\njump? Quick-Step was built around Remco, but Red Bull\u2013BORA is trying to build
\nsomething bigger than one rider<\/a>: deeper climbing support, more science, more
\nresources, more everything. Evenepoel himself pointed to \u201call the scientific
\naspects involved\u201d and \u201ca lot of room for improvement,\u201d which reads like a
\npolite way of saying he thinks he can level up in places he couldn\u2019t fully
\nattack before.<\/p>\n
But
\nthe pressure doesn\u2019t disappear, it mutates. Evenepoel walks into a team that
\nalready has Florian Lipowitz as a serious GC pillar, as well as five time grand
\ntour winner Primoz Roglic, and it\u2019s a squad that has lived through the \u201ctwo
\nleaders\u201d problem often enough to know how messy it can get (just think of the
\ntension in the final week of the 2025 Tour de France).<\/p>\n
If
\nRemco wants to be the undisputed number one, he\u2019ll have to earn it on the road,
\nnot in a press release. And if he really does dabble with a Tour of Flanders
\ndebut, that\u2019s another kind of test: not just watts, but positioning, patience,
\nand nerve on the tightest stage in cycling. I for one would love to see the
\ndouble Olympic champion on the cobbles!<\/p>\n
Pogacar
\n vs Van der Poel in the spring classics<\/p>\n
I\u2019ll
\nsay it plainly: I enjoyed the 2025 Classics more than the Grand Tours. Not
\nbecause the Tours were bad, but because the Classics felt like a weekly
\nshowdown where nobody could hide, especially once it became Pogacar vs Van der
\nPoel season again. Milano-Sanremo was the perfect example: Pogacar lit the
\nfuse, Van der Poel refused to blink, and the race turned into a three-man knife
\nfight all the way to the Via Roma with Filippo Ganna tagging along.<\/p>\n
What
\nI love is how their rivalry forces both of them to race \u201cwrong.\u201d Pogacar is
\nbuilt to turn climbs into a slow-motion demolition, yet he\u2019s coming back to San
\nRemo and Roubaix because the gap between \u201calmost\u201d and \u201cMonument winner\u201d bothers
\nhim. After San Remo, he didn\u2019t dress it up, he basically promised a rerun: \u201cWe
\nwill come back next year for more\u201d. And on Roubaix, the questions get even
\nlouder because he\u2019s openly talked about how much that first win would mean.<\/p>\n
Van
\nder Poel, meanwhile, has reached the scary phase of greatness where the history
\nbook starts calling. After winning Roubaix for a third time in a row, he framed
\nit in pain, not poetry: \u201cIt has been the Roubaix I\u2019ve suffered the most in my
\ncareer\u201d. That\u2019s the thing, he\u2019s not
\n\u201ctalented\u201d there, he\u2019s hardened there. And Pogacar pushed him harder than ever
\nin 2025. So yes, I\u2019m obsessed with the 2026 versions of the questions: can Pogacar
\nwin Roubaix on the second attempt, and can Van der Poel actually pull off a
\nfourth Flanders and a fourth Roubaix?<\/p>\n
If they both show up healthy, the sport gets
\nits purest product: two geniuses trying to out-stubborn each other. Sorry
\nVingegaard, but this is now the best rivalry in the sport.<\/p>\n
Jonas
\n Vingegaard and the Giro temptation<\/p>\n
Vingegaard already has the Tour de
\nFrance (twice) and, now, the Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a. The Giro is the missing piece,
\nthe one that would turn a brilliant career into a neat set.<\/p>\n
And
\nhe\u2019s basically admitted the pull. Cyclingnews reported him saying, \u201cI think I’d
\nprefer to win all three Grand Tours,\u201d while still acknowledging the Tour
\nremains the \u201cbiggest objective.\u201d I read that as a rider trying to negotiate
\nwith his own legacy in public: he knows what he\u2019s supposed to say, but he also
\nknows what would actually satisfy him. Yes he wants the yellow jersey back, but
\nwhat about the Maglia Rosa?<\/p>\n
The
\nGiro organisers are pushing too, and you can feel the sales pitch. Mauro Vegni
\nput it about as directly as you ever hear in modern cycling: \u201cIf I was Jonas
\nVingegaard I wouldn’t let a chance like this escape him. If he won the 2026
\nGiro, he’d complete the Grand Tour set.\u201d<\/p>\n
So
\nwhat\u2019s the tension? The Giro is May, the Tour is July, and the modern Tour is a
\nbrutal, specialised machine that teams plan around all year. A Giro\u2013Tour double
\nis possible, but it\u2019s a gamble with form, fatigue, and crashes. But\u2026 Tadej
\nPogacar did actually reclaim the Tour de France right after winning the Giro in
\n2024.<\/p>\n
Oscar
\n Onley in INEOS colours<\/p>\n
Oscar
\nOnley finishing fourth at the 2025 Tour de France still feels slightly unreal
\nto me, partly because it didn\u2019t come with the usual superstar noise. It was
\njust this calm, steady accumulation of time, and then suddenly you\u2019re staring
