2026 cycling calendar - All the new UCI races and which races change categories

The 2026 UCI pro calendar has been announced and we've got plenty of new races in the professional calendar, as well as some date and category changes. We look at the highlights of what the new season will bring us.

There are plenty of newly-created events that are now on the UCI calendar, most of them in Asia with Turkey definitely having a big portion of one-day races on the schedule - lots of them in the August-September period. India also has a new stage-race set for January which comes as a surprise, and in Europe we now also have the Tour of Bosnia and Herzegovina which opens up the nation for more international racing. Italy also has a few new one-day races, most notably the Lyon - Torino which should start in France and cross the border, something very unusual in a one-day race.

In category changes we've got high-level events growing in level, with the AlUla Tour, Surf Coast Classic, Muscat Classic, Région Pays de la Lore and Czech Tour growing to ProSeries events.

In terms of calendar changes we've got a few changes, albeit nothing meaningful. O Gran Camiño stops being a preparation race from February to April; Races such as the Tour of Hellas and a few western European classics move to May and will clash with the Giro d'Italia; The Tour de l'Ain and Tour of Denmark may clash with the Tour de France in July from now onwards and the Giro d'Abruzzo, which took place in April this year, moves all the way to September. Copenhagen Sprint will be moved a week earlier not to clash with the Tour de Suisse that sees its days reduced.

We've got new races on the UCI calendar that have been part of the UCI schedule in the past such as the Tour Colombia (or as it used to be known, Colombia 2.1), the Jayco Herald Sun Tour, the ZLM Tour which was cancelled this year due to the lack of police enforcement and other one-day races such as the Circuit de Wallonie and Veenendaal - Veenendaal Classic which are well known in the European classics calendar.

Furthermore there are a few races that change duration during the upcoming season and the Tour de Suisse is the most obvious example, having previously been announced that it is reduced from eight to five days - possibly becoming a more attractive preparation race for the Tour de France. The Tour des Alpes Maritimes stops existing as a stage-race and becomes a one-day race, the opposite of the Vuelta a Murcia early in the season. La Route d'Occitanie changes from four to two days; The Tour of Britain is further reduced from six to five stages and the Maryland Cycling Classic becomes a stage-race with three days of racing.