Watching the peloton - Professional Road Racing thread 2026

[Rás Cnoic]

By all accounts, we're now deep into "past performance is no guarantee of future results" territory with Mas and Movistar. The sudden and dramatic improvements are hard to fathom.

According to Roll and CVV, Dan Lloyd, and many other credible sources, nothing in their recent histories would have predicted the very impressive way that Mas and team have risen to the opportunity opened by Pogi's Stage 9 crash.

As for Mas, we're talking not just a good day, but a very good 12 days in a row. Where did that come from??

As for the team, CVV has called Movistar's tactics in recent years "laughable" several times, and he's not alone in that opinion. That's largely a "corporate culture" thing, and corporate cultures aren't known for changing overnight. Yet now Movistar seems to be doing everything right.

Really, how can all this be happening at once??

I don't rate the GCN gang too much to be honest. It's fairly simple - With Pog out and Mas riding very well, he immediately became favourite. He'd already out climbed the other favourites and was the only one able to keep up/catch Pog the previous day. A fantastic sign how well he was going.

Plus it's Movistar's home race! The chance of red from the position Mas found himself in (driving seat) made the team quickly and simply move into defence of Mas.

It helped the number of mountains ahead, where he excels, and that the team knows these roads inside out. Also they may in the last number of years have been disfunctional but they've been GC hunters for 46 years since 1980- 1980!!

It also helped that I'm convinced Bora don't know their arse from their elbow. They are so disfunctional. Because of Roglic's bad crash in training for Vuelta they wrote him off and expected Pog to run riot. Instead of a team of climbers supporting their 4 time winner, they instead put one day specialists, TT specialists, Sprinters and only 2 young untested climbers to help Roglic in the mountains, a really stupid decision. Follows on from their shambles at the Tour with Remco fighting Lipowitz (destroying his confidence) and the team splitting into 2 camps. Here on an early stage, Roglic was astonished that some of his team were pushing ahead and ignored him when he told them not to. And he was so angry he went public about it in the post race interview. Something really not good at the heart of Boro.

Felix Gall tried his best but to me Decathlon looked a bit mentally knackered after the tour and the big Seixas show.

And what can you say about Carapaz! He really lit up the race and EE really tried their best to support him. There with him every day, attack after attack. What a great team and individual performance. He looked bitter at the end today, like Max and Gall and Roglic he knew how rare an opportunity this was without Pog. All these riders have to face Grand Tours with the Pog or Jonas factor, its defined their careers.

The big surprise was Mas himself and it's like when he put on that Red jersey it made something click in his head. I've watched him for years, he was the young hope in The Least Expected Day and was always in the the elite group going over the high mountains, just seemed to lack that killer instinct to win, in those split second decisions that you clearly see Carapaz, Roglic or Pog making. Maybe being 31 and never gotten this close, and maybe never will again, made him grab it with both hands. And then he became a leader; decisive, sharp and pretty deadly. And then the team around him was electrified.

Look at Landa today, 36, never won a Grand Tour but came agonisingly close at least 4 times. Or Dunbar yesterday 30, but as a teenager everyone earmarked him for a potential Tour De France winner - it just never happened. Life is hard. The sport is hard, Big wins so rare. Usain Bolt faces 7 other sprinters on the start line. Riders face 180 rivals over 21 days. To get any win is incredible.

I think Jeremy you've been spoiled by the Pog years making it all look so easy. This tour, best of the year, shows how it usually is, fought to the last stage with all to play for and riders in top 2 or 3 or 5 so close, one misstep and the chance can go, and maybe never come back again.

 

[Jeremy McCreary]

I don't rate the GCN gang too much to be honest. It's fairly simple - With Pog out and Mas riding very well, he immediately became favourite. He'd already out climbed the other favourites and was the only one able to keep up/catch Pog the previous day. A fantastic sign how well he was going.

Plus it's Movistar's home race! The chance of red from the position Mas found himself in (driving seat) made the team quickly and simply move into defence of Mas.

It helped the number of mountains ahead, where he excels, and that the team knows these roads inside out. Also they may in the last number of years have been disfunctional but they've been GC hunters for 46 years since 1980- 1980!!

It also helped that I'm convinced Bora don't know their arse from their elbow. They are so disfunctional. Because of Roglic's bad crash in training for Vuelta they wrote him off and expected Pog to run riot. Instead of a team of climbers supporting their 4 time winner, they instead put one day specialists, TT specialists, Sprinters and only 2 young untested climbers to help Roglic in the mountains, a really stupid decision. Follows on from their shambles at the Tour with Remco fighting Lipowitz (destroying his confidence) and the team splitting into 2 camps. Here on an early stage, Roglic was astonished that some of his team were pushing ahead and ignored him when he told them not to. And he was so angry he went public about it in the post race interview. Something really not good at the heart of Boro.

