The second month of the 2025 cycling season is in the rearview mirror, with Tadej Pogačar, Jonas Vingegaard and Elisa Longo Borghini all winning big.

There were also sprinting showdowns, which featured controversial stage cancellations and relegations among other things.

Here’s our list of the peloton’s winners and losers from the past month.

Winners

Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard

The first gauntlets of the season have been laid down by Tour de France favourites Pogačar and Vingegaard in a showing of early-season form that saw both of them take stage race victories in February. Pogačar won the two ‘mountain’ stages on Jebel Jais and Jebel Hafeet at the UAE Tour on the way to overall victory, while Vingegaard was similarly victorious at the first stage race he entered this year, the Volta ao Algarve.

Despite being sixth on GC after Stage 4, the Dane won the final stage individual time-trial by 11 seconds ahead of teammate Wout van Aert to leapfrog Pogačar’s teammate João Almeida (among others) in the standings.

Jonathan Milan and Tim Merlier

Lidl-Trek’s Jonathan Milan and Soudal-QuickStep’s Tim Merlier quickly marked themselves as the sprinters to beat at the UAE Tour.

Milan impressed by winning Stage 1 with its lengthy uphill kick and was successful again on Stage 4 ahead of Merlier and Jasper Philipsen.

Merlier also won twice, going back-to-back on a crash-marred Stage 5 before beating Milan and Philipsen on Stage 6.

Elisa Longo Borghini and Lorena Wiebes

So far, 2025 has been the year of Lorena Wiebes, with the Dutchwomen the fastest woman on two wheels right now having won all the sprint stages at the UAE Tour.

On Stage 1 to Dubai she edged out compatriots Charlotte Kool and Nienke Veenhoven of Picnic-PostNL and Visma-Lease a Bike respectively, while on Stage 2 to Al Mirfa she beat Human Powered Health’s Lily Williams and UAE Team ADQ’s Irish rider Lara Gillespie.

On the final day around Abu Dhabi, Wiebes saw off Sara Fiorin from Ceratizit Pro Cycling and Cofidis’s Amalie Dideriksen for a third win, which unsurprisingly secured the overall points jersey too.

The UAE Tour Women’s general classification winner has always been the winner on Stage 3’s Jabel Hafeet climb, and so it was again, with Elisa Longo Borghini winning big for her new UAE Team ADQ squad. Her gap was large enough that none of her nearest challengers overall finished within two minutes of her, the closest being teammate Silvia Persico, who was second, 2min 06sec down.

Tom Pidcock

It continues to be a prosperous move to Q36.5 Pro Cycling for Tom Pidcock, who clinched his third stage win of the year on a hilly Stage 2 at the Vuelta a Andalucía. In a five-man sprint to the line in Torredelcampo, Pidcock prevailed against Brandon Rivera, Pavel Sivakov, Clément Berthet and Enric Mas. It pushed him up to third overall, where he would remain until the end of the race.

His success in Spain comes after he won two stages, the general classification and points classification at the AlUla Tour at the end of January.

Maxim Van Gils

It’s not easy being outnumbered – just ask Ian Stannard about the 2015 edition of Omloop Het Nieuwsblad.

Defending Vuelta a Andalucía champion Maxim van Gils took on the two UAE Team Emirates XRG riders of Tim Wellens and Sivakov on the first day of this year’s race, a 162.6km stage from Torrox to Cueva de Nerja. Van Gils was sandwiched between the pair in the final kilometre and it was Wellens who jumped first, attacking around the final corner and drawing Van Gils with him. From there it was a short uphill kick to the line where Van Gils prevailed, his second stage victory at the race in two years after his time-trial win in 2024.

It’s a strong start to life at Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe for the Belgian.

Ineos Grenadiers

After their least successful season to date in 2024, Ineos Grenadiers look to be bouncing back. It’s early days of course, but Michał Kwiatkowski won Clásica Jaén and Josh Tarling stormed to the win in the time-trial at the UAE Tour is certainly promising.

It looked to be a case of three wins in three days with Filippo Ganna having crossed the line first on the opening stage at the Volta ao Algarve, but as we’ll get onto shortly, it didn’t stay that way.

Losers

Volta ao Algarve organisers

On paper, Filippo Ganna is the biggest ‘loser’ in the fallout of the dramatic end to Stage 1 of the Volta ao Algarve, having been initially awarded the win only for the stage to then be cancelled and the results scrapped. But the real culprits were the race organisers, who have since accepted the blame for the chaos that marred the final moments of the stage.

After 189km of racing, the peloton steamed into the final kilometre of the day in Lagos. As the commissaire’s lead car pulled off at the roundabout to get out of the way of the impending sprint finish, almost the entirety of the field followed, which put them on the wrong side of a barrier lined with spectators as the race headed for the line. As a result, two sprints launched simultaneously on either side, with Ganna finding himself well clear of the small number of riders that hadn’t gone astray at the roundabout.

It was a tough call for the win to be taken off Ganna, who was ultimately punished despite doing everything right. He said after the stage, ‘I know everyone went the wrong way, but I took the right corner. You need to know the parcours, you need to know the rules as riders.’

Adding salt into the wound, a statement from the Volta ao Algarve included a comment from race director Sérgio Sousa about how the stage was cancelled as ‘the sporting truth did not prevail in the end’, though they did accept their responsibility for not doing enough ‘to avoid the outcome’.

Visma-Lease a Bike’s sports director Arthur van Dongen described the incident as ‘unacceptable’, while Tudor Pro Cycling’s Marco Haller said it was ‘pretty ridiculous’.

Egan Bernal

It was a wild few days for Ineos Grenadiers, who experienced the highs of victories and the crushing blows of both a nullified win and another injury for Egan Bernal. After doubling up at the National Championships, Bernal found his good fortune short-lived after crashing at Clásica Jaén, a race ultimately won by his teammate Kwiatkowski.

Things appeared to be looking up for Bernal after his first win since the 2021 Giro d’Italia, and he was looking like one of the strongest riders in the race, but the crash left him with a broken collarbone.

Through a statement posted to Ineos Grenadiers’ website, he said, ‘I was really happy to start racing again in Europe, especially with my new Colombian jersey and also starting with a victory from [Kwiatkowski]… I’ve felt very good in the three races that I have done, so I just have to keep working and I hope to be back soon.’

