For a few beautiful weeks, the rest of the peloton had hope. They looked at the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad start list, saw a Wout van Aert held together by medical tape and optimism, and thought, “Maybe, just maybe, I have a chance.” That hope died on Wednesday morning, when Mathieu van der Poel woke up and chose violence. Mathieu van der Poel has officially confirmed he will line up for Omloop Het Nieuwsblad this Saturday, effectively turning what was supposed to be an open, tactical opener into a terrifying survival horror game for everyone else. After weeks of “will he,…
Author: Emily Taylor
The cobbles are calling, and Visma is answering with a partially healed Wout van Aert. Meanwhile, the women’s defending champion has been brutally snubbed by her own team. There is a specific kind of desperation that sets in right before Opening Weekend. It’s the feeling that if you miss Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, your entire spring campaign is already on the back foot. Apparently, that desperation is contagious over at the Visma team. Just weeks after fracturing his ankle, Wout van Aert has been greenlit to start on Saturday. Is it a medical miracle? Or is it a team in full-blown…
For years, Jonas Vingegaard has quietly built his Tour de France form on the sunny roads of Italy. Now, he is heading straight into the crosswinds of France to settle a score before July even begins. In the neatly ordered world of Grand Tour preparation, there are two distinct paths to the Tour de France. You either go to Italy for Tirreno-Adriatico, where the days are short, the coffee is excellent, and the vibe is relatively relaxed. Or, you go to France for Paris-Nice, where the crosswinds will try to throw you into a ditch, the weather is statistically miserable,…
They have won Grand Tours, conquered the cobblestones, and built the most sophisticated development program in cycling. But in the modern WorldTour arms race, tactical genius doesn’t pay the bills. Visma | Lease a Bike is officially going sponsor hunting. There is a brilliant, underlying irony in modern professional cycling: you can build the most meticulously operated team in the history of the sport, win nearly every race that matters, and still find yourself strapped for cash. Team Visma | Lease a Bike has spent the last few years dominating the peloton with a ruthless, data-driven precision that made rival…
After a debut season that fundamentally reshaped the Women’s WorldTour, the reigning Tour de France Femmes champion has signed an extension to keep her in yellow and black through 2028. No one really knew exactly what to expect when Pauline Ferrand-Prévot announced she was stepping away from the dirt to return to the road peloton. It is one thing to dominate cross-country mountain biking with an iron grip; it is an entirely different beast to conquer the modern WorldTour. But after a debut season with Team Visma-Lease a Bike that saw her casually ride away with both the Paris-Roubaix cobblestone…
There is something inherently awesome about a peloton of professional cyclists tearing across the George Washington Bridge at sunrise. New York City is a place of gridlock, potholes, and yellow cabs that treat stop signs as suggestions. It is not supposed to be a place for a UCI road race. But for the third year running, the Gran Premio New York City is proving that the best racing doesn’t always happen in the French countryside. Sometimes, it happens on Route 9W. Let’s be clear: this isn’t a four-corner crit in a parking lot. This is a proper, UCI 1.2 ranked…
The boutique tour is back for its fourth edition, and the new route through Crested Butte and the Black Canyon looks equal parts stunning and suffocating. There are bike tours where you sip espresso and soft-pedal through vineyards, and then there are bike tours where your lungs scream for mercy at 9,000 feet. Colorado’s Ride falls firmly into the second category, and for 2026, they are leaning into the ascents. The organizers of the five-day road tour announced today that this year’s edition, running August 10–14, will feature a brand-new route that showcases some of the most dramatic terrain the…
Frostbike is Quality Bicycle Products’ annual winter dealer expo in Minneapolis. Or annual, minus this year. QBP has pulled the plug due to ICE activity. Frostbike canceled due to ice is a bit on the nose, honestly, and it’s too conventional a joke for us to churn out into the universe. It obviously has nothing to do with the temperature: the distributor announced that the event is canceled due to “current law enforcement activities” in the Twin Cities. The cancellation comes in the wake of the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti, a local nurse and cyclist, by DHS agents on…