Professional cycling has a tradition of starting its season with a bang. 2026 is no exception.
From late February through mid-March, the sport’s biggest races (including Strade Bianche in Tuscany, Paris-Nice in France, and Tirreno-Adriatico along Italy’s coast line) set the tone for everything ahead. Cycling’s “spring training?” Not quite. These riders are already going full speed!
What’s unfolded across the past few weeks? We’ve seen a mix of dominant performances, emotional comebacks, and the emergence of at least two riders who could help to define the sport for the next decade.
Without further ado, here are 9 moments that made the early 2026 cycling season worth watching:
1. Pogačar’s Strade day out.
Strade Bianche (Italian for “white roads”) is one of the sport’s most visually striking races. Riders navigate unpaved gravel sectors through the hills of Italy, often in brutal heat or biting cold. They finish the day on the medieval stones of Siena’s Piazza del Campo. It’s a race designed to be chaotic and unpredictable.
As usual, Tadej Pogačar made it look straightforward.
With 80 kilometers still remaining (roughly half the race!) our reigning World Champion simply… rode away from everyone else. Not the first time, not the last time. By the time he crossed the finish line in Siena, he had claimed his fourth Strade Bianche title and sent an unmistakable message to every one of his rivals: 2026? It’s going to be more of the same.
Embed from Getty Images2. New tactics for Van der Poel’s Omloop victory.
Omloop Het Nieuwsblad opens the Belgian classics season each spring. This race winds over the short, steep climbs, called “bergs”, of Flanders. The parcours usually produces some aggressive tactical racing among a small group of specialists.
Mathieu van der Poel, the Dutch powerhouse who won both Paris-Roubaix and the World Championship in recent years, typically plays these early races conservatively. Not this time! This year, he accelerated on the climbs and left the entire field behind, winning solo in a Pogi-like dominant performance of his own. Is this what defines our top rivalry for 2026? At any rate, it makes his other rivals nervous about what’s coming in April for the rest of the Classics season!
3. A 19-year-old superstar emerges.
While Pogačar dominated the headlines, the more significant story for the sport’s future may have just been the rider who came in second…
Paul Seixas, a 19-year-old Frenchman riding for Decathlon, was the only competitor who could stay anywhere close to Pogačar, especially on the race’s hardest climb.
In a sport where young riders typically spend years learning to compete at this level, finishing second at Strade Bianche (and against one of the deepest fields in the world) signals something rare! Keep his name in the front of your mind for now. You’ll be seeing it a lot this season, and likely for a long time to come.
Embed from Getty Images4. Vingegaard attacks in the snow.
Paris-Nice earns its nickname, “the Race to the Sun”, by starting in cold northern France and finishing on the warm Mediterranean coast. Of course, that’s in theory…
In practice, the mountains in the middle can produce some genuinely brutal and unexpected cold conditions!
Jonas Vingegaard used those very conditions to his advantage on Stage 5 of this year’s Paris-Nice. He launched a solo attack with 20 kilometers remaining, climbing through freezing temperatures to put significant time into every GC contender. By the time the race reached the Côte d’Azur, the overall result was already decided.
5. Isaac del Toro steps into his own at Tirreno-Adriatico.
Tirreno-Adriatico crosses Italy from the Tyrrhenian to the Adriatic coast over seven stages. It blends flat sprint stages with punishing climbs and, increasingly, a few gravel sectors that reward all-around riders.
Isaac del Toro, a 20-year-old Mexican rider for UAE Team Emirates, put out an excellent performance at last year’s Giro d’Italia. However, this season, he used this other Italian race to graduate from “one to watch” to “one to fear!”
The wet gravel of Stage 2 produced the race’s defining duel: van der Poel against del Toro. Van der Poel edged out the win, but the fact that del Toro pushed a rider of that caliber to the absolute limit, on a surface where MVDP has rarely been beaten, was the real story.
After trading a few punches with GC rivals through the week, del Toro reclaimed the race leader’s jersey on Stage 5 with a very consistent performance. Resilience against more experienced competitors doesn’t happen by accident, and this bodes very well for this young rider to continue impressing us through the season!
Embed from Getty Images6. Michael Valgren’s comeback, five years in the making.
But not every memorable moment is about dominance from a superstar.
In 2022, Danish rider Michael Valgren survived a crash severe enough to threaten his entire career going forward. He spent the next few years working his way back, finishing races rather than winning them, quietly rebuilding. However, at Tirreno-Adriatico, he broke through. He escaped a breakaway group and crossed the line alone for his first victory in five years.
It’s easy to overlook results like this amid coverage of the sport’s superstars. But it shouldn’t be! Let’s celebrate Valgren’s return to form and wish for more as the season goes on.
7. Weather turns a “Queen stage” into a sprint finale.
The “Queen stage” of any race is typically the hardest day, the one where overall contenders separate themselves. Paris-Nice had planned one for Saturday. But turns out, the weather had other ideas!
The stage was shortened, and then shortened again. Riders were still unhappy with the risk from the day’s weather. What remained of the day was a brief 47-kilometer jaunt to the ski station at Isola. It felt more like a criterium circuit race than a mountain stage!
What happened on this unusual day? Despite a late crash that disrupted the peloton, Dorian Godon of team INEOS Grenadiers navigated the chaos to win a high-speed bunch sprint. Cycling rarely goes according to plan, and the winners need to stay able to adapt.
Embed from Getty Images8. Crashes, wrong turns, and a deserved win in the women’s Strade Bianche.
The women’s edition of Strade Bianche delivered everything this year! Crashes eliminated several pre-race favorites, and a lead motorcycle inadvertently guided the chase group off-course. At times, there was genuine confusion about who was actually leading the race.
Through all of it, Elise Chabbey stayed upright, stayed composed, and out-sprinted Katarzyna Niewiadoma, one of the sport’s top stage racers, in the Piazza del Campo.
No, it wasn’t the cleanest race. It was, however, the kind of result that reflects what an awesome Classics race rewards: durability and focus, even when everything around the peloton is falling apart.
9. INEOS Grenadiers nab a team time trial against the odds in Paris-Nice.
Team time trials, where all riders on a squad race together against the clock, are a special treat. They’re also a unique test of collective effort. In a TTT, every rider must hold the same speed, rotate positions efficiently (the formation is called a paceline), and make tactical decisions in real time.
Because of this, the strongest team doesn’t always win. The best-organized one does!
INEOS Grenadiers were not the favorites against Visma-Lease a Bike’s top roster of climbers and time trialists. However they managed to pull off the win through some near-perfect pacing. Visma’s weak result put Juan Ayuso in the race lead. Maybe this illustrates something special about cycling at the top level, that team strategy still shapes the outcomes more than talent alone in many races!
Embed from Getty ImagesWhat’s next in 2026?
The spring Monuments, including Milan-San Remo, the Tour of Flanders, and Paris-Roubaix, will begin in a few weeks. The early season has done exactly what it’s supposed to do. We’ve established our top storylines, seen some new contenders alongside old favorites, and remind the stars and underdogs alike that anything can happen!
Pogačar and Vingegaard appear to be on a GC collision course, again… a battle that will likely play out at this year’s Tour de France if not earlier. Van der Poel is in form ahead of the cobbled classics, which suit him like few riders in the sport’s history. Excitingly, at least two riders under 21, Seixas and del Toro, have already shown they belong in the conversation for the main races of 2026.
Cycling is here, and we’re already seeing the sights!
What’s your favorite early-season race? Let us know in the comments or on social media! ★
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