hide in the bushes until you can’t stop and they jump out in front of you. Point proven today.”

Pretty odd behavior when there's nothing to eat involved.
 
Jeremy McCreary said:
At least the one that got away unharmed. Cycling Weekly said the other had be to euthanized for a leg fracture that "would never have healed in the wild".

And half a dozen significant fractures among the riders who had to abandon. Fortunately, none of them had to be euthanized.
;^}

At the finish line, Vine said that roos are the biggest risk when riding in Australia. “They wait and they hide in the bushes until you can’t stop and they jump out in front of you. Point proven today.”

Pretty odd behavior when there's nothing to eat involved.
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Ouch. Didn't see there was so much damage. Kangaroos in Oz and sandstorms in Saudi Arabia, dangerous occupational hazards abound in the early season.

Re Kangaroos waiting in ambush, it might be territorial, or they are alarmed. I've never seen that. They are a big concern for driving, hitting a fully grown male makes nobody's day any better.

Was watching highlights from Saudi. The desert landscape there is extraordinary.

That race ends on Saturday. Then the UAE Tour mid Feb and then the first of the One Day Classics, the 81st Omloop Nieuwsblad and we're properly off and running, Strade Bianche & Paris-Nice end of first week of March.
 
Rás Cnoic said:
Was watching highlights from Saudi. The desert landscape there is extraordinary.
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Same here. That Stage 2 sandstorm must've been horrible to ride through.

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Rode through blowing sand just once. Never again. Eyes and every orifice immediately full of sand. After just 100 m, turned tail home to rinse it all out. Not an option for the Alula riders.

Milan has had quite a showing so far. I see a media darling in the making. Tall, good-looking, well-spoken, built like what most think an elite athlete should look like.
 
Rás Cnoic said:
Ahem....!
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Though in fairness the Irish national team jerseys are usually green and or white with some orange trim. Here's Ben Healy rocking the Nat Champs Jersey few years back.


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As a National champ, you get to wear your national champions jersey all year round. And I think, you can keep using the trim forever(so in Ben's case the green white and orange sleeve trim). Same with World champions.
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Notice that there's always a "demilitarized zone" of neutral white between the intense greens and oranges in these patterns. I think that's why they don't clash here.
 
Just finished AlUla Stage 5/5. Glad to see Pidcock get a GC win. *

The Tour's striking desert mountain scenery reminded me a bit of Death Valley in the US. Now I'm going to have to look up the geology.

As many have noted, getting to ogle beautiful scenery is one of the best things about watching pro cycling. And wanting to show off what they've got, race hosts tend to pick some pretty juicy settings. Win-win.

* Sorry, that was 2025.
 
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Jeremy McCreary said:
Notice that there's always a "demilitarized zone" of neutral white between the intense greens and oranges in these patterns. I think that's why they don't clash here.
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That's the point of the Irish Tricolour flag; Green (Nationalists) Orange (Unionist) and White being peace between the two. Designed by Thomas Francis Meager, leader of Young Ireland, the revolutionary group in 1848 (Or apparently gifted to him by a group of French women from the 1848 Paris Commune, sympathetic to Ireland's plight.)

Incidentally Meagher had an extraordinary life. Captured by the British after the failed 1848 insurrection he was sentenced to be executed but all the failed rebellion leaders were instead transported and imprisoned in Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) in the hellish prison for Irish revolutionaries. He escaped and made it to New York where he later became a Union General in the US Civil War, first with the Irish emigrants in the New York Militia (The Fighting 69th) then forming The Irish Brigade which suffered huge loses at Anietam and Fredricksburg. After the war he was made Governor of Montana territory and then drowned, or was murdered by Montana political rivals while crossing a river, nobody knows for sure which it was.

What a life!

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