Jasper Philipsen

While Milan and Merlier were running wild at the UAE Tour, Jasper Philipsen couldn’t get a single stage win despite five opportunities. He came close with a third place on Stage 4 and a second place on Stage 6, however he also notably blew up in the finale of Stage 1, unable to overhaul Milan on the lengthy finishing straight and then suffered the indignity of being relegated for his movement in doing so.

Eurosport viewers

As of 28th February Eurosport has officially closed in the UK. If you want to watch cycling, this is now behind a paywall at TNT Sports through a package that combines other sports with it for £30.99 a month (£371.88 a year). Or, if you are cancelling your subscription, there’s an offer to decrease this to around £15.50 a month for the first seven months (almost all of the cycling season).

It’s a staggering increase from a product that was once £6.99 a month on Discovery+ and the overwhelming response to this has been negative, with many planning to boycott.

Add this to the fact ITV will no longer have broadcasting rights to the Tour de France after 2025 and things are looking bleak.

• Read more: How to watch cycling for less in the UK
• Read more: Which countries can watch cycling for free in 2025

Netflix fans

In another blow for cycling coverage, Netflix is cancelling the Tour de France: Unchained docuseries. Its third and final season covering the 2024 Tour de France will be released this summer just prior to the 2025 Tour, which will not be filmed. It follows a disappointing reception to the series in France according to Le Parisien.

The post Pro cycling winners and losers in February appeared first on Cyclist.

Pro cycling is packed with references to its history and tradition, but racing has changed a lot since the early days. What we see today is a far cry from the first races in the late 19th century, but several big events have gone the distance and are still prominent features of the pro calendar.

So we’ve popped into the time machine to see how cycling’s five longest-running races have changed since their first editions, plus what became of some of the other races from that era.

5. Giro di Lombardia (1905)

Like many cycling races, Il Lombardia was the brainchild of a journalist. This time it was the young editor-in-chief of Italian newspaper La Gazzetta dello Sports, Tullo Morgagni, who would also go on to create the Giro d’Italia and Milan-San Remo.

First run as Milano-Milano on 12th November 1905, it was set up by Morgagni as a ‘rematch’ between Pierino Albini and Giovanni Cuniolo, who had previously faced off in the Coppa del Re. Just 54 riders started the first edition of the race, which was 230km long and went from Milan via Bergamo and Como back to Milan. It was Giovanni Gerbi who reigned victorious that day by more than 40 minutes ahead of compatriots Giovanni Rossignoli and Luigi Ganna, the latter who would go on to win the first Giro d’Italia and the first Milan-San Remo.

The race’s name was changed to Giro di Lombardia in 1907, which held until 2012 when it became simply Il Lombardia. These days the race doesn’t bother with Milan, instead swapping between starting and finishing at Bergamo and Como, and packing in the climbing in between, with 4,735m of elevation these days compared to just 1,296m in 1905.

The same age as: The two-speed rear-wheel derailleur (invented by Paul de Vivie)

• Read more: The legend of the first Il Lombardia in 1905

4. Tour de France (1903)

The first running of the Tour de France looked a bit different to the one we know and love. Created by French newspaper L’Auto, the 1903 edition featured six stages for the peloton to ride from 1st to 19th July.

Yes, they had just six stages but the race ran over two weeks. That’s because the length of the stages put each one into what these days would be ultracycling territory, with riders setting off before dawn and riding all day and into the night, and not all of it on the silky-smooth tarmac like the modern day Tour either. As a result, they had a rest day between each stage – compared to only two or three across three weeks in modern Tours – to make things more doable.

Stage 1 of the 1903 edition took riders from Paris to Lyon over a whopping 467km; Stage 2 then went from Lyon to Marseille over 374km; Stage 3 was from Marseille to Toulouse over 423km; Stage 4 was the shortest of the lot at ‘just’ 268km from Toulouse to Bordeaux; Stage 5 headed from Bordeaux to Nantes over 425km; and the final stage was 471km from Nantes back to Paris. There were no transitions between stages and so it was a true tour.

The yellow jersey for the overall leader wasn’t introduced until 1919 – back in 1903, a green armband signified the race leader. Chimney sweep Maurice Garin would be the first winner, his final advantage almost three hours over second place Lucien Pothier, and he won 6,075 francs for his efforts. Obviously the nature of the race in those early days had a lot to do with it, but that gap of 2h 49min 21sec remains the biggest ever winning margin in Tour de France history.

To put that into modern context, that’s about the time difference between 2024 Tour winner Tadej Pogačar and Geraint Thomas all the way down in 42nd place, who finished 2h 47min 36sec down. Sorry Geraint.

• The same age as: The aeroplane (Wright brothers’ Wright Flyer)

3. Paris-Roubaix (1896)

Two Roubaix textile manufacturers are to thank for the existence of Paris-Roubaix. The pair, Théodore Vienne and Maurice Perez, had built a velodrome in 1895 and began to attract the world’s best track riders. To try to bring more attention to Roubaix, a small mining town, and the velodrome itself, they decided they wanted to run a race from Paris to the velodrome.

Initially pitching it as a warm-up to the much longer Bordeaux–Paris race (more on that later) that came a few weeks later, they called on the editor of Le Vélo, Louis Minart, for help. Minart sent Victor Breyer (who would go on to help organise the Tour de France and was actually born in Southwold in Suffolk) to find a route, but his journey was so brutal that he considered dropping the whole thing altogether.

The first edition took place on 1896 and was won by Josef Fischer after 280km, who remained the only German to have won Paris-Roubaix until John Degenkolb in 2015. The race truly began to grow its legacy after World War I, with bombing and fighting having devastated the region, laying waste to much of the terrain that future editions would cover.

While in the race’s early days riders rode over cobbles simply because that was the state of the roads at the time, in modern times the cobbled secteurs are what makes Paris-Roubaix special, and those stretches of pavé are maintained by Amis de Paris–Roubaix, a non-profit group of volunteers. In order to make the most of the cobbles while maintaining a similar overall distance – just under 260km in 2024 – to early runnings of the race, today’s Paris-Roubaix starts in Compiègne, about 100km northeast of Paris.