\nat a Brit in fourth on GC. That result is exactly why INEOS interest has turned
\ninto a full-on transfer saga, and one of the best signings in recent years too.<\/p>\n
To
\nbe clear: as of mid-December 2025, it\u2019s still not formally announced as
\ncompleted. But the logic of the link is obvious. INEOS needs a new pillar for
\nits Grand Tour ambitions, and Onley is suddenly the most convincing British GC
\nbet of his generation. Yes, I think even
\nabove Tom Pidcock. If you\u2019re Onley, you\u2019re looking at the biggest home team,
\nbigger resources, and a clearer long-term platform.<\/p>\n
And
\nthen there\u2019s the part I\u2019m personally fascinated by: Geraint Thomas moving into
\nmanagement at INEOS, specifically as Director of Racing. Thomas described the
\nrole in a way that sounded like a rider who still thinks like a rider: \u201cThis
\nteam has been my home since day one, and stepping into this role feels like a
\nnatural next step.\u201d If Onley lands there, I can imagine that relationship
\nworking, not because Thomas will \u201cmentor\u201d him in a cheesy way, but because
\nThomas understands the daily realities of defending GC: the boring bits, the
\nstress bits, and the parts where your legs are fine but your head is fried.<\/p>\n
Could
\nOnley podium a Grand Tour in 2026? At the Tour, maybe it\u2019s still too stacked if
\neveryone is on top form. But at the Giro or Vuelta, with the right route and
\nthe right support, I genuinely think it\u2019s on the table, and I want to see how
\nINEOS handles having a GC talent who isn\u2019t trying to act like a celebrity.<\/p>\n
![\"OscarOnley\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/oscaronley-6883c518ecb59.jpg@webp.webp\")
<\/p>\n
Onley at the 2025 Tour de France<\/p>\n
Juan
\n Ayuso at Lidl-Trek<\/p>\n
Ayuso
\nto Lidl-Trek is confirmed, and it\u2019s the kind of move that raises as many
\nquestions as it answers. The exit from UAE wasn\u2019t brushed off as \u201ctiming\u201d or
\n\u201copportunity\u201d, in fact, Cycling Weekly reported the contract was terminated
\nafter \u201cdifferences in alignment with team’s sporting philosophy\u201d. That phrase
\nis doing a lot of work. It suggests tension about role, direction, maybe even
\ninternal hierarchy, all the stuff that\u2019s hard to prove from the outside, but
\nnever fully disappears inside a team bus.<\/p>\n
Ayuso,
\nfor his part, leaned into the reset: \u201cJoining Lidl-Trek is the start of an
\nimportant new chapter in my career\u201d. That\u2019s the clean PR version, but the
\nunderlying question is the one I can\u2019t wait to see answered: how does a GC
\nproject live inside a team that already has huge, fully-formed identities
\naround Mads Pedersen and Jonathan Milan?<\/p>\n
Because
\nLidl-Trek doesn\u2019t do quiet. They race hard, they race for wins, and their
\nClassics\/sprint core is already one of the most defined in the sport. That\u2019s
\nwhy Ayuso is so intriguing there: he isn\u2019t joining a blank canvas, he\u2019s joining
\na painting that\u2019s already half finished. The upside is obvious, a team with
\nserious engines, serious organisation, and now a long-term GC spearhead.<\/p>\n
The
\nrisk is equally obvious: Grand Tour GC requires a kind of selfishness that can
\nclash with a squad built to light up stages and Monuments. And does Ayuso have
\nthe sort of temperament that could disrupt the harmony at Lidl-Trek?<\/p>\n
If
\nit clicks, Lidl-Trek suddenly becomes the most interesting \u201ctwo-team teams\u201d in
\nthe peloton: a Classics\/sprint monster that can also play the three-week game.
\nIf it doesn\u2019t, you\u2019ll feel it fast, in who gets protected, who gets asked to
\nwork, and who starts drifting to the edges of the plan.<\/p>\n
Which
\nof the five scenarios listed above are you must excited for in 2026?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Now that, is fighting talk. That\u2019s not a rider asking for \u201csupport\u201d; that\u2019s a rider asking for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":447137,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,784,77973,1721,57600,8396,85,6494],"class_list":["post-447136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cycling","tag-mathieu-van-der-poel","tag-opinion","tag-oscar-onley","tag-remco-evenepoel","tag-sports","tag-tadej-pogacar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=447136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447136\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/447137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=447136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=447136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=447136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}