World Championship 2025: Men’s RR, September 28

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Who will win the WC 2025 RR?


  • Total voters
    172
  • Poll closed .
I would like to see a flat WC road race with the rain pouring down all day. Hilly 250 k routes don't make sense anymore.

I always think the important thing with WCs is the balance.

Should - even 10 years - be at least:

1x ardennesish
1x flattish
1x flandrianish (but ofc more E3 than Ronde/Roubaix!)
1x mid-mountainy

2018 (mid-moutain) was the last time that the course was not basically between an easy and a hard Ardennes classic...

2016 was the last time a sprinter had a chance to win...

and of course 2026 will also be not dissimilar to the 2019-2025 courses "stylistically".

If you are a sprinter who is not van Aert, Pedersen, Matthews the last chance you had to win a Worlds was 2016.

If you are a climber who is not "punchy" the last chance you had to win was 2018.

Now, ofc the worlds will always be more towards a hilly course... and that is great, it is some of my favourite parcours... BUT maybe have some variation of a hilly course in 6-7/10 years and mix it up the other 3-4.
 
If you are a climber who is not "punchy" the last chance you had to win was 2018.

Now, ofc the worlds will always be more towards a hilly course... and that is great, it is some of my favourite parcours... BUT maybe have some variation of a hilly course in 6-7/10 years and mix it up the other 3-4.
Pedersen won in 2019 in a sprint against Trentin; 2021 was a Flanders course; 2022 was Remco ahead of a reduced sprint.
 
Pedersen won in 2019 in a sprint against Trentin; 2021 was a Flanders course; 2022 was Remco ahead of a reduced sprint.

Yeh, maybe my memory is a bit *** aha. 2021 is my head felt more Ardennes but then I didnt watch it live, maybe an internal bias because of who won.

But 2022 was for sure not a course for sprinters who are not Pedersen, van Aert, Matthews type sprinters. Over 4k vertical metres.

and Trentin is a 2nd tier kind "can get over decent hills" sprinter which was what 2019 was.

For example Phillipsen, Milan etc have had no chance to contest a worlds in career so far. If Cav had started career in 2017 he wouldnt have had the chance to win a worlds, when he had chance to win 2 over the 10 years from 2007-2016.
 
Yeh, maybe my memory is a bit *** aha. 2021 is my head felt more Ardennes but then I didnt watch it live, maybe an internal bias because of who won.

But 2022 was for sure not a course for sprinters who are not Pedersen, van Aert, Matthews type sprinters. Over 4k vertical metres.

and Trentin is a 2nd tier kind "can get over decent hills" sprinter which was what 2019 was.

For example Phillipsen, Milan etc have had no chance to contest a worlds in career so far. If Cav had started career in 2017 he wouldnt have had the chance to win a worlds, when he had chance to win 2 over the 10 years from 2007-2016.
2022 wasn't hard at all, the altimetry needs to be completely screwed up if that was 4k altitude gain.
 
Yeh, maybe my memory is a bit *** aha. 2021 is my head felt more Ardennes but then I didnt watch it live, maybe an internal bias because of who won.

But 2022 was for sure not a course for sprinters who are not Pedersen, van Aert, Matthews type sprinters. Over 4k vertical metres.

and Trentin is a 2nd tier kind "can get over decent hills" sprinter which was what 2019 was.

For example Phillipsen, Milan etc have had no chance to contest a worlds in career so far. If Cav had started career in 2017 he wouldnt have had the chance to win a worlds, when he had chance to win 2 over the 10 years from 2007-2016.
I agree in general – Leuven was harder than a standard Flanders course, but easier than an Amstel, but I think Yorkshire was a good well-balanced race, and you had people like Kristoff in the second group in 2022. 2023 I loved because it was a unique race.

2018, 2020, 2024, 2025, 2026 and 2027 are all very climber friendly. I think 6/10 for climbers is too much, but I suppose before that we only had one climber friendly route between 2010-2017 so in the long run it balances?
 
2022 wasn't hard at all, the altimetry needs to be completely screwed up if that was 4k altitude gain.

Looking at the profile yeh, it is because of the 500m hill towards the start which was pretty irrelevant.

and then 12x ascents of mount pleasant.

But still, what sprinters are getting over 1.1km at almost 8% 12x with leading ardennes guys? Probably none of Phillipsen, Kooij, Milan, Merlier (probably best 4 sprinters on earth right now) would if they re-ran that course tomorrow.

I would still say it was not really one for even sprinters who are "solid" climbers and instead only really maybe ~10 of the best 25 sprinters who could contest in a perfect world for them.
 
Looking at the profile yeh, it is because of the 500m hill towards the start which was pretty irrelevant.

and then 12x ascents of mount pleasant.

But still, what sprinters are getting over 1.1km at almost 8% 12x with leading ardennes guys? Probably none of Phillipsen, Kooij, Milan, Merlier (probably best 4 sprinters on earth right now) would if they re-ran that course tomorrow.

I would still say it was not really one for even sprinters who are "solid" climbers and instead only really maybe ~10 of the best 25 sprinters who could contest in a perfect world for them.
It's not that it's 12 climbs, it's that they're perfectly spaced out with perfect recovery inbetween. If they're concentrated much more, then yes it becomes much more Ardennes friendly. But the fact that Laporte got 2nd is extremely telling of the real difficulty of that route.
 
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No UCI points awarded because less than 25% of the riders finished

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