• The same age as: A patent for a mechanical self-tipping hat (James C. Boyle)

2. Liège-Bastogne-Liège (1892)

Dubbed ‘Le Doyenne’, meaning ‘The Old Lady’, Liège-Bastogne-Liège has been running since 1892 and is the oldest of the Monuments. It was created by L’Express, a French-Belgian newspaper, and the first edition ran from Spa to Bastogne and back over 250km of racing.

All 33 amateurs who entered were Belgian and came from either the Pesant Club Liégois or the Liège cycling union. With the turning point of the course handily being the Bastogne train station – a fair few riders abandoned here and headed back to Spa. Liège’s Léon Houa was the first victor after soloing away prior to the first climb of the Cote de Aywaille, and he was able to pass his rivals who were still heading towards the train station as he was on the return leg. He eventually clocked a time of 10h 48min, beating the second placed rider by 22 minutes.

After Houa took three consecutive victories, the race took a hiatus for 14 years. Upon its return, the start and finish points were moved to Liège and thus Liège-Bastogne-Liège as we know it was born. These days the race is about the same length overall – although tweaks have been made to the route over the years – but is finished far quicker, with last year’s winner Pogačar taking just over six hours.

• The same age as: The American Psychological Association (G. Stanley Hall)

1. Milano-Torino (1876)

Milano-Torino doesn’t get the respect it deserves for being the oldest Classic in cycling, probably because it’s not one of the ‘Monuments’.

The first edition of Milano-Torino was held in 1876. Only eight riders lined up at the start and they were riding a precursor to the modern bicycle with much bigger wheels. The eventual winner – by more than an hour – was 21-year-old Paolo Magretti, who was studying zoology at the time. The race only started to be held on an annual basis after 1913, which was only the eighth edition.

Compare the headline stats to the most recent running of Milano-Torino and it’s easy to see just how far the race, and cycling, have both come. The 2024 edition was won by Italian Alberto Bettiol, had 119 riders cross the finish line in Turin and only a 15-minute gap separated Bettiol from last-placed finisher Axel Zingle. It does still run from Milan to Turin, though.

• The same age as: The telephone (Alexander Graham Bell)

Honorary mentions

Giro del Piemonte (1906)

Just missing out on a place in the top five, the Giro del Piemonte was first run in 1906 in Alessandria, Italy, over 320km. Like quite a few races at this time it was won by Giovanni Gerbi, who would win in 1907 and 1908 too. He is one of five men to share the title of most victories, with Gino Bartali (1937, 1939, 1951) also among them.

It would take almost six decades for a non-Italian to win here, with Belgian Willy Bocklant beating Spaniard Jaime Alomar in 1964. The race still runs today under the name Gran Piemonte, with Neilson Powless the first American to win in 2024.

Bordeaux-Paris (1891)

Bordeaux-Paris was created in 1891 (a year before Liège-Bastogne-Liège) and averaged around 560km. Brit George Mills won the first edition as an invitee and covered the distance in 26h 36min 25sec. What set the race apart was that riders were paced behind motorised dernys for part of the overall distance.

Quite a few big names have won the race over the years, including Henri Pélissier in 1919, Tom Simpson in 1963 and Jacques Anquetil in 1965. But in the 1980s, interest began to wane and the last motor-paced edition was held in 1985. Three more editions ran from 1986-1988 with Jean-François Rault the last victor.

Bordeaux-Paris returned as a one-off in 2014 as a sportive and later in 2022 as an amateur event.

• Read more: Remembering Herman Vanspringel, Mr. Bordeaux-Paris

Paris-Brest-Paris (1891)

Paris-Brest-Paris was formed in 1891 and first won by Frenchman Charles Terront on a British-made Humber after 71 hours without sleep. Originally only open to 207 French riders, this long-distance event stretched over the 1,000km mark and ran from the Champs-Élysées in Paris to Brest and back.

A ten-year interval followed before the second edition, which took place in 1901 and was sponsored by Le Petit Journal and L’Auto-Velo. It separated professionals from the ‘touriste-routier‘ group and France would reign victorious again with Maurice Garin clocking a time of 52 hours. This helped sell so many newspapers thanks to the telegraph system relaying results to the press that a bigger race – the Tour de France, which Garin also won – was concocted.

Paris-Brest-Paris has gone through many changes over the years. An audax was introduced in 1931, so cyclists would ride the course in groups of ten. It last ran as a ‘professional’ event in 1951 and has been an amateur ride ever since. Today it is one of the most – if not the most – most prestigious audaxes on the planet.

• Read more: Paris-Brest-Paris, the audaxers audax

The post The oldest cycling races and how they’ve changed appeared first on Cyclist.

The Classics are finally here. To open proceedings in 2025, the typical opening weekend of Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne will provide the first opportunities for riders to chew into the Classics calendar.

The defending champion of the women’s race Marianne Vos will not be in attendance, neither will the runner-up Lotte Kopecky. Don’t worry though, the top-ranked women’s rider from 2024 Demi Vollering will be here to target her first one-day victory in FDJ-Suez colours. In the men’s race, 2024 winner Jan Tratnik will be in Ghent to defend his title, albeit on a different team to last year. Wout van Aert will be looking to take the title back from his former teammate though as he aims to pick up a second Omloop title.

According to the bookies’, Wout van Aert is the favourite for glory this weekend. He has the shortest odds at around 4-1, ahead of Belgian Arnaud De Lie, the UAE Team Emirates duo of Jhonathan Narváez and António Morgado, and French youngster Paul Magnier. The bookmakers also give Tom Pidcock, Mathias Vacek and Matteo Jorgenson a good shot at victory, all with odds under 20-1.

Favourites for the men’s race

Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike)

Wout van Aert will be the most marked man in the peloton this weekend. Without the presence of Mathieu van der Poel, Mads Pedersen and Tadej Pogačar on the startline, Van Aert has a great chance to start his Classics season with a win.

The Belgian has won this race before, riding away to glory in 2022, and last year, he added a third place at Omloop to his record. The hills and cobbles are obviously suited to Van Aert, and the potential for it to come down to a sprint gives him several ways to win.

Although he had a mixed Volta ao Algarve this month, Van Aert showed some signs of form on the final day’s mountain time-trial. To help, Visma-Lease a Bike are bringing a characteristically strong squad, including Dwaars door Vlaanderen winner Matteo Jorgenson, Tiesj Benoot and Visma prodigal son Victor Campenaerts. The Dutch outfit have won the three previous editions of the men’s race – with a different rider each time.

