Gruber Images, Kristof Ramon, Cor Vos
I have an uneasy relationship with punditry. I don’t love hot takes (measured ones, yes), and I also don’t love that many pundits have zero memory or accountability for their confident analyses and predictions. It’s pretty simple: If I’m consistently wrong, you should probably stop listening to me. So when I made eight predictions for the 2025 men’s WorldTour season, I did so with a promise: a year later, we’d check back to see how I did. I also picked five riders to watch for breakout seasons.
I’ll do it all again here for 2026. But first, let’s check back on my predictions from last year. What’s the score? Deep breath …
How did my 2025 predictions turn out?
Question: Will Tadej Pogačar have another dominant year?
My answer: No.
What I wrote: “Listen, I’m not saying Tadej will have an awful year at all. He might win Strade Bianche again after a solo breakaway of only 50 km this time, not 82. But I think the Slovenian superstar will struggle to come close to his superlative 2024 season.” Rising competition and the off-bike demands of being the sport’s superstar “might mean he wins ‘only’ one Monument and one Grand Tour this year. Which one? My bet’s on the Vuelta.”
Score: Whew, blowout fail here. Epic crash of yard-sale proportions in the Joe Lindsey Prediction Market. Yes, Pog won “only” one GT, but it was the biggest race on the planet and he dominated it. Three Monument wins and nearly won all five in the same year, which no one’s ever done. At least I predicted he’d win Strade solo again.
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Question: Is 2025 the year Wout finally wins a cobble Monument?
My answer: No.
2025 was another year of almosts in the Spring Classics, with fourth places at the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix.
What I wrote: “There’s always something standing in the way for Wout. At 30, the window to win Flanders or Roubaix is starting to close and I don’t think he gets through it in 2025.”
Score: Sadly correct (sorry Wout, would love to see you get a Ronde or Roubaix).
Question: Who has the worse season: Ineos or Tom Pidcock?
My answer: Pidcock.
What I wrote: “The messy, late-year divorce left both parties in a better place, but Ineos bounces back faster.”
Score: Slight miss. Pidcock started fast with a win at the AlUla Tour, but he doesn’t win much in general and that was the theme of his season. But he did (finally, in his sixth Grand Tour) prove his GC bona fides at the Vuelta. Ineos, meanwhile, doubled its win total from 2024, including nabbing stages of all three Grand Tours, and nearly got a Monument win at Milan-San Remo with Filippo Ganna. But its best GT finish was Egan Bernal’s seventh at the Giro, and it’s still mostly a high-dollar team that failed to win a WorldTour one-day race and just one overall victory in a stage race of any level in 2025. If you have to pick, I’d say Pidders had the better 2025 simply due to his Vuelta podium.
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Tom Pidcock might have four years of WorldTeam experience, but he and Q36.5 have punched above their weight at the Vuelta a España.
Question: Will Primož Roglič ever win the Tour?
My answer: No.
What I wrote: “Even as Red Bull builds itself into one of the powerhouses of the sport, it’s increasingly clear that Roglič himself – however long he keeps racing – will not be the rider to lead them to TdF contention.”
Score: Win by a country mile. Roglič was increasingly checked out as the season went on, down to his care-not attitude at the Tour. No surprise Red Bull finally pulled off the Remco Evenepoel transfer, although it remains to be seen whether Remco gets them to TdF contention either. The team has other options, not least of whom is Florian Lipowitz.
Question: Will One Cycling finally happen in 2025?
My answer: No.
The mirage that was the One Cycling saga gave me many chances this year to run this image from the AlUla Tour.
What I wrote: “There are too many factions, too many little power struggles and petty disagreements for the players to coalesce around one plan.”
One Cycling is dead, long live One Cycling
A July letter from the UCI – disclosed here for the first time – killed the ambitious project, but chief proponent Richard Plugge still sees a path forward for overall reform.
Score: Win. The UCI leveled the death blow with its tart rejection of One Cycling’s sporting and organizational premise, but what we saw clearly was how thin the plan was. The project is on life support with backers doing their best Monty Python Black Knight impression, all while UCI prez David Lappartient says he’ll probably just negotiate with the Saudis himself. I maintain, however, that no reform project in the sport ever truly takes off without the ASO’s buy-in.
