Eschborn-Frankfurt 2026, May 1

[Dazed and Confused]

Startlist: https://www.procyclingstats.com/race/eschborn-frankfurt/2026/startlist

Have they added some vertical meters compared to last year? Not sure.

 

[jotafap]

Have they added some vertical meters compared to last year? Not sure.

I could swear there’s a year in Pro Cycling Manager where the profile is exactly the same. That said, I can’t really answer your question.

 

[Faserr]

They added the Burgweg after the Feldberg. Its steep and offers some oppertunities for the climbers.
The director of the race Fabian Wegmann also said that they don't want a sprint. Before the changes the teams just sent sprinter lineups and nothing important happened on the climbs.

 

[Dazed and Confused]

Maybe this design gives Politt a better chance, he tried like hell last year to no avail.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

They've also re-added a second ascent of Mammolshain back to the final for the first time since 2022, but this time they've also omitted it from the loop in-between the two Feldberg ascents. We'll see if it'll make a difference to the racing.

 

[search]

Maybe this design gives Politt a better chance, he tried like hell last year to no avail.

the race is quite a bit harder now to attract the Ardennes type riders, so I honestly can't see how Politt would benefit from that.

Problem ist that this route may even be too hard for the more durable sprinters (like Lund, for example), so the race risks to a bit of it "escapees against sprint teams" character. Someone like Laurance or Aranburu may still win, but more likely because they can hang on with the best from the start.

edit: no Aranburu anymore, I see

 

[Ilmaestro99]

I would like to get my Edoardo zambanini podium prediction in on page 1

 

[Coppi-Bartali]

If Lund Andresen can get through this clibmb, with the form he's shown this year, he's the favorite, Pidcock, if he's recovered, and Axel Laurance.

I see Welles as the favorite from UAE rather than Pollit; he looked much better in Liège than in previous races.
I would also include Tulett here.

 

[Faserr]

What about Pidcock. For me his the favorite. Not in his best shape, but now he should be good enough to follow the best 10 and he is fast.

 

[Unterlenkerfahrend]

Race organizers actually doing good work upgrading this race with the hands they're being dealt. With the race having to finish with a great hurray in Frankfurt there's nothing to be done about the flat 30km, which used to be annoying but since they introduced the 2nd Feldberg a couple of years ago actually providing interesting race dynamics.
I like the new changes even more, it's now almost 3500m of total elevation and basically constant up and down until said final. I mean which race has so much climbing but then such a flat finish? Makes it kinda unique and with it's post Ardennes spot where a lot of climbers/puncheurs are carryin over good form while some climb-able sprinters don't have much to race for anyway you get a good mix.

 

[search]

I would also include Tulett here.

yeah, I think all those guys who were strong in the Ardennes should have a good chance to be among the best. Tulett, Verstrynge, Baudin, Izagirre, Vansevenant... they were basically all somewhere around the top ~10 last last week. But the long, flat finish isn't really ideal for them, of course, and some may start to run out of steam.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Yea, with the finish having to be in the middle of Frankfurt it really limits what you can do, because the city itself is pretty flat. It used to be a pretty interesting and varied race, but as trains got better and the teams got used to the flat run-in once the Henninger Turm uphill (not steep, but enough to make a trickier finale) was excised from the race, breakaways stopped meaning much (nobody really believed they could stay away on the run-in from Mammolshain to the end unless they had a big group, and too many teams with sprinters had vested interests in pulling such moves back) and teams started sending full sprint trains even when the climbing in the race ought to have been out of their range, so you ended up with that terrible kind of format where there's plenty of climbing but none of it meaningful and essentially everybody just waiting it out to sprint. Feldberg from Oberursel is long but very gradual, and Ruppertshain and Mammolshain were not really long enough to make much of a difference done once only that far from the line.

They've therefore been tinkering with the route a lot in recent years to try to bring it back towards what it was before the 2010s, a more balanced race between sprinters and puncheurs with some longer climbs that a baroudeur can use, and taking advantage of what would otherwise be a disadvantageous calendar spot, in that the fact everybody is coming off peak or riders who haven't been racing classics season are still ramping up form, to make it more open. You can see this year they climb Feldberg from Oberursel but only as far as Sandplacken, to loop around to the north and climb Feldberg from its steeper western side via Burgweg, and then loop around and climb the Burgweg part again before entering the normal loop with Mammolshain and the climb of Feldberg west via Mammolshain, as well as adding a second Burgweg. This replaces the previous strategy of "add more loops with Mammolshain" which didn't seem to work as the distance to the end didn't change. They've also switched the first loop of Mammolshain on its own to being after the second ascent of Feldberg via Mammolshain, so it's twice before the finish as it was in some of those editions in the later 2010s, but with far more considerable climbing preceding it.

2019-22:

2023-25:

2026:

 

[E_F_]

I would like to see Feldberg with a more prominent position if possible. If they could include Mammolschein just after the descent.