With that in mind, it’s tough to imagine a final podium without Wout van Aert.

Biniam Girmay (Intermarché-Wanty)

After a phenomenal 2024, Biniam Girmay will be returning to the Classics with high expectations. The Tour de France green jersey winner will be hoping to replicate his former glory in the one-day races and claim his first WorldTour Classic since 2022.

The Intermarché-Wanty sprinter has been fairly consistent so far in 2025, cracking the top ten in a handful of sprints. He’s often thrived in this early part of the calendar, so expectations will be high this weekend. The mix of cobbles, hills and a potential sprint also benefits Girmay, who can be up there in any race scenario.

Girmay will be flanked by Laurens Rex and Adrien Petit, two riders who have enjoyed solid Classics campaigns in recent years. That said, the Eritrean should be fine to fend for himself.

Arnaud De Lie (Lotto)

Nicknamed ‘The Bull’, Arnaud De Lie has rapidly risen through the ranks to become one of the most exciting riders in the pro peloton. Still just 22 years old, the Belgian has been in contention to win Omloop twice before and it’s hard to imagine him outside of the top ten this weekend.

De Lie has already opened his victory count for 2025 with a stage victory at the Étoile de Bessèges. He’s been clocking up the kilometres over the past month and has stretched his legs in a couple of sprints in 2025 already.

A rugged sprinter capable of getting over hills, De Lie has what it takes to hold onto the wheels up the Kapelmuur and is one of the few riders that could defeat Wout van Aert if they come to the line together. A major Flemish Classic is missing from De Lie’s palmarès, but that could soon change.

Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck)

The last time Omloop Het Nieuwsblad was decided by a sprint was in 2021 when QuickStep’s Davide Ballerini took the win ahead of a 45-man group. Although the three most recent editions have been won solo, there’s always a possibility that the victory will come down to a bunch sprint at the end.

Jasper Philipsen will be the fastest sprinter to start Omloop Het Nieuwsblad. Twice runner-up at Paris-Roubaix, he evidently has a knack for the Classics and he’ll tackle a more one-day-focussed programme in 2025. The bumps on offer on the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad may be too tricky for Philipsen, however if he holds on he will be hard to defeat in a sprint.

Recent results may suggest otherwise though, Philipsen missed the mark at the UAE Tour, being outgunned by the likes of Jonathan Milan and Tim Merlier. Given Philipsen’s presence in the race, rival teams may try to up the pace on the course’s hardest sectors in order to dislodge the Belgian.

Tom Pidcock (Q36.5)

After his messy breakup with Ineos, Yorkshire’s Tom Pidcock has found a new lease of life with Swiss ProTeam Q36.5. After just two months, Pidcock has already claimed three stage victories, the same figure that he achieved at Ineos Grenadiers over the past two-years.

Pidcock has had a mixed relationship with Flemish Classics. His first Belgian campaign was his most convincing, taking the 2021 Brabantse Pijl title and a podium finish at Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne. Over the past two seasons, his record has been patchy, however, he’s looking a lot more consistent now that he has left Ineos Grenadiers.

His killer punch looks to have returned and that could come in handy on the steep bergs of Flanders, particularly the Muur van Geraardsbergen. A recent win at the Vuelta Andalucia also demonstrates that he’s got his sprinting legs back in shape. If Pidcock were to win the race on Saturday, this will surely guarantee Q36.5 future invites to the Flemish calendar, perhaps enticing Grand Tours to invite the squad as well.

Jhonathan Narváez (UAE Team Emirates XRG)

Jhonathan Narváez has had a barnstorming start to life at UAE Team Emirates XRG. He won his first stage race of the year at the Tour Down Under. He then flew across the globe and defended his Ecuadorian national title the following week. He hasn’t raced since then but Narváez has clearly demonstrated a step-up in form since leaving Ineos Grenadiers, probably helped by the strength of his new team. He certainly looks capable of bagging a big one-day victory this year.

Narváez has always been a solid racer in Flanders. He has shone up the short hellingen and has a decent kick that could set him apart from some of the contenders on this list. On a tougher profile at E3 last year, the Ecuadorian finished in a respectable sixth place. He’s never targeted a race like Omloop before, but he has a great chance to leave his mark this year to become the first non-European winner in the race’s history.

Now part of the UAE superteam, Narváez should benefit from stronger team support at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad. A partnership with Nils Politt and António Morgado could prove lethal, with all three bringing different strengths to the table. In a similar ilk to Visma-Lease a Bike last year, they could throw the kitchen sink at this race and come out victorious.

Oier Lazkano (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe)

Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe are desperately bidding for superteam status. As part of this ambition, the German squad recruited a fleet of upcoming Classics stars, including the Van Dijke twins, Laurence Pithie and this man, Oier Lazkano.

While riding for Movistar last year, the Spaniard stepped up to the plate in the Flemish Classics. Although his former team have historically struggled on these courses, Lazkano came out of the spring with a string of top ten results including a podium place at Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne. His form rippled into the Grand Tours and he has shown that he is one of the most promising rouleurs in the bunch.

The young Spaniard is an aggressive rider, unphased by an attack or two. He can weather the climbs well, so the selection of cobbled bergs and hellingen should be of no major difficulty. He doesn’t have the most ferocious sprint, but he could try a flyer in the final kilometres to seal Spain’s first Omloop Het Nieuwsblad victory.

António Morgado (UAE Team Emirates XRG)

António Morgado was a revelation of the 2024 Classics campaign, becoming the youngest rider to reach the top five of the Tour of Flanders since the war period. Having moved up the pecking order within UAE Team Emirates XRG, Morgado now has the faith of his team to chase more Classics success in 2025.

A profile like this could suit Morgado well. He’s a strong enough climber to stick with the favourites and he is not afraid to throw an attack off the front of the group. His sprint isn’t too bad either, as demonstrated in his second place at Belgian Classic Le Samyn last year.

The young Portuguese rider has already taken a one-day victory in 2025 at the Figueira Champions Classic. He was particularly strong there, sealing the victory in an impressive long-range move. He might be underestimated this weekend, but no one should count out the 21-year-old.

