It’s our next-gen cycling news update, featuring a whole crop of riders who might one day actually unseat Tadej Pogačar. Last week’s racing in Europe and the Middle East served up whipper-snappers ranging from Ayuso to Seixas, Del Toro to Romeo, Onley to Riccitello — not to mention some competition so gripping that it’s turned us into pre-Classics race fans.
TOP STORY
- The Future Is Here: U23s Rule the Week’s Racing
RACE NEWS
- Racing Roundup — from the UAE to Portugal, Spain and France
- Giro Teams Announced: Unibet Rose Rockets Finally Gets a Bid
- Check out the Route and Teams for the 2026 Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift
TEAM, RIDER AND CYCLING NEWS
- We’re All Rooting for Fabio Jakobsen
- UCI: Help Us Protect our Riders!
The Future Is Here: U23s Rule the Week’s Racing
Consider: At 23 years old, Juan Ayuso is four years older than his chief rival, Paul Seixas, at last week’s Volta ao Algarve.
Or that the average age of the top six at Algarve was 23 — skewed older by old man Almeida (27).
Meanwhile, arguably the strongest rider of the week was Isaac del Toro, who at 21 easily vanquished a flailing Remco Evenepoel at the UAE Tour.
The week’s other race, Ruta del Sol? Won by Iván Romeo — 22 years old.
Cycling fans, last week we witnessed cycling’s next generation — and it’s impressive.
They remain green: we witnessed questionable tactics, and a need for wind tunnel time, based on TT results (though Ayuso’s narrow loss to specialist Filippo Ganna bodes very positively for his Grand Tour prospects.
Those tactics notwithstanding — or perhaps because of them — last week’s early-season contests, typically not the season’s strongest showcase, featured exciting, even gripping racing. The audacity of youth was on display, evident in bold attacks, both early and very late.
Will any of this manifest itself in top-tier results this year? Will any of these near-neopros push van der Poel in a Classic, or Pogačar at the Tour? Likely not,
But we’re peering through a window to the future — and it’s bright. (Bright enough even to make me reconsider my eye-rolling opinion of Ayuso.)
All that gushing aside…Let’s get on with the real racing. Omloop next Saturday!
RACE NEWS
Racing Roundup — from the UAE to Portugal, Spain and France
It was a packed week of racing across Europe and the Middle East, with three stage races and one newly-formatted classic all reaching their conclusions on Sunday.
Heading into the UAE Tour, the headline story was one that really never came to pass: Del Toro vs. Evenepoel. While Remco ruled the TT, per convention, he foundered in the mountains, leaving del Toro to battle it out with Antonio Tiberi. Del Toro sealed overall victory after seven days of racing with a decisive mountain strike at Jebel Hafeet. While Del Toro raced commandingly, the week saw heated racing throughout, with many of us believing that Tiberi would hang onto the lead he nabbed in on Jebel Mobrah on stage 3. Tiberi ultimately finished second at 20 seconds, with Luke Plapp completing the podium at 1:14, while Evenepoel finished tenth. Jonathan Milan was the week’s dominant sprinter, claiming three stage victories.
Volta ao Algarve produced one of the stories of the week when 19-year-old Paul Seixas of Decathlon CMA CGM took his first professional win atop Alto da Fóia — the same climb where one Tadej Pogačar won his first pro race seven years ago. But Seixas ultimately fell to Juan Ayuso, who showed promising form and…maturity? in his Lidl-Trek colors. Filippo Ganna won the time trial stage, and Soudal-QuickStep’s Paul Magnier claiming two sprint stages.
Ruta del Sol went to Movistar’s Iván Romeo, who held off Andreas Leknessund and Tom Pidcock for the overall win. Romeo attacked inside the final two kilometers of stage 2 on the climb to Otura to take the overall lead and never relinquished it — though Pidcock had his fans dreaming of overall victory when he classically railed a plunging, finishing descent on the final stage into Lucena.
Tour des Alpes Maritimes ran in a new one-day format this year, with Paul Lapeira of Decathlon CMA CGM taking victory on the punchy 155-kilometer course from Villefranche-sur-Mer to Biot.
Giro Teams Announced: Unibet Rose Rockets Finally Gets a Bid
After failing to receive slots in either the Tour de France or the Vuelta a España, upstart team Unibet Rose Rockets has received a bid to the 2026 Giro d’Italia.
Bas Tietema’s squad will join two other wild card teams, two UC Pro Teams (Pinarello-Q36.5 and Tudor Pro Cycling) along with the usual suspects from the UCI WorldTour list.
With veterans and youngsters alike represented on Unibet Rose Rockets, from Dylan Groenewegen and Wout Poels to Lukas Kubis and Rory Townsend, the team’s objective is a stage win, said Tietema.
Check out the Route and Teams for the 2026 Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift
The Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift (or TDFFAZ, as I’ll be typing this year) has announced the teams that will be participating this summer. Check them out here:
Then take a look at the route in this video:
Here at PEZ, we’re fired up for TDFFAZ, and look forward to keeping you updated!
TEAM, RIDER AND CYCLING NEWS
We’re All Rooting for Fabio Jakobsen
Many of us first fully clued into Fabio Jakobsen when he was featured in the first season of Netflix’s Unchained: He appeared likable, if beset with misfortune: He was clawing his way back from a near-fatal crash, the one when Dylan Groenewegen put him in the barriers on the first stage of the Tour de Pologne. The scarring on his face was a vivid reminder of the saga he was still working his way through.
And come back he did, winning stages in the Vuelta and even the Tour. But as he toiled to crack sprinting’s upper echelon, he lost an entire season, 2025, to double iliac artery surgery — and then a broken collarbone suffered in a crash at the Renewi Tour compounded what had already been a deeply difficult year.
Then, just days ago at the 2026 UAE Tour, Jakobsen suffered another heavy crash on stage 4, in which his front tyre and foam insert were both ripped completely off his front rim after hitting a rock at speed. He finished the stage with his jersey in tatters.
I — eTrashMike — was already rooting for Jakobsen before I learned something else about him, something endearing: He has a life outside of cycling! In fact, he’s deeply involved in politics: In late 2025, he appeared on the VVD Neder-Betuwe candidate list for municipal elections, named as a lijst duwer — a role typically filled by well-known figures whose name recognition helps draw attention to a party’s campaign. While his inclusion was intended as a symbolic show of support rather than a move towards an active political career, and he was not expected actually to take up a council seat, his inclusion suggests that I’m not the only one rooting for Fabio Jakobsen.
UCI: Help Us Protect our Riders!
In one of its typically, oddly clinically-worded statements, the UCI has launched a “call for expressions of interest relating to the development of protective equipment for riders in both the men’s and women’s pelotons, with the aim of enhancing their safety in the event of a crash.”
In other words: airbags.
Evidently aware that airbag technology is already viable, the UCI is hoping to bring a range of designers to development effort.
The UCI hopes to bring together various contributing parties to:
- analyze the relevance of this equipment across different disciplines;
- develop a regulatory framework defining clear and relevant standards for competitive cycling;
- encourage coherent development of protective equipment that meets the needs of riders and teams, and is in line with the industrial realities faced by manufacturers.
The UCI has invited contribution of interest by March 15 via the following form: https://wkf.ms/4sSpdhn. The form is also available in the Equipment section of the UCI website.
Speaking of Isaac Del Toro…Here he is in last year’s Giro, taking on Wout van Aert on the final climb into Siena. He’d eventually fold in the penultimate stage’s Colle delle Finestre — but he sure looks strong here!
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The post EUROTRASH: A Glimpse into the Future appeared first on PezCycling News.
