State of the Peloton 2026

[Krzysztof_O]

It looks like guys are really good this year. Seixas showed some thermunuclear form, the second UAE climb was fast by a few guys. Let's see how Teddy fares against the competition this Saturday. This can indicate if he will show off record-breaking numbers this year or if there's hope for others.

 

[Red Rick]

It looks like guys are really good this year. Seixas showed some thermunuclear form, the second UAE climb was fast by a few guys. Let's see how Teddy fares against the competition this Saturday. This can indicate if he will show off record-breaking numbers this year or if there's hope for others.

Luke Plapp beat Pogacar's time on Jebel Hafeet.

The onus is on Pogacar to prove he aint washed.

 

[Rob5091]

A nice warm up .... but I've a feeling that greater things are to come.
https://cyclinguptodate.com/cycling...as-uae-search-for-milano-sanremo-breakthrough

During a training ride on the Ligurian coast, Pogacar recorded a new personal best on the Cipressa. According to Strava data from the ride, he climbed the 5.6-kilometre ascent in 8 minutes 51 seconds, improving his previous benchmark by six seconds.

 

[Krzysztof_O]

Luke Plapp beat Pogacar's time on Jebel Hafeet.

The onus is on Pogacar to prove he aint washed.

Gaps should tell the story (as always). If he easily cleans SB against this stacked field then it could indicate the third historic season. If it's closer then who knows what the season brings.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

They've finally caught a Danish guy!

20 year old Mads Schulz Jørgensen, a new signing to Niklas Larsen's former team, BHS-PL Beton Bornholm, has tested positive for Terbutaline at the Danish cyclocross championship in January, where he finished 4th in the elite race. It's allegedly because he's accidentally used his father's asthma inhaler instead of his own.

 

[Dazed and Confused]

They've finally caught a Danish guy!

20 year old Mads Schulz Jørgensen, a new signing to Niklas Larsen's former team, BHS-PL Beton Bornholm, has tested positive for Terbutaline at the Danish cyclocross championship in January, where he finished 4th in the elite race. It's allegedly because he's accidentally used his father's asthma inhaler instead of his own.

Are you sure about the "finally caught" part. Sounds like its a very rare thing.

 

[AmRacer]

Playing at the floor, as usual.

 

[Red Rick]

Vingegaard can't even do 7W/kg for 6 minutes smh

 

[Krzysztof_O]

Vingegaard can't even do 7W/kg for 6 minutes smh

He was overheated. The race was so intense that he didn't have time to take off his long pants.

 

[pastronef]

They've finally caught a Danish guy!

20 year old Mads Schulz Jørgensen, a new signing to Niklas Larsen's former team, BHS-PL Beton Bornholm, has tested positive for Terbutaline at the Danish cyclocross championship in January, where he finished 4th in the elite race. It's allegedly because he's accidentally used his father's asthma inhaler instead of his own.

well, to be precise, if you name former riders there are at least the 2025 riders "JENSEN Andreas Krogh, SCHEBYE Jacob Maegaard, SZOKODY Martin, ØRITSLAND Mikkel and Niklas Larsen's former team"

 

[Rob5091]

Mrs Yates's still-cycling-son says it aint getting easier - Adam talks,
https://cyclinguptodate.com/cycling...ustrates-the-rapid-growth-of-level-in-peloton

"The big difference I'm seeing is that everyone is just full gas from the start of the year. I remember going back a couple of years, and my level wasn't super high at the UAE Tour, but I was still up there on the podium."
"Every year it's getting harder and harder to win races, and even these races now at the start of the year, the level is super, super high, even in Oman I was doing power records, left, right, and centre and there's still guys in the wheel and a lot of guys still fighting, so it's just getting harder and harder."
"A lot of the young guys, well, they know more than me, to be honest. Obviously, maybe they don't have the experience, but in the grand scheme of things, they know most things," said Yates.
"These days, I think you see a lot of juniors coming through and under-23s coming through, and their levels are already like crazy, crazy high. There was a big jump at the beginning of the 2020s, with everyone getting more professional, more focused, even now people are doing altitude in the off-season and not really having off-seasons, and rethinking what is normal in bike riding."

So it's all down to being "more professional"?

 

[Rechtschreibfehler]

Mrs Yates's still-cycling-son says it aint getting easier - Adam talks,
https://cyclinguptodate.com/cycling...ustrates-the-rapid-growth-of-level-in-peloton

So it's all down to being "more professional"?

Of course, they also discovered eating and drinking for the first time around 2020 as well. I can attest for, that this is quite early, I for example, was living from air and sun all my life, imagine the change after I discovered drinking just 4 days ago!

 

[Red Rick]

Vingegaard can't even do 7W/kg for 6 minutes smh

Vingegaard failed again to hit 7W/kg in a 6 minute effort

Spoiler

	Rider		Time	W/kg	Velocity	VAM
1		Jonas Vingegaard SB	0:06:23	8.10	21.87	2265

 

[Rob5091]

Remember the good ol' days when 7W/kg was a certain sign of doping?

 

[Krzysztof_O]

Vingegaard failed again to hit 7W/kg in a 6 minute effort

Spoiler

	Rider		Time	W/kg	Velocity	VAM
1		Jonas Vingegaard SB	0:06:23	8.10	21.87	2265

We still don't know if he would be able to beat Juanito though!

 

[KoopaCycling]

I'm seeing comments in the trend of remco going nowhere fast next couple of years, and that may be partly true if i see what some of his rivals are increasingly capable of doing. Every year they come back with even more watts. Very strange.

But cycling can change fast if the UCI steps up. wether that will also have major repercussions for Remco will remain to be seen. Possibly. I will never claim a cyclist is clean.