Toms Skujiņš (Lidl-Trek)

Latvian rider Toms Skujiņš enjoyed his best season to date in 2024, bagging a podium place at Strade Bianche before finishing inside the top ten at E3, the Tour of Flanders and the UCI Road World Championships.

This year, Skujiņš will be granted more leadership duties within his team. Mads Pedersen has decided to skip the opening Classics weekend, so the Latvian will immediately step up at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad.

Skujiņš is a real wildcard, so expect him to hold on and roll with the punches. With the support of 2020 champion Jasper Stuyven and Czech talent Mathias Vacek, he could be in good stead at the weekend.

Jan Tratnik (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe)

No winner of Omloop has defended their title since Greg Van Avermaet did the double in 2017. This curse, therefore, now befalls on Jan Tratnik.

The Slovenian had a bit of a leg-up last year given that he was riding for the strongest team in the race. He benefitted from the squad’s depth, helping him to escape off the front under the radar. Since that victory, the 2024 Omloop winner has jumped ships to Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe to join his compatriot Primož Roglič and to bolster their roster as part of their superteam vision.

Despite the transfer, Tratnik is on a weaker squad this year. That said, he has become a well-tuned Classics rider over the past two years. He propelled Tadej Pogačar in the breakaway at the World Championships last September and he finished inside the top ten of the Paris 2024 road race. He might not be allowed to spring off the front again, but his status as reigning champion shouldn’t be overlooked.

Other contenders

At short odds with the bookies, Paul Magnier is among one of the favourites. The young Frenchman will be making his Omloop Het Nieuwsblad debut this weekend after a strong start to the season in which he claimed a stage win at the Étoile de Bessèges. The QuickStep rider is a hardy sprinter, but his inexperience might be his downfall on a race of this calibre.

Other young riders to look out for include Czech all-rounder Mathias Vacek, who recently wore the yellow jersey in Valenciana, and Estonian Classics prodigy Madis Mihkels who signed for EF Education-EasyPost during the winter. His teammate Kasper Asgreen could also feature in the top ten on Saturday.

Before the 2025 season got underway, Cyclist predicted that Matej Mohorič would win a cobbled Classic in 2025. Omloop Het Nieuwsblad could offer a chance to make that a reality, however the sub-200km route might hinder Mohorič’s chances given he shines on longer days.

Favourites for the women’s race

Demi Vollering (FDJ-Suez)

After a busy winter training with her new team in Spain, Demi Vollering hit the ground running at her first race with FDJ-Suez. The Dutchwoman won the opening stage of the Volta de la Comunitat Valenciana, paving the way to the overall title there. On flying form, she defeated her former boss and teammate Anna van der Breggen and Marlen Reusser, both of whom will be rivals later on in the Classics.

In terms of Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, Vollering has a decent record. She finished runner-up in 2022, only missing out in a two-up sprint to Annemiek van Vleuten. In the following years’ editions, Vollering worked for her teammate Lotte Kopecky while still finishing within the top 20. Now unshackled by the SD Worx-Protime chains, Vollering will be the out-and-out leader of FDJ-Suez on Saturday.

The 2023 Tour champion should enjoy the climbs on offer at the Flemish race, with some cobbles to add an extra obstacle. She’s performed well at the Tour of Flanders and Brabantse Pijl in the past, so she can clearly do well at Omloop. She may launch a long-range move, but she also has a decent kick to her if she has to tow one of her rivals to the line – unless that’s her former teammate Lorena Wiebes.

Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx-ProTime)

Speaking of Wiebes, the European champion has started 2025 in winning ways. At the UAE Tour earlier in February, Wiebes claimed three stage wins, sweeping up every sprint on offer. She’s already warmed up and is ready to tackle a busy one-day schedule.

A strong Classics rider in her own right, Wiebes will be able to chase her own fortunes without Lotte Kopecky on the startline in Ghent. As a competent gravel rider, she’s proven her prowess on rough surfaces. The hills, however, may be a hurdle for Wiebes to reach the line in front, but she’s capable of hanging on and waiting for a final sprint in this one.

No one will want to bring Wiebes to the line, however. Expect Movistar and FDJ-Suez to set a high pace around halfway through the race once the hills come thick and fast.

Marlen Reusser (Movistar)

Another SD Worx exitee, Marlen Reusser has refound her winning legs at Movistar. After a tough year at SD Worx last year due to illness, the Swiss rider has bounced back and already taken her first win of the 2025 season in Mallorca. On top of that, Reusser highlighted her climbing strength with a GC podium in Valenciana.

Reusser, a former winner of Gent-Wevelgem, has been used as a teammate before at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad. As team leader this year, she will have a chance to show what SD Worx were missing out on.

A long-range move could be on the cards. I wouldn’t be surprised of she’s the only one to follow Vollering if they decide to go long. However, Reusser might be cagey in order to avoid a final sprint to the line. The Swiss rouleur will hope for few companions if it comes down to a reduced group in Ninove.

Puck Pieterse (Fenix-Deceuninck)

During her first proper road season in 2024, Puck Pieterse surprised many in the Classics. She lit up the Tour of Flanders and Strade Bianche, finishing inside the top ten of both. With a stage win on Tour debut in August, the multi-discpline sensation will start as Fenix-Deceuninck’s leader.

Pieterse has a solid sprint on her. She proved this at the Tour last year when she outgunned Vollering and Niewiadoma on Stage 4’s hilly stage to Liège. If conditions are rough, Pieterse could thrive given her strong bike handling honed in her other pursuits in mountain biking and cyclocross.

Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon-SRAM-Zondacrypto)

Kasia Niewiadoma can never be counted out of a Classic like this. She finished comfortably inside the top ten of this race last year and she’s got the race craft to hang on with the major contenders on a rolling profile like this.

The reigning Tour de France Femmes title holder has been close to a major cobbled trophy in recent years. She was on the podium of the Tour of Flanders last year and Brabantse Pijl in 2022.

If the punches roll on the uphills, Niewiadoma could make her move for glory. Her confidence has grown since her breakthrough win at La Flèche Wallonne, so she might be feeling brave on Saturday. With the support of Chiara Consonni, the team could try and outmuscle the others through brute force.