Question: Will Visma rebound from its 2024 season?
My answer: Yes.
What I wrote: “Expect Visma to absolutely smash the (offseason) prep and go into the year snarling for big wins. Can Vingegaard get back on top in the Tour? Yes.”
Score: Gotta call it a fail. Look, Visma won two of the three Grand Tours among its 40 victories and clearly remains a stage-racing powerhouse. Simon Yates proved to be arguably the best offseason acquisition by any WorldTeam. Had I left it there, this prediction’s a win. But no, I said Jonas would win the Tour again and, well, he didn’t.
Question: What new road safety rules will the UCI come up with?
My answer: Bad, ineffective ones.
UCI compliance checks may be a lot more complicated in 2026.
What I wrote: “It would be zero surprise to see, say, a 62 mm rim-depth cap in the coming days. Will it help? Not much. And the reforms that would, like course design and reducing caravan size, aren’t on the agenda.”
Score: Winner winner, Lappartient buys dinner on his sizable travel stipend. OK that doesn’t really rhyme. If anything, I underestimated how wildly idiotic the UCI’s approach here would be: not just rim depths and gear limits, but handlebar widths too. The gear limit has already resulted in a potentially pivotal legal smackdown, and if the UCI learns anything here, it’s that it should focus on things that will actually make a difference in rider safety. (Spoiler: It won’t.)
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The level of detail in the landmark ruling is far broader than a simple gear limit rule, and the fallout could reshape the balance of power between the UCI, the industry, and teams.
Question: Will men’s racing see another broken contract?
My answer: Yes, likely Remco.
What I wrote: “Soudal is changing with Lefevere’s departure and if Remco isn’t confident in new CEO Jurgen Foré, expect transfer rumors to revive. Ineos is certainly one fit, but my eye is on Red Bull.”
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It’s not your imagination, and what’s driving the recent trend may lead to a formal transfer market for pro cycling.
Score: Nailed it. Foré made some wrong moves in his first year running the team. Remco got happy feet, and it was Red Bull and Ralph Denk that scored the prize.
Question: Who gets relegated and promoted in the WorldTour?
My answer: Astana, Arkéa down, IPT and Uno-X up.
What I wrote: “The best-scoring ProTeam, Lotto Dstny, is in difficult financial straits. If that trajectory continues, we could see IPT and Uno-X score the last two WorldTour spots. But nothing saves Astana except Jesus Christ himself.”
Score: Mixed (call it a tie). I was right about Arkea disappearing, while Lotto is saving itself via a merger (that is still not official!). And IPT (now NSN) and Uno-X earned promotions as expected, thanks to Arkéa’s demise opening up a third spot. But I missed on Cofidis’ relegation and whiffed badly on Astana, failing to foresee the team’s relentless – and successful – points-grabbing strategy. I also shouldn’t dabble in theology.
Total tally: 5-3-1 (win-loss-tie)
I missed (badly) on Pogačar’s domination and slightly on Visma’s rebound. Ineos vs Pidcock was another close miss. My promotion/relegation picks were a mix. But I was on point with Remco’s transfer, Wout’s cobble shutout, One Cycling’s failure, the UCI’s feckless safety rules, and Roglič never winning the Tour. To be fair, the last two were kinda layups.
Riders to watch
I picked Antonio Tiberi, Florian Lipowitz, Tobias Lund Andresen, Axel Zingle, and Jan Christen as riders worth watching for a breakout year. 1.5 out of 5 ain’t a great score.
The Tour’s white jersey is relevant again
With Pogačar, Vingegaard and soon Evenepoel aging out of contention, the youth classification at the Tour de France actually means something for the first time since 2018.
Lipowitz had a superb season, but that was also not hard to see coming. Tiberi regressed, Andresen and Christen continued to develop and are on encouraging trajectories but neither had a real breakout, and Zingle lost chunks of time to injury. I’m changing up how I do this section this year to something that’s hopefully more valuable and not such a roulette wheel.
Five predictions for the 2026 WorldTour season
Will Tadej Pogačar win Paris-Roubaix or Milan-San Remo?
Answer: Yes (if he races them).
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