The festive season is behind us, riders can now all but officially don their new team kits, and the koala’s call will soon beckon the Tour Down Under. So, what better time to make some bold… or lazy(?) – predictions for 2026.With just two riders winning the past nine Monuments (and indeed 14 of the last 16), will we see someone emerge to break up the Tadej Pogacar–Mathieu van der Poel duopoly?
Will that same Slovenian join the exclusive five-Tour club this July? Can his big Danish rival Jonas Vingegaard pip him to a clean sweep of cycling’s Grand Tours?
Fresh from naming his Top 10 riders of 2025, our resident cycling guru Felix Lowe peers into his tea leaves and makes some big calls ahead of the new cycling season…Milano-Sanremo: Mads Pedersen
Recent history suggests that Van der Poel and Pogacar are the only riders capable of winning a Monument – but surely that run must change soon. Pedersen enjoyed a stellar spring last year, finishing in the top 10 of all his one-day races, winning Gent-Wevelgem and coming on the podium in E3, Flanders and Roubaix.
The 30-year-old Dane won’t start the first Monument of the season as the favourite, but his strong seventh last year was his lowest place to date, having come sixth twice and fourth in the three editions prior. While he may lack the same explosiveness as Pogacar and Van der Poel, Pedersen’s climbing is getting better and better. He’s a crafty, powerful rider with a superb kick and a huge hunger for success.
If La Classicissima comes down to a reduced sprint on the Via Roma, then 2026 could well be the Lidl-Trek talisman’s year.
Pedersen says critics should ‘shut their mouths’
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Ronde van Vlaanderen: Tadej Pogacar
The big two have taken turns winning Flanders since Van der Poel’s second Ronde win in 2022. In fact, the Dutchman has a pattern of winning the first cobbled Monument of the season every other year, making him the most statistically likely victor this spring.
While Pogacar’s focus will be on a maiden Roubaix triumph one week later, he will probably be too strong on the Kwaremont for anyone to match him at the finish in Oudenaarde.
A third win for the Slovenian will see him draw level with Van der Poel’s three Flanders crowns.
Tadej Pogacar
Image credit: Getty Images
Paris-Roubaix: Mathieu van der Poel
Had he not overcooked that late bend, the world champion may have merely put himself into a position of being eclipsed in the sprint by Van der Poel in the Roubaix velodrome.
After missing out on the first two Monuments, the 31-year-old Dutchman will come out on top in the Hell of the North to make it four consecutive triumphs.
Everything about Van der Poel’s physique, skillset and tactical armoury finds perfect harmony in the Queen of the Classics – even mechanicals can’t seem to derail his pavé perfection.
‘We’re living in a golden age’ – Watch Van der Poel’s best moments of 2025
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Paris-Roubaix Femmes: Lorena Wiebes
Since its launch in 2021, Paris-Roubaix Femmes has seen a different rider and a different nation win each of the previous five editions.
Third last year and seventh the year before, Lorena Wiebes has shown herself capable of coming through the hardest of the women’s classics and be in the conversation for the final podium.
It’s not too often that you see a pure sprinter prevail in the Roubaix Velodrome but, if things go her way, Wiebes could – should? – become the first Dutch rider to win this prestigious race.
Liege-Bastogne-Liege: Tadej Pogacar
If Van der Poel has become synonymous with the top step in Roubaix, then the same can be said of Pogacar at both Liege and Lombardia.
The punchiest climber in the peloton, and one of the best one-day racers of his generation, it stands to reason that the Slovenian continues his domination in La Doyenne, which he will win for a fourth time this April.
Remco Evenepoel will be keen, himself, to join Pogacar with three Liege wins, but the Belgian could well still be settling at his new team, Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, and so may not put up much of a fight.
Pogacar blows rivals apart to claim Liege-Bastogne-Liege win – ‘Continues to amaze us’
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Giro d’Italia: Jonas Vingegaard or Joao Almeida
While Evenepoel has not been tempted by a tilt at the Giro, it remains to be seen if Denmark’s Vingegaard will turn up at the start in Bulgaria.
