Watching the peloton - Professional Road Racing thread 2026

After the Olympics road race in Paris went up Montmartre with half a million watching they've incorporated the cobbled climb sections ever since. Makes it much more exciting and the Parisians love it, huge crowds. Extraordinary win by MVDP. Worth a watch. They cut out the boring "procession" part due to lack of police, helping with the wild fires. Think they should do it like this in future, worked really well.
 
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Rás Cnoic said:

Not from his toes... But he definitely has "diamonds in his legs".
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That final quote's worth repeating...

Interviewer: You finished absolutely empty.

MVDP: We have a saying in Dutch, that it has to come from your toes. I don't know where this came from, but it wasn't from my toes. I don't know where it came from.
 
Another thing that has changed is the rise of young riders, not just Seixas. Spencer Martin pointed out that over the past few decades of the Tour, the average age of the peloton has been 29, and so has the average age of the top ten finishers. In the past few years, the average age of the peloton has stayed at 29, but the top ten finishers average age has dropped to 25. If this is a trend, then bike racing could be going the way of women's gymnastics, where young athletes dominate and competitors in their late 20's are team fillers. Time will tell.
Used be 27 was the perfect age to win the tour because you needed that hard won experience while still not too old. Radios have changed all that. Though have to say some DSs instructions over the radio leave a lot to be desired! But in general now the experience of former pros in the cars can advise straight into young GC contenders ears making up for their own inexperience.

I would say the select few riders like Pog were born with a canny ability to match their physical gifts -at any age.
 
Rás Cnoic said:
Another thing that has changed is the rise of young riders, not just Seixas. Spencer Martin pointed out that over the past few decades of the Tour, the average age of the peloton has been 29, and so has the average age of the top ten finishers. In the past few years, the average age of the peloton has stayed at 29, but the top ten finishers average age has dropped to 25. If this is a trend, then bike racing could be going the way of women's gymnastics, where young athletes dominate and competitors in their late 20's are team fillers. Time will tell.

Used be 27 was the perfect age to win the tour because you needed that hard won experience while still not too old. Radios have changed all that. Though have to say some DSs instructions over the radio leave a lot to be desired! But in general now the experience of former pros in the cars can advise straight into young GC contenders ears making up for their own inexperience.

I would say the select few riders like Pog were born with a canny ability to match their physical gifts -at any age.
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Dunno why my paste of Stomp's post didn't cone out in quotes as it should have. On phone.
 
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Tour de France Femmes (TdFF) started today. As last year, they're calling it the TdFF avec Zwift. What's Zwift got to do with it?

Amazing final uphill acceleration by Lorena Wiebes left everyone else in the dust. Love her interviews. Total badass on the bike, fastest female sprinter in the world, most stage wins in the TdFF, but always light and cheery, humble but confident at the mic.
 
The 2026 TdFF yellow jersey changed hands on today's hilly Stage 3 in a most unexpected way. The new wearer is Sigrid Haugset, a tiny 27 year-old Norwegian National Champion with Uno-X who looks like shes 12.

But don't let that fool you. She just rode away at 88 km out and was never caught. Her lone chaser, the formidable Kopecke, got the lead down to 10 seconds at 10 km out. Then Haugset turned on the afterburner, crossing the finish line 1'24" ahead. Meanwhile, she also put time into the peloton, which finished well over 2' back.

So far, great racing on 3 TdFF stages out of 3.
 
Stage 5 was certainly good. A lot of team strategy and plenty of attacks.

What really impressed me is how finely these athletes are able to measure their own abilities and those of their competitors. To be able to know just how much you can let them go before pulling the trigger and reeling them back in just before the line.
 
BlackHand said:
What really impressed me is how finely these athletes are able to measure their own abilities and those of their competitors. To be able to know just how much you can let them go before pulling the trigger and reeling them back in just before the line.
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I've been struck by how often we see this scenario: The breakaway stays away for 10s of kilometers, only to get caught in the last few km — sometimes the very last km. IMO, way too often to happen by chance alone.

So you guys are saying that it's the peloton's or chasers' intent?? In a sport where anything can happen and frequently does, why on Earth would they risk cutting the catch so close?
 