Mischa Bredewold (SD Worx-Protime)

A little hardier than her teammate Wiebes, Mischa Bredewold could be another key player for SD Worx-Protime. Often third or fourth in line at the Dutch superteam, the former European champion has the chance to crack the podium of Omloop for the first time in her young career.

The Dutchwoman claimed her first win of the season at the Volta de la Comunitat Valenciana, finishing ahead of the pack in a hectic bunch sprint. Riding on this wave of form, the reigning GP Plouay champion could be among the favourites for victory this weekend if the race opens up beyond the likes of Vollering, Reusser and Niewiadoma.

Bredewold is one of the faster sprinters on this list. If she’s in a reduced group, she could easily find her way onto the podium, following in the footsteps of her teammate Lotte Kopecky.

Other contenders

Elisa Balsamo is a late addition onto the startlist of Omloop Het Nieuwsblad. The Italian sprinter has claimed victories on rolling profiles and cobbled races like this. She has also slipped into the top ten of this race on two previous occasions, peaking in fourth place during her rainbow season in 2022. The Lidl-Trek leader will be supported by an accomplished roster, including new recruit Emma Norsgaard and Ellen van Dijk.

In terms of support riders, Movistar’s Liane Lippert could spring away on the hills. She’ll be on lieutenant duties for Reusser, but the German has the strengths to reach the top ten in a race like Omloop Het Nieuwsblad. Another domestique, FDJ-Suez’s Amber Kraak rode a wave of Classics form last year to score a handful of top tens in the cobbled Classics. If Vollering’s off the mark, Kraak could reach the top ten.

Looking further down the startlist, keep an eye out for Picnic-PostNL’s British leader Pfeiffer Georgi, UAE Team ADQ’s Silvia Persico and UCI points hoover Thalita De Jong.

The post Who are the favourites for Omloop Het Nieuwsblad 2025? appeared first on Cyclist.

Opening Weekend is finally here with the 1-2 punch of Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne. Last year, it was an Omloop to remember for Visma-Lease a Bike, who won with both Marianne Vos and Jan Tratnik.

The routes are relatively unchanged for 2025, only with an extra 10km for the men and 8km for the women. The men’s route still heads over six cobbled sections with climbs such as Berendries, Bosberg and the famed Muur van Geraardsbergen over 194.6km. The women will be riding a similar course without the loop near Oudenaarde for 135.5km.

How to watch and live stream Omloop Het Nieuwsblad 2025

Omloop Het Nieuwsblad is one of the first races to be impacted by the closure of Eurosport in the UK from 28th February 2025. Viewers in the UK and Ireland will be able to watch the race on TV via TNT Sports. For online viewers in the UK, you can access TNT Sports through Discovery+ with a premium subscription for £30.99 a month and can also subscribe through BT, EE, Sky and Virgin Media.

In the US and Canada, both the men’s and women’s races will be aired through FloBikes. In most of Europe it’s still on Eurosport alongside local broadcasters such as Sporza in Belgium, L’Equipe in France, NOS in the Netherlands and ORF in Austria.

The men’s race will be on SuperSport in Sub-Saharan Africa, ESPN across South and Central America, and Eurosport also has the rights in parts of Asia including Taiwan, Indonesia and India.

For the full list of broadcasters, click here.

If Omloop isn’t being broadcast in your country, or you are travelling abroad and want to log in to your Discovery account to watch it, a VPN will allow you to hide your device’s location to access content that is normally geo-blocked. Find out which countries have free-to-watch cycling here.

One such VPN provider is ExpressVPN, which is well reviewed, helps users to find free to watch cycling, and costs start from around £5 per month.

UK TV times

Men’s Omloop Het Nieuwsblad:

• Discovery+: 12:00-16:00
• TNT Sports 2: 12:00-16:00

Women’s Omloop Het Nieuwsblad:

• Discovery+: 15:00-17:30
• TNT Sports 2: 16:00-17:30

The post How to watch Omloop Het Nieuwsblad 2025 appeared first on Cyclist.

While the road racing season got underway Down Under in early January, many consider the true start of the season Opening Weekend in Belgium with the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne Classics on 1st and 2nd March.

Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne’s route is slightly flatter than Omloop making it more of a sprinters’ race – evident from its honour roll, which includes Mark Cavendish, Dylan Groenewegen and Fabio Jakobsen in recent years. Unlike Omloop there is no women’s race.

Last year Wout van Aert won in what was a second consecutive victory for the Visma-Lease a Bike team after Tiesj Benoot in 2023. Van Aert won the three-up sprint ahead of breakaway companions Tim Wellens and Oier Lazkano and it proved to be the Belgian’s only Classics victory in 2024.

Unsurprisingly Belgium has enjoyed the most success here, winning 54 editions. It’s then a big gap to the Netherlands, which sits in second place with ten wins. Tom Boonen holds the most wins individually with three.

A UCI ProSeries race rather than top-level WorldTour, it still attracts a high calibre of riders, with Van Aert, Matej Mohorič, Biniam Girmay, Jonathan Milan and Tim Merlier among the riders on the start list for 2025. A junior version of the race has run since 2000, producing such illustrious winners as Geraint Thomas (2003) and Remco Evenepoel (2018).

Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne 2025: Key information

• Date: Sunday 2nd March 2025
• Start: Kortrijk, Flanders
• Finish: Kuurne, Flanders
• Distance: 196.9km 
• UK television coverage: TNT Sports
• Most wins: Three – Tom Boonen
• 2024 winner: Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike)

Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne 2025: The route

Starting in Kortrijk, the 7km neutralised start meanders briefly through Kuurne before the racing proper begins near Harelbeke, home of the E3 Saxo Classic. The Tiegemberg is the first climb to be scaled, 17.5km into the race, before Volkegemberg, which includes some cobbles, and then Boembeek just after the 50km mark. 

The 13 hellingen (hills) are short, the longest being La Houppe at 1.8km. It used to be Lepelstraat at 2.1km but this has been removed for Boembeek (1.1km) instead in 2025. The toughest section is likely to be as the race reaches the halfway point as it takes on three sharp climbs in quick succession: the Hameu des Papin reaches a gradient of 16.2%, followed not even 10km later by another punchy climb at Le Bourliquet (1.3km, max 15.3%) and Mont Saint-Laurent another 5km later which hits extremes of 17%. 

