Don’t get me wrong: the racing over the last week was fun, varied, and at times intense. But these are late-season scraps, and there’s not a Galactico in sight.
What cycling did see a lot of this week was controversy: odd rule interpretations, political influences, a broken contract.
Such is the case with the early off-season. Teams are still grasping for UCI point straws; riders are exhausted, but also hoping to earn last-ditch palmarès and points. We haven’t settled into the roughly week-long recovery period that today’s riders seem to indulge in, and the transfer storm is still brewing. So we get strange news, interesting results, and glimpses of what’s to come.
Me, I prefer midseason racing, of course. But you take what you can get.
TOP STORY
- The Week in Cycling Controversies
RACE NEWS
- McNulty Wins in the Rainbow Stripes to Close the European Season
- Widar Spoils Pidcock’s Guangxi Party
- Campenaerts Cashes In as Merlier Closes Eneco Tour with a Bang
- Evenepoel Takes the Chrono des Nations the Hard Way: By Two Minutes
- Simmons Signs Off in Style at the Japan Cup
TEAM, RIDER AND RACING NEWS
- Castelli Takes Over as Official Tour Clothing Sponsor
- Oceania Champs Head to Adelaide, and to January
- UCI Rolls Out a New “Cycling for All” Manifesto
VIDEO
- Inside Cycling’s Most Famous Church
The Week in Cycling Controversies
Looking for top-quality bike racing? Afraid you’ll need to turn back the calendar.
But…looking for beef, disagreement, frustration or questionable decision-making? Mid-October’s got it for you.
The races — Guangxi, Eneco — are the backdrop. Above the fold is off-the-bike news.
Picnic PostNL’s “Culture of Fear”
While we love our snark and our humor here at Pez, some topics need to be treated seriously. Such is the case with Picnic PostNL’s (verified) rumored “culture of fear.” After more than 70 riders and staff members anonymously described a system riddled with intimidation and toxicity, a handful of riders came forward publicly. The reports are a couple of years old and more, but most of the implicated coaches, including director Rudi Kemna, are still with the team.
The timing couldn’t be worse: the men’s and women’s teams are coming off of their worst season in years — and the reports are actually just the latest in suspicions that have dogged the team for years. A highly performing team might survive this, but it’s hard to imagine that Picnic PostNL will be with us much longer, at least not in its current state and brand.
Eneco Tour’s Harsh Broom
Meanwhile, Picnic PostNL can’t catch a break. With the team already dead last in the WorldTour standings, Frank van den Broek got shown the door at the Eneco Tour, and he says it wasn’t for being slow.
Van den Broek says he and his group were less than ten minutes down on the leaders with one lap to go. Then the broom wagon swept past, rendering him, Mathis Avondts (Azerion / Villa Valkenburg) and Elmar Abma (VolkerWessels) officially out of the race. The three rode to the line anyway — through traffic, with the course open. Van den Broek posted a Strava screenshot to show he finished inside the 15% time limit, but the organizers wouldn’t let him start the last two stages.
His gripe is aimed at the organizers: a local circuit that can’t stay closed long enough for riders to finish within the time limit. “A shame this has to happen in the Netherlands,” he said.
The timing is awkward. A car wandered onto the course ahead of the break on stage 1, just days after the peloton stopped Il Lombardia to demand better safety. Open roads, closed riders: not a great look, especially after the pre-Lombardia five-minute protest over just such situations.
Riyadh Urban Worlds Pulled as Missiles Hit Airport
Not to equate the week’s other off-the-bike news with the repercussions of war, but politics has once again spilled into cycling: The UCI has scrapped the 2026 Urban Cycling World Championships in Riyadh with just over two weeks to go. Houthi missiles and drones had been pounding King Khalid International Airport, the riders’ main gateway, and Australia and Austria had already pulled their teams. Other federations were heading for the exit when the UCI and the Saudi Cycling Federation announced Friday that the BMX Freestyle and Trials event “will not proceed.”
Nobody should be shocked. The seeds of this mess were planted in 2023, when the UCI handed Saudi Arabia both the 2025 and 2026 editions. Riyadh hosted last year’s inaugural Saudi edition, which drew more than 230 riders from 40 countries, but the second year has ended in a cancellation, not a rainbow jersey.
It’s also a blow for a young discipline. The event doubled as an Olympic qualifier for the 2028 Los Angeles Games, and BMX riders now have to rethink their qualification plans. The UCI hasn’t said whether it will reschedule or write off the year, promising only a further update.
Carapaz Walks Out on EF for NSN
Finally, even the week’s biggest transfer news featured a whiff of controversy: Richard Carapaz tore up his EF Education-EasyPost contract and signed a three-year deal with NSN starting in 2027. The announcement came Friday in a video with NSN co-founder and football legend Andrés Iniesta, making the Ecuadorean the Swiss team’s seventh new signing for next season.
