Is this the Golden Age of road cycling? Some are claiming just that, but I disagree. How can it be, when we see the same small group of riders winning all the biggest races in both the men’s and women’s pelotons? Let’s examine the current state of play, and how we go about fixing things.

In the men’s cobbled Classics, for example, we had a Big Three of favourites, with Mathieu van der Poel of Alpecin-Deceuninck and Wout van Aert of Jumbo-Visma being joined by Tadej Pogačar riding for UAE Team Emirates.

The only times they didn’t win was when they didn’t take part. The Ardennes are much the same. The almost perfect rider that is Pogačar was sweeping up the hilly one-day races like it was nothing, with only World Champion Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep) having a realistic chance of stopping him. It’s a battle we unfortunately didn’t get to see at Liège-Bastogne-Liège with Pogačar crashing out, but it would’ve been interesting.

Even the Grand Tours see Pogačar and Evenepoel being close to untouchable right now – although the latter’s Covid positive at the Giro muddies the picture somewhat – with only the Jumbo-Visma duo of Primož Roglič and Jonas Vingegaard looking like they’re able to compete.

A problem in both pelotons

Gruber Images

It’s similar in the women’s peloton, with one team taking the lion’s share of the wins in the biggest of races. Both cobbled and Ardennes Classics were dominated almost entirely by three riders, all riding for SD Worx: Demi Vollering, Lotte Kopecky and Lorena Wiebes.

This has been the case in almost every race that has mattered this year. And even when they haven’t won, it has often been their teammates who have – take Marlen Reusser’s solo Gent-Wevelem victory, for example.

Trek-Segafredo have worked hard to stop this dominance and have been the team themselves in the past, but they haven’t been as strong this year due to a combination of injuries, Lizzie Deignan’s maternity absence and Ellen van Dijk’s pregnancy leaving them short-staffed. They have enjoyed some success, including Elisa Longo Borghini wining a stage and the overall at the UAE Tour and Shirin van Anrooij’s Trofeo Alfredo Binda victory.

We did get a shock win at Paris-Roubaix from EF Education-Tibco-SVB’s Alison Jackson, and DSM’s Charlotte Kool has won the odd sprint against former teammate Wiebes, proving there are a few riders who can challenge this dominance, but otherwise it has been the SD Worx show.

Gruber Images

Jumbo-Visma’s Marianne Vos is returning to form after her pelvic artery surgery, with her and Kool exchanging sprint wins in the Vuelta Femenina. World Champion Annemiek van Vleuten of Movistar returned to racing in the Ardennes and the Vuelta, winning the latter as expected, but doesn’t look to have the form just yet in her final season and Longo Borghini has come back well from an absence due to Covid but hasn’t yet added to her UAE Tour GC win.

Last year we saw true dominance of the Grand Tours, with Van Vleuten winning all three: Giro Donne, Tour de France Femmes and Ceratizit Challenge by La Vuelta, as well as the Road Race World Championship.

While Vollering is improving in the Grand Tours (she finished second in the Vuelta), Van Vleuten won those races so comfortably last season that it would be a dramatic twist for her to not add to her Spanish success, if not win all three.

Now, you may think I’m saying all this without backing myself up. And yes, every generation has a select few that tend to dominate. But not to this extent. The 2010s saw a lot of surprises in the Classics and in week-long stage races – not to mention the likes of Ryder Hesjedal winning the Giro or Chris Horner taking the Vuelta.

Out of the three Grand Tours, the Giro has been the only one to retain that unpredictability, but that is likely to change this year, even with Evenepoel’s early withdrawal.

Another example is the first Monument of this season, Milan-San Remo. In the past, La Primavera has been one of the hardest to predict but now you can have a good bet it will be dominated by the Big Three for the immediate future given Van Aert and Van der Poel’s appetite for spring success, and Pogačar’s clear desire to win the race too. The only likely change to that would be if Evenepoel adds himself into the mix.

Gruber Images

I do think the women’s peloton is heading in the right direction, with more riders getting better development and more funding that allows them to become the best athletes they can be earlier in their careers. However, for the moment it is still quite predictable.

Over in the men’s peloton it seems to be heading in the other direction with these young, almost superhuman riders who are simply untouchable even when they’re not at absolute peak fitness.

Don’t get me wrong, a lot of the racing is very enjoyable with some incredible battles between the biggest and best. But some races do lose their magic. The 2021 Tour de France was basically done by stage 9, Liège is finished at the top of La Redoute. La Vuelta is often done after the opening time-trial.

At least when Chris Froome was winning there would be some sense that someone like Nairo Quintana or Alberto Contador could potentially beat him (and they sometimes did). And the Classics were very hard to call.

If we look at the three men’s Grand Tours and the five Monuments, we have had just 15 different winners over the 28 races we have had in the 2020s. Six went to Pogačar, four to Van der Poel, three for Roglič, three for Evenepoel, one for Van Aert and the rest picked up mostly in the Giro, Roubaix and Milan-San Remo.

In the women’s versions of these races it is similar: 19 races with nine different winners, seven to Van Vleuten and two to Van der Breggen, Deignan and Vollering. Only Paris-Roubaix hasn’t had a repeat winner but there have only been three editions and of course, there isn’t a women’s Il Lombardia or Milan-San Remo.

How we fix things

James Startt / Agence Zoom via Getty

What can be done to change this? There are multiple options. One could be that organisers of races could create stages that aren’t so easily dominated by the biggest teams. Short punchy stages that take on several short sharp climbs that can isolate leaders early are ideal.

Could the UCI even step in? We’re seeing the best riders getting incredible super-domestiques who could win the races themselves. Christophe Laporte has become a different man since riding for Van Aert at Jumbo-Visma and Sepp Kuss could be a GC rider himself.

Would it be fair to suggest that the UCI could block signings of too many riders above a certain level like a salary cap – denying teams with huge money and the biggest stars whoever they like.

Ineos was another team that stacked the deck in its favour in the 2010s when they were Team Sky. Their mountain train of death sucked the life out of the competition one by one before Froome would launch hell in the final 3km.

This is very much what Jumbo-Visma are doing now. And UAE Team Emirates are following. Soudal-QuickStep are even neglecting their traditional hunting ground of the Classics to support Evenepoel.

Gruber Images

Of course, very aggressive tactics from the other teams can work and has worked in previous races. Even the big names do it to each other. Jumbo-Visma used wave after wave of attacks on the Galibier in last year’s Tour to break Pogačar and it was very effective. It won the race for Vingegaard.

Some squads have been successful with this before. Trek-Segafredo have managed it a few times in previous years against SD Worx in the women’s bunch although now SD Worx are doing it themselves because they’ve got so much depth.

Meanwhile, it has been harder to battle against the big hitters in the men’s peloton. Teams like Bahrain Victorious and Movistar have tried to use their long list of leaders in one team to get a result, but it always fails.

Beating the top names is not impossible though. Roglič has cracked on multiple occasions in Grand Tours. And when Pogačar was dropped in last year’s Tour he was beaten by more than just Vingegaard.

I think that’s the way forward. Riders like Pogačar, Evenepoel and Van der Poel seem incapable of just following, they have to show how strong they are after someone dares to attack them. If you have more than one teammate in the GC, use them and put in wave after wave of attacks. Chances are, they’ll follow and eventually their legs will blow.

In short, we have some incredible talent in both the men’s and women’s pro pelotons right now, but we are not in the Golden Age. Not yet, anyway.

Tags: ClassicsGiro d’ItaliaOpinionRemco EvenepoelTadej PogačarTour de FranceWout van Aert