The final climb of Kluisberg reaches a max 11% gradient and comes 59km from the finish, giving the riders a long, flattish run in to the final sprint. 

Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne 2025: Favourites

Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike) returns alongside fellow 2024 podium makers Oier Lazkano (now at Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) and Tim Wellens (UAE Team Emirates XRG), all who could realistically be in the mix again. The race comes one day after many are racing Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, including the aforementioned three.

There’s also Matej Mohorič (Bahrain Victorious) who finished third here in 2023 and Belgium’s Road Race Champion Arnaud De Lie (Lotto) who thrives in home races, looking to pick up his second win of the season and biggest one-day win since Tro-Bro Leon in 2024.

Cyclist‘s ratings

• ★★★★★: Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike)
• ★★★★: Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck), Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek), Tim Merlier (Soudal-QuickStep)
• ★★★: Jan Tratnik (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe), Biniam Girmay (Intermarché-Wanty), Tim Wellens (UAE Team Emirates)
• ★★: Nils Politt (UAE Team Emirates XRG), Jhonathan Narváez (UAE Team Emirates XRG), Jordi Meeus (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe)
• ★: Tiesj Benoot (Visma-Lease a Bike), Alexander Krisoff (Uno-X Mobility), Oier Lazkano (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe), Matej Mohorič (Bahrain Victorious), Kasper Asgreen (EF Education-EasyPost)

Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne 2025: How to watch 

This will be one of the first races to be impacted by the closure of Eurosport in the UK. Viewers can subscribe to TNT Sports with cycling now part of a wider package that includes Premier League football, Premiership rugby, Moto GP and more for £30.99 a month, but there are ways to subscribe for less.

Elsewhere, Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne will be on Max and FloBikes in the USA, FloBikes in Canada, and Staylive for much of the rest of the world.

Racing starts at 12:05 local time and will finish at 17:00, with the UK and Ireland coverage on TNT Sports 2 from 13:30-16:30 GMT.

If it’s not being shown in your country, you may be able to watch coverage using a VPN – Virtual Private Network – which allows users to mask their IP address and watch geo-blocked content, provided they don’t need to pay for a subscription. This is also helpful for watching paid-for coverage while travelling abroad in countries without access. Find out which countries have free to watch cycling coverage here.

One such example is ExpressVPN, which is very well reviewed, helps users to find free-to-watch cycling, and costs start from around £5 per month. Besides ExpressVPN, other options include NordVPN, Surfshark and Kaspersky.

Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne 2025: Start lists

The post Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne 2025 preview: Route, favourites, how to watch and start list appeared first on Cyclist.

Tom Pidcock is a company man. When Cyclist meets him in London in mid-November he’s here to promote his Link My Ride app (click here to hear what he says about that), is wearing a Red Bull hat and asks to hide his non-Ineos issue jacket logo from pictures. That’s despite secretly being in the midst of sealing his move from Ineos Grenadiers to his new team, Q36.5 – the only other team where he could continue his relationship with bike supplier Pinarello.

Looking after the needs of sponsors means ensuring that he is always being talked about. But that comes with its own complications.

‘That’s the media,’ says the 25-year-old. ‘They put you on a pedestal or they try and tear you down. There’s not really a middle ground. There’s no, “He’s doing alright.” You’re either winning or you’re the worst person in the world.’

Life is a rollercoaster

Pidcock hasn’t experienced that more than in 2024. He had a consistent Classics campaign, with eighth at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, fourth at Strade Bianche, 11th at Milan-San Remo and 17th at his first pro level Paris-Roubaix before finally getting an Amstel Gold Race win after losing out to Wout van Aert in a controversial photo finish three years prior. He finished the spring with a tenth at Liège-Bastogne-Liège and started the stage race season with sixth overall at the Tour de Suisse. But that’s where the problems began.

Just a day before things got underway in Switzerland, Netflix released season two of its Tour de France: Unchained docuseries following teams behind the scenes at the previous year’s Tour, and Pidcock didn’t come across well. He is captured saying, ‘My opinion is the only one that matters.’ He is resistant to supporting teammate Carlos Rodríguez’s more promising GC campaign – even breaking the fourth wall to ask to turn the cameras off when discussing it – and unapologetically ignores team orders.

‘I was made out to be the fucking bad guy,’ Pidcock tells Cyclist. ‘That actually created quite a lot of negative media around me, but you can go and ask any of my teammates – they all think I’m a good guy. No one who wants to win is an angel.’

The fallout from the documentary was compounded by a disappointing Tour de France, where he missed out on a stage win in Troyes by a whisker before dropping out of the race ahead of Stage 14. That was the low point. Fast forward to the Olympics in Paris a month later and, back on his trusty mountain bike, Pidcock performed a miracle manoeuvre, coming back from a puncture to overtake leader and home favourite Victor Koretzky on the last lap to win his second MTB gold in a row amid a rousing chorus of French boos.

That may have helped his public perception in Britain, but rumours of a potential departure from Ineos Grenadiers began to pick up. Things came to a head in the Italian Classics when, after coming second at Giro dell’Emilia, he was unceremoniously dropped from the team’s Lombardia line-up days before the race. And as we know now, that was that.

All that glitters

When Cyclist sits down with Pidcock he’s in the middle of negotiating his exit from Ineos and is under strict instructions not to talk about the team. The closest he comes is saying, ‘A few things didn’t fall into place, obviously things have been difficult.’ However he can lift the lid on his personal struggles last season.

‘It had its ups and downs. It felt bloody long, that’s for sure, but I think it was not bad,’ says Pidcock. Although he admits even the good parts were more challenging than they appeared from the outside.

‘I didn’t enjoy the pressure,’ he says of the Olympics. ‘I put too much on myself because it was what I wanted to do all year. And then the race, how it happened with the puncture, I didn’t enjoy the race. It was a bit much – I’ve never been so exhausted off the finish. Normally you finish a race, you’re tired, you get your breath back and then you’re fine. Your legs might hurt but whatever. But there, honestly, I was cooked. I was feeling sick waiting for the podium and leaned on this railing with my head down. I was just gone.’

He even struggled to enjoy the result once he recovered: ‘With big events like that it’s always more relief than happiness because, to be honest, I was the favourite – all I could do was lose. I could meet expectations or lose. I should have just chilled out a bit. Sometimes I feel like I’m not really bothered, so I wanted to hype myself up a little bit, but then I did it a bit much.’