The timing raises eyebrows. Carapaz was under contract at EF into 2027 or beyond, depending on the source, after four seasons in the pink kit. Wielerflits reports that EF’s budget has little room left and that Carapaz wanted to cash in on a big year: the polka-dot jersey and stage wins at the Tour, eighth overall, and fourth at the Vuelta. He skipped the Worlds in Montréal and didn’t race again after the Vuelta.
Pinarello-Q36.5 and his old team, Netcompany INEOS, were also reportedly in the hunt. NSN won, and gets a true Grand Tour leader. “It matches what I want,” Carapaz said of the move.
For EF, the loss of its best rider stings. For NSN, the Iniesta project just got serious.
RACE NEWS
Thanks to Wielerflits for much of the content in this section
McNulty Wins in the Rainbow Stripes to Close the European Season
Sure, we recently wrote that heaping expectations on the rather narrow shoulders of Brandon McNulty was counter-productive; he won one big, important race, sure, but he’s actually not a world-beater, not in the way that Pogačar, van der Poel, and even Evenepoel are. But he has raced aggressively since his Worlds win, and it paid off when he soloed to victory at the Veneto Classic, his first since pulling on the rainbow stripes.
The race ran 158km from Cittadella to Bassano del Grappa, with the finale built around two climbs. The unpaved Diesel Farm is a little over a kilometer long and averages more than ten percent. Next up was the Strada Soarda, 500 meters at 9.4%, with its summit four kilometers from the line.
With the off-season waiting, nobody seemed interested in saving anything. The fight to get into the break was so fierce that a proper move never really formed. Clément Berthet and Andrea Mifsud briefly got a gap, but Mifsud crashed and the peloton came back together. With no breakaway to chase, the finale blew up early. About twenty riders split off the front, including Anthon Charmig, Christian Scaroni, Benoît Cosnefroy and McNulty himself.
McNulty clearly thought the group was too big. He went with 60km to go and took five others with him, but they were reeled back in. Twenty riders again. He tried a second time, and this time only Charmig could go with him. The American and the Dane built a solid lead, and it was obvious the win would come down to the two of them.
It came down to Diesel Farm. McNulty put in a big dig on the steep gravel and Charmig had no answer. The gap went past half a minute in no time, and from there it was a solo ride to Bassano. The Strada Soarda and the final four kilometers were just a formality.
It was a fitting end to the European calendar. McNulty has carried the rainbow jersey since Montréal, and it’s nice to see him finally win in it. Charmig, meanwhile, goes into the winter with another strong ride to his name, even if he came away empty-handed.
Widar Spoils Pidcock’s Guangxi Party
Tom Pidcock flew to China looking like a man with a win in his pocket. The Tour of Guangxi was the last WorldTour race of the season, the start list was light on genuine climbers, and the GC would be settled on one 3.1km ramp to Nongla averaging 6.1%. Plenty of the previews had Pidcock as their top pick. After a year of near-misses, this looked like the place to cash in.
“Almost” has been the theme of his road season. Pidcock has won, including a mountain bike world title, but the runner-up spots keep piling up: Clásica Jaén, Milano-Sanremo behind Pogačar, a Tour of the Alps stage, Eschborn-Frankfurt. The Italian autumn made it worse. He was fourth in Québec, sixth in Montréal, seventh at the Worlds, then second at Giro dell’Emilia for the third year running. “Three years, three times a second,” he said afterwards.
Next came Tre Valli Varesine, where Jarno Widar outsprinted him from a three-man move. At Il Lombardia he was sixth after going too deep trying to follow Paul Seixas, and he admitted he’d made a few tactical errors lately. So Guangxi was the last chance to turn all that into something.
The sprinters had the run of the race early on, but the final stage was always going to belong to the punchers. A five-man break (Rickaert, Rex, Livyns, Bugge and Shen) never got more than about two minutes and was swept up before the climb. Then the attacks started. Joseph Pidcock, Tom’s younger brother, poked his nose out, and so did Rémy Rochas. Twenty-year-old Peter Øxenberg of Netcompany INEOS opened a promising gap, but he was reeled in inside the final kilometer.
Then Louis Barré went, and Pidcock countered. His acceleration blew the group of favorites apart, and only Widar could hold his wheel. The young Belgian then had enough left to ride straight past him. It was Varese all over again, except this time with a stage win and the overall title on the line.
Widar took both, finishing his season with a bang. He follows his now-departing Lotto-Intermarché teammate Lennert Van Eetvelt, who won the race two years ago. Pidcock took second overall, with Barré third.
For Pidcock, it’s another silver to add to the collection. He has the legs and the form, but this season the wins keep getting away from him in the last few hundred meters.