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Jeremy McCreary said:
I've been struck by how often we see this scenario: The breakaway stays away for 10s of kilometers, only to get caught in the last few km — some the very last. IMO, way too often to happen by chance alone.

So you guys are saying that it's the chaser's intent?? In a sport where anything can happen, why on Earth would the chasers risk cutting the catch so close?
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No, I'm talking about the final sprint and, to a lesser extent, the run-in to the sprint. The peloton keeping the breakaway on a short leash and catching towards the end is all about getting the pacing right and team effort, race radios, cooperation, etc.

I'm talking about an individual athlete sizing up the, in this case, 2 remaining competitors and timing their response perfectly.

In stage 5, Kasia N raced brilliantly but she's never going to out sprint Vollering or Reusser in a straight up sprint. Her only move was to go early and hope the other 2 look at each other long enough for her to slip away. It almost worked.

Vollering waits as long as she can trying to get Reusser to lead her out. When Reusser refuses Vollering launches and holds Reusser off while blasting past Kasia N in the last 5 meters.

The patience of Vollering to let Kasia get a 30m lead with 300m to go and knowing when to start her own sprint was what I was marveling at. A lesser rider might have reacted immediately to the early sprint then either flamed out like Kasia or left their self vulnerable to the 3rd rider slingshotting them both.

@stompandgo I didn't say anything about men or women, I said athletes. Not sure what you are getting at or why...

 
BlackHand said:
@stompandgo I didn't say anything about men or women, I said athletes. Not sure what you are getting at or why...

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The conversation about riders sizing each other up in the final km and knowing when to go was the subject, and all I said that the women are no different from men in this regard. They both are skilled tacticians. They both know how to race, especially at this level.

There is a somewhat prevailing opinion in America that women's racing is boring. It can be, and the men can be, too. It's not gender related, it's the choice of tactics at the time. I work a lot of races, and it's not unusual for the Elite Women's race to be the best race of the day. I'll make sure to let them know that, too. Other than national level events, local and regional women's road racing is really suffering here in the US, more than the men, and has been for a while.
 
stompandgo said:
There is a somewhat prevailing opinion in America that women's racing is boring. It can be, and the men can be, too. It's not gender related, it's the choice of tactics at the time. I work a lot of races, and it's not unusual for the Elite Women's race to be the best race of the day.
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That's certainly in line with what I'm seeing in this TdFF, especially Stages 5 and 6. With Mount Ventoux just 6 km ahead now, today's Stage 7 should be pretty interesting, too.
 
Interesting indeed. Stunning solo win of TdFF Stage 7 from 9+ km out by former TdFF winner Kasia Niewiadoma Phinney, putting over 2 minutes into Vollering and Reusser in the process! All in the thick of the brutal Mount Ventoux climb!!

This put KWP into the yellow jersey with fellow former TdFF winner Vollering now only 15" behind. Wiebes continues to dominate the green jersey. Two stages to go.

 
Riders carrying personal effects
Guessing World Tour riders are all big weight weenies. And if they aren't, their teams surely are.

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So what's with the 3 gold-looking necklaces a spent Demi Vollering had on when she crossed the finish line today to win Stage 8?

This was a hilly stage where weight counted. And Vollering ultimately won it by dropping everyone else on the last climb, totally emptying the tank by the finish. Later she said that she didn't have words for the pain.

Point is, some riders are willing to carry ostensibly non-functional personal effects weighing grams in a highly technical gram-pinching sport. Why?

In Vollering's case, the necklaces are inspirational pieces, each with a different message to keep in mind as she rides. She talks a lot about the crucial importance of the mental and emotional sides of training and racing. So not surprising that she'd be willing to carry the extra grams just for the mental marginal gain. To her, it's not dead weight.

Q. Any other riders, male or female, who carry good luck charms or jewelry or the like?
 
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The Vuelta is coming up, and who will be riding it is still up in the air, but another race that runs in parallel with it is the Tour L'Avenir (Tour of the Future). It's usually 7 or 8 stages, mostly in France. Tadej won it in 2018, Del Toro in 2023, and Seixas in 2025. This is the biggest development team race in the world. Other countries have big development stage races but this is the one that every UWT team manager will be watching, looking for talent. It's on HBO Max and starts on 8/20.
 
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