The good old days

The life of Tom Pidcock hasn’t always been so contentious, but it has always been about the bike. He was so young when he did his first wheelie that he can barely remember it, but Pidcock relishes talking about the early days – when there was no pressure.

‘I used to ride to school every day on my BMX and go to the skate park. I also used to go with my brother, a neighbour and a friend to the park and see who could get the muddiest bike,’ he says, although he insists that’s not where his love for cyclocross began. ‘I never had a cross bike; my first cross race I did on a mountain bike.’

When he was old enough (hint: it wasn’t much later), racing came naturally. But despite coming from a cycling family, there was never any pressure to take it too seriously.

‘It’s not their job to push me. It was if I wanted it, I wanted it. I never took it seriously. I would come home and eat half a packet of digestive biscuits, five oranges and a Twirl. That was my snack after school. If I ate like that now I’d get dropped after about 30km in a race.’

While he moved up the ranks, winning at every level, he earned a name for himself as a 16-year-old racing against adults in the National Series crit races, showcasing his daredevil technical ability on a big stage for the first time.

‘The good old days, doing the tricks, that was good fun actually,’ he says, admitting he’s sat down to watch the highlights package Five Times Tom Pidcock Shocked The World Before He Was Famous on YouTube.

‘That me would beat me now, I’m pretty sure,’ he says, and he’s only half-joking. Despite appearances Pidcock is open about the fact he can’t take risks like he used to. He talks about another viral appearance on YouTube, hurtling down a descent in America with Safa Brian at what looks like breakneck speed.

‘Actually, we didn’t send it that hard,’ Pidcock says. ‘We went fast to make it look good, but we weren’t fully committed. If I was younger, I would’ve gone, “I’m going to see how fast I can get,” but now there’s more to lose.’

Despite that, his Instagram profile bio includes the mantra ‘You only live once’, and he’s clearly not done with the risk taking.

‘I think the threshold of impacting my quality of life or what I want to achieve in life, it goes higher up the risk scale than other people. I’m not going to say, “I’m not going to do that because it’s dangerous.” That’s what I like to do. I’m a bit of a thrill seeker in that sense.’

Join the Q

That might help to explain the real headline story. The star rider of Ineos Grenadiers, once the dominators of pro cycling, has cut his contract short to move to Q36.5 Pro Cycling, a team who aren’t in the WorldTour and rely on wildcard invitations to all the big races.

On the surface, it’s explained by a lack of options given the late notice in the transfer window and his big salary, as well as the team’s connection to Pinarello (they’re both owned by South African billionaire Ivan Glasenberg), with whom Pidcock has cultivated a personal relationship, helping to develop its Dogma XC mountain bike in the process. While he’ll be riding Q36.5’s official sponsor Scott’s bikes on the road this season, he’s sticking with Pinarello off-road.

It’s a risk, but in 2024 Q36.5 got invites to the cobbled Classics and they’ve got the call up to spring’s biggest races once again in 2025. And despite aiming to become a yellow jersey contender earlier in his career, Pidcock says his priority now is to win a Monument.

‘I need to re-find my love for the Tour,’ he says. ‘The last two years have been difficult. Honestly, I didn’t enjoy it that much, but that first year was incredible. The Tour is the biggest race in the world – stage wins change lives. But when you’re getting your head kicked in it’s not fun. Last year I started with an illness, came round, almost won a stage, more chances in the last week, got Covid, went home.’

It seems, on reflection, Stage 9 at the 2024 Tour was a turning point. Had Pidcock just got the other side of Anthony Turgis in the final sprint, his season would have consisted of a big Classic, a Tour de France stage win and Olympic gold – and Pidcock happily admits that would have been a ‘pretty good’ year. A Tour win may have turned Ineos’s season around too, but for the team of marginal gains, a marginal loss has led to a big one.

Pidcock won’t look favourably on 2024, but this year provides a new start with a new team and new goals. It seems almost certain his biggest wins are yet to come.

Pidcock on…

Link My Ride

‘It’s an app to allow people to find and organise group rides. At the moment people use Whatsapp and Facebook and other platforms, but we want to put it all in one place and allow people to have a better tool for creating and finding group rides. Say you’ve got an existing group of friends and you organise a ride, you want to see who’s coming. Or like us in Andorra, we don’t know which riders are round because people are away racing, you need to message different people to find out who’s there – you can go on Link My Ride, you can just put a group ride our and see who’s coming.

‘This new wave of cyclists that came in during Covid, they need to stay in cycling. Back then they had the time, they could just go out and enjoy, but I think now when people go back to work and they need more motivation to go on the bike, riding in groups is a brilliant way to do that. At home in Leeds the chain gang is barely a thing anymore, we used to have 60 guys on Tuesday and Thursday. It’s all dying a bit, so we need to help it as much as we can.’

• To download the app or find out more visit linkmyride.com

What he’d be if he wasn’t a cyclist

‘I never really thought I’d be doing anything different because I knew that I could have a living from cycling. Not that I ever thought about it being my job. I was just doing what I was doing. I don’t really know the real world – I’ve never applied for a job.’

The secret of his epic Col du Galibier descent

‘If you go in blind, it’s difficult, but when you’ve got a motorbike to follow it helps a lot. And you can’t really see that from TV.’

His Olympics MTB move

‘If the opportunity didn’t open up, there wouldn’t have been any move – it would have been a sprint down the finish straight. Victor’s pretty fast in a flat-out sprint. He’d beat me, but he had been going full gas for half a lap, so who knows?’

His 2025 goals

‘After the Olympics I said to my girlfriend that I want to prove myself on the road and focus on that. Last year we tried to fit getting points for the mountain bike around the road, and that was the goal in my head, but now that’s done I can switch my focus. I want to win a Monument.’

His first pro Paris-Roubaix

‘I thought it would be great, just drop in and it would be alright. I never really get blisters in mountain biking, but with about 50km to go at Paris-Roubaix my hands were so blistered I was having to hold the bar carefully and my wrist was hurting. It was painful. I think I need a little bit more preparation if I’m going back there.’

The post ‘I was made out to be the bad guy’: Tom Pidcock profile appeared first on Cyclist.