Ofcourse, i do not actually expect much change from the UCI next 2-3 years, but we can only hope.

 

[Krzysztof_O]

BTW from efforts like this one can estimate what % of VO2max they can do at threshold (i.e. 60 minute power). In terms of power 80-85% but in terms of VO2 it's 85-90% (assuming 1/6 of VO2max is needed for basic body functions).

 

[kingjr]

I'm seeing comments in the trend of remco going nowhere fast next couple of years, and that may be partly true if i see what some of his rivals are increasingly capable of doing. Every year they come back with even more watts. Very strange.

But cycling can change fast if the UCI steps up. wether that will also have major repercussions for Remco will remain to be seen. Possibly. I will never claim a cyclist is clean.

Yeah, imagine being seen doing that.

 

[Red Rick]

BTW from efforts like this one can estimate what % of VO2max they can do at threshold (i.e. 60 minute power). In terms of power 80-85% but in terms of VO2 it's 85-90% (assuming 1/6 of VO2max is needed for basic body functions).

Which effort do you mean?

 

[Krzysztof_O]

Which effort do you mean?

6-minute effort, which should be very close to VO2max.

 

[Red Rick]

6-minute effort, which should be very close to VO2max.

You could, but it's gonna be pretty individual. And it's not like the data for the 6 minutes is great. W2W later adjusted it to only 7.5, but then you need to consider it was a domestique pace until halfway and he still had another 20k to go, yadaydayada.

Reported thresholds from tests/training are basically always crazy high, and I've only ever really seen one full powercurve for a pro rider which IIRC had Pinot basically have 2h watts of that would match Pogacar in Strade Bianche of previous seasons.

 

[Krzysztof_O]

You could, but it's gonna be pretty individual. And it's not like the data for the 6 minutes is great. W2W later adjusted it to only 7.5, but then you need to consider it was a domestique pace until halfway and he still had another 20k to go, yadaydayada.

Reported thresholds from tests/training are basically always crazy high, and I've only ever really seen one full powercurve for a pro rider which IIRC had Pinot basically have 2h watts of that would match Pogacar in Strade Bianche of previous seasons.

Yes, it's hard to even define VO2max w/kg precisely because for efforts creating max. aerobic response (like those max. 5-minute efforts) the percentage of anaerobic energy is still important, especially in the first 1-2 minutes (that's why lactates grow rapidly and that's why this big response happens at all). I would say 10-minute max. effort w/kg is closer to what the energy system could produce in a purely aerobic way (very small anaerobic part and basically max. aerobic response at the same time). I read somewhere that 5 km runs are best correlated with VO2max for pros (at least out of classical distances, maybe 3 km would be better). Cooper Test lasts 12 minutes for example.


As his max. 60-minute power I took his best 40-minute performance in a race (PdB) but maybe in a lab he can go even better for an hour (esp. at a low elevation).

 

[Red Rick]

Yes, it's hard to even define VO2max w/kg precisely because for efforts creating max. aerobic response (like those max. 5-minute efforts) the percentage of anaerobic energy is still important, especially in the first 1-2 minutes (that's why lactates grow rapidly and that's why this big response happens at all). I would say 10-minute max. effort w/kg is closer to what the energy system could produce in a purely aerobic way (very small anaerobic part and basically max. aerobic response at the same time). I read somewhere that 5 km runs are best correlated with VO2max for pros (at least out of classical distances, maybe 3 km would be better). Cooper Test lasts 12 minutes for example.


As his max. 60-minute power I took his best 40-minute performance in a race (PdB) but maybe in a lab he can go even better for an hour (esp. at a low elevation).

From what I've seen from numbers mentioned even by riders from slow era's I'd assume fresh lab conditions basically go to fantasy levels. Especially because how often they talk about fatigue resistance being everything and some riders being mentioned as being among the top of the team in short uphill climbs without the results (Milan Vader) or long, long before the break through (Vingegaard). And obviously the Contador 458 watts. And the stories of how 18 year old Evenepoel was doing Contadors numbers, which was basically just comparing a lab setting to race conditions in a time when race conditions where slow as ass. And I found one study which lines up with Nibali's 2014 season's TdF prep and his training data, where he's apparently doing 6.9 W/kg for 20 minutes

 

[Krzysztof_O]

From what I've seen from numbers mentioned even by riders from slow era's I'd assume fresh lab conditions basically go to fantasy levels. Especially because how often they talk about fatigue resistance being everything and some riders being mentioned as being among the top of the team in short uphill climbs without the results (Milan Vader) or long, long before the break through (Vingegaard). And obviously the Contador 458 watts. And the stories of how 18 year old Evenepoel was doing Contadors numbers, which was basically just comparing a lab setting to race conditions in a time when race conditions where slow as ass. And I found one study which lines up with Nibali's 2014 season's TdF prep and his training data, where he's apparently doing 6.9 W/kg for 20 minutes

But why don't we see such incredible numbers in standalone efforts like MTT or unipuerto? It seems for top guys nowadays the difference between fresh and non-fresh 30 minute effort is pretty small (Roglic was a notable exception last Tour but his preparation was ***).

 

[Red Rick]

But why don't we see such incredible numbers in standalone efforts like MTT or unipuerto? It seems for top guys nowadays the difference between fresh and non-fresh 30 minute effort is pretty small (Roglic was a notable exception last Tour but his preparation was ***).

I think it's still pretty big.

But you're always at the least dealing with fatigue from previous stages, less than ideal weather, and in the case of the TdF and Vuelta, a lot of heat most of the times.

Also altitude, especially for long climbs matters a lot more compared to lab tests, and I thin the fatigue even in easy unipuerto stages plays a considerable role.