Felix Gall tried his best but to me Decathlon looked a bit mentally knackered after the tour and the big Seixas show.

And what can you say about Carapaz! He really lit up the race and EE really tried their best to support him. There with him every day, attack after attack. What a great team and individual performance. He looked bitter at the end today, like Max and Gall and Roglic he knew how rare an opportunity this was without Pog. All these riders have to face Grand Tours with the Pog or Jonas factor, its defined their careers.

The big surprise was Mas himself and it's like when he put on that Red jersey it made something click in his head. I've watched him for years, he was the young hope in The Least Expected Day and was always in the the elite group going over the high mountains, just seemed to lack that killer instinct to win, in those split second decisions that you clearly see Carapaz, Roglic or Pog making. Maybe being 31 and never gotten this close, and maybe never will again, made him grab it with both hands. And then he became a leader; decisive, sharp and pretty deadly. And then the team around him was electrified.

Look at Landa today, 36, never won a Grand Tour but came agonisingly close at least 4 times. Or Dunbar yesterday 30, but as a teenager everyone earmarked him for a potential Tour De France winner - it just never happened. Life is hard. The sport is hard, Big wins so rare. Usain Bolt faces 7 other sprinters on the start line. Riders face 180 rivals over 21 days. To get any win is incredible.

I think Jeremy you've been spoiled by the Pog years making it all look so easy. This tour, best of the year, shows how it usually is, fought to the last stage with all to play for and riders in top 2 or 3 or 5 so close, one misstep and the chance can go, and maybe never come back again.

Does this summary do you justice?

A. Mas came into the Veulta strong and needed only the mental changes brought by Tadej's departure to come up to the strength and drive we're first seeing now at age 31?

B. Movistar — smelling a potential Vuelta win, and filled with national pride — suddenly figured out how to rally around Mas despite a widely held reputation for dubious tactics?

I understand that attitude (including hope and confidence) plays a big role in cycling outcomes. Apparently a much bigger role than I ever imagined.

Which makes me wonder why Roglic and Bora haven't been equally inspired. Surely there's a great deal of motivation in the prospect of an historic 5th Vuelta win for Primos. And with Tadej out, it might just be possible. But you're saying that Bora's become too dysfunctional to follow through?

Q. How much better would Primos be doing now if he'd been supported as well as Mas has been?

 

[stompandgo]

I don't rate the GCN gang too much to be honest. It's fairly simple - With Pog out and Mas riding very well, he immediately became favourite. He'd already out climbed the other favourites and was the only one able to keep up/catch Pog the previous day. A fantastic sign how well he was going.

Plus it's Movistar's home race! The chance of red from the position Mas found himself in (driving seat) made the team quickly and simply move into defence of Mas.

It helped the number of mountains ahead, where he excels, and that the team knows these roads inside out. Also they may in the last number of years have been disfunctional but they've been GC hunters for 46 years since 1980- 1980!!

It also helped that I'm convinced Bora don't know their arse from their elbow. They are so disfunctional. Because of Roglic's bad crash in training for Vuelta they wrote him off and expected Pog to run riot. Instead of a team of climbers supporting their 4 time winner, they instead put one day specialists, TT specialists, Sprinters and only 2 young untested climbers to help Roglic in the mountains, a really stupid decision. Follows on from their shambles at the Tour with Remco fighting Lipowitz (destroying his confidence) and the team splitting into 2 camps. Here on an early stage, Roglic was astonished that some of his team were pushing ahead and ignored him when he told them not to. And he was so angry he went public about it in the post race interview. Something really not good at the heart of Boro.

Felix Gall tried his best but to me Decathlon looked a bit mentally knackered after the tour and the big Seixas show.

And what can you say about Carapaz! He really lit up the race and EE really tried their best to support him. There with him every day, attack after attack. What a great team and individual performance. He looked bitter at the end today, like Max and Gall and Roglic he knew how rare an opportunity this was without Pog. All these riders have to face Grand Tours with the Pog or Jonas factor, its defined their careers.

The big surprise was Mas himself and it's like when he put on that Red jersey it made something click in his head. I've watched him for years, he was the young hope in The Least Expected Day and was always in the the elite group going over the high mountains, just seemed to lack that killer instinct to win, in those split second decisions that you clearly see Carapaz, Roglic or Pog making. Maybe being 31 and never gotten this close, and maybe never will again, made him grab it with both hands. And then he became a leader; decisive, sharp and pretty deadly. And then the team around him was electrified.