Campenaerts Cashes In as Merlier Closes Eneco Tour with a Bang
We’re big Victor Campenaerts fans here at Pez, for his riding style, his eccentricity, and his vlog. So we were both disappointed but impressed when he announced a couple of years ago that he would shift from seeking race wins to pacing and protecting Jonas Vingegaard and other Visma | Lease a Bike teammates — and we were overjoyed when we saw that he would be given the go-ahead to pursue a late-season race win.
Campy seized the opportunity, taking the Eneco Tour overall through a combination of fitness and race savvy. It’s the first stage race win of his professional career.
The week turned on Friday’s stage 3, a short, lumpy run from Sittard to Watersley that blew the race apart. Campenaerts started the day seventh overall and 29 seconds down. He bridged to the break in the last 33 kilometers and then rode off with Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe’s Mick van Dijke. Van Dijke took the stage, his first pro win, but Campenaerts took the orange jersey, the first stage race leader’s jersey he’d ever worn. He said so himself, and he also noted that Visma had pledged all its Eneco Tour prize money to the children’s bike charity Ieder kind een fiets, so defending the lead meant something extra.
And defend it he indeed did. On Sunday’s final stage in Arnhem he held a 15-second cushion over Wessel Mouris of Unibet Rose Rockets, and it was never really threatened.
A trio of Woets, Maas and Ottema went early but never got much of a lead. When the gap fell to about 30 seconds, Ottema kicked and Maas followed. Michiel Mouris, the 19-year-old Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe development rider guesting with the WorldTeam, bridged across and promptly lit things up. Ottema and Maas both cracked, and Mouris was on his own until he was caught with eight kilometers left. A bunch sprint was now certain, which suited Campenaerts fine.
The sprint had some theater. Under the red flag, Dylan Groenewegen still had three Rockets ahead of him. He then let a gap open so Lukas Kubis could hit the final straight with a lead, a neat trick on paper. Tim Merlier wasn’t fooled. The Soudal Quick-Step sprinter went early, came around Kubis and left Groenewegen and everyone else several bike lengths back. Groenewegen was second and Davide Donati third. It was Merlier’s second stage win of the week, after the first road stage.
So Merlier got the sprint win and Campenaerts got the overall. For a rider who has spent the year making other people’s results, a week in orange of his own must have felt pretty good.
Evenepoel Takes the Chrono des Nations the Hard Way: By Two Minutes
Third time’s the charm. After finishing fifth in 2021 and second in 2023 behind Joshua Tarling, Remco Evenepoel finally won the Chrono des Nations among the pros. He’d already won it as a junior back in 2018, so this one has been a long time coming.
It wasn’t close. The course around Les Herbiers was a good 45 kilometers of gently rolling road, and Evenepoel, the reigning world champion, was the clear favorite against a field that included Stefan Küng, Jay Vine and Alec Segaert. Starting last, he set the tone right away. At the first check, about ten kilometers in, he was already 26 seconds up on Küng, who was running second. At the second check that lead had ballooned to 1:47. Along the way he caught and passed Vine, then finished more than two minutes clear of the Australian, who held on to second ahead of Küng.
Two minutes in a 45km time trial isn’t a win, it’s a statement. Küng is a multiple world and European medalist, and Vine is a rider who can post a serious time on any given day. Remco made them look like they were riding a different event.
And that’s the point. It’s now very clear that Evenepoel is the best time trialist in the world by a wide margin. With an Olympic gold medal and world titles already on his résumé, he’s winning against the top specialists by margins we normally associate with the Cancellaras and Rogerses of the sport. He’s still only in his mid-20s, and he needs to be in the conversation about the best ever against the clock. When he’s on a good day, the rest of the field is racing for second.
Earlier in the afternoon, Maëva Squiban of UAE Team ADQ took the women’s race, beating Nadia Gontova and Juliette Berthet over 27.3 kilometers.
Simmons Signs Off in Style at the Japan Cup
More bike racing — and more bike racing in Asia! This time it’s in Utsunomiya, where the Japan Cup served up a proper bike race, and Quinn Simmons closed his year with a win.
The circuit is short and tough, and everything revolves around one climb: Mt. Kogashiyama, 4.7km at 3.5% with pitches up to 7%. It was part of the 1990 World Championship course, and it’s where this race gets decided every year. Ben Healy, Lennert Van Eetvelt and Mauro Schmid were all expected to make things interesting, along with Simmons.
Things got interesting early, mostly thanks to Lidl-Trek, who put the screws on from the start. EF Education-EasyPost did their share of the work too, and the field was soon whittled down to the strongest. In the end it came down to two: Simmons and Healy.
On the rolling course the American champion and the Irishman proved remarkably evenly matched, and neither could shake the other. That meant a two-man sprint, and that’s where Simmons had the edge. He beat Healy fairly, squarely and clearly to take the win. After his fourth place at the recent World Championships, it’s his third victory of the season, and he got it right at the buzzer.
