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.
 
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.
 
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