Look at Landa today, 36, never won a Grand Tour but came agonisingly close at least 4 times. Or Dunbar yesterday 30, but as a teenager everyone earmarked him for a potential Tour De France winner - it just never happened. Life is hard. The sport is hard, Big wins so rare. Usain Bolt faces 7 other sprinters on the start line. Riders face 180 rivals over 21 days. To get any win is incredible.

I think Jeremy you've been spoiled by the Pog years making it all look so easy. This tour, best of the year, shows how it usually is, fought to the last stage with all to play for and riders in top 2 or 3 or 5 so close, one misstep and the chance can go, and maybe never come back again.

This is an absolutely brilliant analysis. I concur with every single word you wrote. Who knows if microdosing or peptides or whatever they are doing now was a factor. You can guarantee that Movistar is no Festina. If Movistar is doing it, so is everyone else.

You stated the three main factors, which are spot on:

1. No Pogi or Jonas, which is the opportunity of a career.
2. A totally dysfunctional Red Bull/Bora. It's not just Remco/Lipowitz, it's Roglic and everyone else. Have you ever seen a rider be so abandoned by his team in a Grand Tour?
3. Spanish pride. It's not as strong as French pride, but it's real. They not only know their roads, they want to perform on their home turf. Not unlike American riders when we had more UCI races here.

When a rider gets a lead, the team has to give everything for that rider. Some teams don't do that, and they lose. The ones that do, win. It's true that teams are pulling riders from the Vuelta for Worlds. Movistar knows this. The odds go up with every DNS.

I've watched some great racing in this Vuelta. Now onto Worlds.

 

[Rás Cnoic]

Does this summary do you justice?

A. Mas came into the Veulta strong and needed only the mental changes brought by Tadej's departure to come up to the strength and drive we're first seeing now at age 31?

B. Movistar — smelling a potential Vuelta win, and filled with national pride — suddenly figured out how to rally around Mas despite a widely held reputation for dubious tactics?

I understand that attitude (including hope and confidence) plays a big role in cycling outcomes. Apparently a much bigger role than I ever imagined.

Which makes me wonder why Roglic and Bora haven't been equally inspired. Surely there's a great deal of motivation in the prospect of an historic 5th Vuelta win for Primos. And with Tadej out, it might just be possible. But you're saying that Bora's become too dysfunctional to follow through?

Q. How much better would Primos be doing now if he'd been supported as well as Mas has been?

Thought I was being pretty clear...

Look at it this way. Which WT team has won the most Grand Tours?

Movistar - 17 (7 TdF, 4 Giro, 4 Vuelta)

Mas has come 2nd in GC three times at the Vuelta. He's come 3rd in GC once, he has won 2 stages and come 2nd on stages no less then 6 times. Overall he's ridden 16 Grand Tours.

Add it all up and that is a hell of a lot of experience and a lot of near misses from Mas. Together they weren't going to pass up this test.

Movistar have been poor the last 8 years yes, but there is a reason. They found Carapaz, brought him over from Ecuador as a young trainee in 2016 and he won the Vuelta with them in 2019, then they had an enormous falling out and he was instantly snapped up by Ineos. A massive blow to the team. This put all the pressure on Mas and the team basically floundered in the Pog Jonas and Roglic (especially in the Vuelta) age since.

 

[Rás Cnoic]

This is an absolutely brilliant analysis. I concur with every single word you wrote. Who knows if microdosing or peptides or whatever they are doing now was a factor. You can guarantee that Movistar is no Festina. If Movistar is doing it, so is everyone else.

You stated the three main factors, which are spot on:

1. No Pogi or Jonas, which is the opportunity of a career.
2. A totally dysfunctional Red Bull/Bora. It's not just Remco/Lipowitz, it's Roglic and everyone else. Have you ever seen a rider be so abandoned by his team in a Grand Tour?
3. Spanish pride. It's not as strong as French pride, but it's real. They not only know their roads, they want to perform on their home turf. Not unlike American riders when we had more UCI races here.

When a rider gets a lead, the team has to give everything for that rider. Some teams don't do that, and they lose. The ones that do, win. It's true that teams are pulling riders from the Vuelta for Worlds. Movistar knows this. The odds go up with every DNS.

I've watched some great racing in this Vuelta. Now onto Worlds.

Looking at Mas's wins and near misses, he's a home boy. All his 2nds and thirds and stages are in Spain. He's ridden the TdF 7 times but does not seem able to perform there. Its like the old days when outside the top few Hinaults and other world stars if you rode the Giro it was 90% italian riders, Vuelta 90% spanish. And for them winning their home Grand Tour means everything. You're right about Spanish pride.

Think I've said it before but once upon a time if you won a single stage of your local Grand Tour you were made! You retired and opened a little bar, stuck your bike on the wall, framed the jersey and everyone knew you for miles around!

And yeah that Roglic abandonment is just weird.