Behind them, Jenno Berckmoes won the sprint of the first chasing group to take third. For the Belgian puncheur it’s a nice podium to end the year on.
So Simmons has his last-minute win, Healy has another near-miss to chew on over the winter, and the long season can finally be put to bed. Almost.
RIDER, TEAM AND RACING NEWS
Castelli Takes Over as Official Tour Clothing Sponsor
Following years of sponsorship by Santini, the Tour de France’s official clothing sponsor in 2027 will be Castelli. Castelli will also serve as the clothing partner for all 27 cycling races and challenges owned by Amaury Sport Organisation (A.S.O.), including the Tour de France and Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift.
The agreement, launching in 2027, means every classification jersey at those races will be designed and produced by Castelli, along with jerseys for events such as the Etape du Tour, Paris-Roubaix and Liège–Bastogne–Liège Challenges, which attract over 80,000 participants each year.
The new Tour de France and Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift jerseys will be unveiled at the 2027 Tour de France route presentation, being held in Paris this week. Additional jerseys will be showcased in due course, along with wider clothing collections which celebrate this landmark collaboration.
Steve Smith, Global Brand Manager at Castelli, said: “This is a truly monumental moment in Castelli’s 150-year history. For a global cycling brand, producing the Maillot Jaune of the Tour de France is the greatest honour there is, not to mention the jerseys for other major races such as Paris-Nice, Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, and the Vuelta a España.”
Yann Le Moënner, CEO of A.S.O., said: “This is not the first time Castelli and A.S.O. have joined forces around the Tour de France. Castelli previously produced the leader jerseys from 1989 to 1994, worn by some of the sport’s greatest champions, including Greg LeMond and Miguel Indurain.”
The 27 cycling races and challenges owned by A.S.O. are as follows:
Oceania Champs Head to Adelaide, and to January
Pack the sunscreen. The Oceania Road Championships are moving to Adelaide for the first time, and they’re moving to January too, as a curtain-raiser to the Santos Tour Down Under.
The time trial and road race will run January 15-17 across the opening weekend of the Santos Festival of Cycling, which also happens to coincide with the first round of the ProVelo Super League Series. Men’s and women’s champions will be crowned in the elite, U23 and U19 categories. Course details, including locations and exact dates for each event, are due in the coming weeks.
This year’s edition was in Brisbane, in the traditional March/April slot. That’s a tough time of year to get the pros, who are by then deep into their European seasons. A January date should fix that, with plenty of WorldTour riders already in Australia for the Tour Down Under. The Oceania Cycling Confederation has 16 member nations, including Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and Samoa, and the honour roll includes Luke Durbridge, Cameron Meyer, Lucas Hamilton, Gracie Elvin, Katrin Garfoot and Shara Gillow.
OCC President Tony Mitchell says the new timing lets the top pros chase the Oceania champion’s jersey and wear it in Europe. That’s a nice carrot, since a continental champion’s jersey rides through the whole European season.
The TDU itself is making some history in 2027. The six-stage men’s race runs January 19-24 and the three-stage women’s race January 22-24. When the two overlap, it will be the first race in the world to run men’s and women’s events over the same distance on the same day.
Adelaide has already hosted Worlds, World Cups and plenty of national championships, so it’s a logical home.
UCI Rolls Out a New “Cycling for All” Manifesto
The UCI has a new Cycling for All Manifesto, and the goal is simple enough: more people riding, more often, on safer roads. The document was adopted at the UCI Congress in Montréal on September 23 and replaces the first version from 2017.
Where the 2017 edition was mostly a statement of intentions, the 2026 version leans on nearly a decade of actual programs. The UCI Bike City Label, launched in 2016, now covers 31 cities and regions in 16 countries across all five continents. There’s also the Bike City Pathway, the annual UCI Mobility & Bike City Forum (running since 2018) and the Cycling for All & Sustainability Awards, which started in 2024.
The manifesto lays out seven principles and four pillars: Advocate, Inspire, Educate and Collaborate. It ends with a call to action aimed at public authorities, national federations, race organizers, teams, riders, partners and individuals. It’s also tied to the UCI’s Agenda 2030 and the UN Sustainable Development Goals, and it lands in the first year of the UN Decade of Sustainable Transport (2026-2035).
UCI President David Lappartient said cycling’s dual nature as both a global sport and an everyday way to get around is its greatest strength, and that the UCI’s role is to link the inspiration of the sport to ordinary daily rides. Tony Mitchell, who heads the Cycling for All and Sustainable Cycling Commission, added that no single organization can get more people on bikes, and that the document gives federations, cities and partners a shared position to work from.
It’s a worthy goal, and the real test will be whether the call to action turns into safer roads and more people on bikes. The manifesto is available in English and French on the UCI website.
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