The inclusion of a 40km time trial was clearly intended to catch Evenepoel’s eye, although the Belgian will head back to France for another crack at the Tour alongside his new Red Bull team-mate Florian Lipowitz, who finished third last July.
With his big rival Pogacar in the best form of his life, Vingegaard might be tempted to take the pressure off his Tour hopes by winning the maglia rosa and beating the Slovenian to a full set of Grand Tours. But that would not only amount to waving the white flag, it would also take its toll on a body still recovering from serious injury.
Should Vingegaard race, then the 29-year-old is likely to have too much class in what will be a severely reduced field of GC favourites. But if, like Evenepoel, he opts to go all-in at the Tour, then the rider he beat to the red jersey last September – Joao Almeida – is the likely candidate to triumph in Rome.
Almeida might have had a better chance of taking the red jersey had both he and his team had more confidence in his chances. But the 27-year-old is coming into his best years, he’s established himself at the team, and he’s recently signed a new deal: the ingredients are there for him to take this next step in his career.
Joao Almeida leads Jonas Vingegaard during Stage 13 of La Vuelta on September 05, 2025 in L’Angliru, Spain
Image credit: Getty Images
Tour de France: Tadej Pogacar
Provided that he emerges from his spring classics campaign fit and healthy, Pogacar should be the man to beat at the Tour.
It will be interesting to see what a rested and fully recovered Vingegaard can do – ditto Evenepoel in his new team.
But the gulf between the swashbuckling Slovenian and even his biggest of rivals has stretched so far in the last two years that a record-equalling fifth Tour win for Pogacar is the only viable option this July.
Tour de France Femmes: Demi Vollering
Crashes have hindered Demi Vollering’s pursuit of a second Tour title for the past two years, the Dutch star finishing second for two successive editions.
Now in her second year at FDJ United-SUEZ and, at 29, entering her prime years, Vollering should finally get that second Tour win and become the first female rider to do so since the race’s reintroduction in 2022.
A lot will depend on how defending champion Pauline Ferrand-Prevot fares in her second full season back after her long hiatus from the road. The Frenchwoman looked supreme in the mountains last year, although the effect of Vollering’s nasty fall in Stage 3 cannot be ignored.
‘Super strong’ Vollering climbs to Stage 5 win to take Vuelta lead
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Vuelta a Espana: Tadej Pogacar
Two scenarios here: either Vingegaard completes the Grand Slam in May and Pogacar does the Tour-Vuelta as his own riposte, or the Dane skips the Giro, and his rival gets in there first with an historic clean sweep by winning the Vuelta.
Either way, Pogacar – should he choose to return to the Vuelta for the first time since 2019 – will be the man to beat in another mountainous edition that is tipped to be the hardest in recent memory.
World Championships: Pogacar & Vollering
Just as Peter Sagan donned the rainbow jersey for three consecutive seasons, so too should Tadej Pogacar – although a lot will depend on his participation in the Vuelta.
Like at Rwanda and Zurich before, the hilly course in Montreal should suit the reigning champion to a tee – and such is the occasion, we should not see Pogacar gifting the win to trade team-mate Brandon McNulty as we saw at the GP Cycliste de Montreal last September.
In the women’s race, Vollering will cap an outstanding summer by soloing to a maiden world road title as she upgrades her European colours for the coveted rainbow jersey.
Highlights: Pogacar dominates again with solo attack to win European title
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Il Lombardia: Remco Evenepoel
Having done the Tour-Vuelta-Worlds treble, Pogacar will sidestep the chance to win a sixth successive Il Lombardia crown. After all, he has nothing to prove on the shores of Lake Como any more.
In his absence, Evenepoel will salvage something from his road season, finally taking the win in Bergamo after finishing the bridesmaid for the past two editions.
All in all, it will be a frustrating first season for the Belgian at Red Bull, although he’ll easily win a fourth straight World time trial gold in Montreal while no doubt keeping the European TT jersey out of circulation for another year.
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