ANALYSIS | What’s to come in cycling before the first monument of 2026?

Milano-Sanremo on 21 March 2026 is the first Monument on the calendar, which means the real drift from winter to spring is approaching for us cycling fans. Between now and the Via Roma finish line, cycling offers a fast-moving run of racing that has started in Australia, cuts through the mud of cyclocross Worlds, then swings into the desert and finally into the European week-long grind. The names that matter for the spring will start showing their hands well before Sanremo, sometimes without meaning to. And if you like guessing who’s ready, this is the stretch that gives the best clues.

The UAE Tour is the first big stage race where the sport’s biggest names often show up with serious intent, partly because the sponsor pull is strong and partly because it’s a clean, controlled environment for testing form. In 2025, Tadej Pogacar won overall and took two stage wins on the way, with Giulio Ciccone and Pello Bilbao on the final podium.

The 2026 edition (16–22 February) should again be a battle between pure climbers for Jebel Jais/Jebel Hafeet-style finishes and the teams trying to keep things calm for the GC. Jonas Vingegaard, Remco Evenepoel and Isaac del Toro are going to headline what should be a thrilling GC battle.

Strade has turned into a race where the strongest rider often makes it obvious, and 2025 was as dramatic as it gets. Pogacar crashed hard with 50 kilometres to go, got back on, returned to Tom Pidcock, then later dropped him and soloed to a third Strade title in Siena. The key point isn’t just that he won, it’s how he won: the race was violent enough to split the best from the rest, and still required nerve after a major hit.

For 2026, you watch Strade for two things: who can follow the first serious acceleration on gravel, and who can still make clean decisions after things go wrong. It’s also the first big “Monument-adjacent” race where you see teams reveal whether they have more than one card to play. If a squad can place two riders into the decisive selection, that’s usually the first sign they’re thinking beyond just surviving Sanremo and into controlling Flanders/Roubaix later.

Expect Wout van Aert and Tadej Pogacar to be at the start line on March 7th.

Paris-Nice is where stage-racing legs meet classics positioning, and 2025 delivered a clear winner: Matteo Jorgenson won overall for a second year running for Visma | Lease a Bike, after teammate Jonas Vingegaard was forced to abandon. Jorgenson’s win mattered because it signalled he wasn’t just a helper with a big engine, he could close a race out across a full week of threats, weather shifts, and tactical traps.

In 2026, this race will again be a measuring stick for anyone targeting stage races later in the year, but it’s also hugely relevant to Sanremo in a quieter way: it shows who has the repeatability to go hard day after day. If a rider is floating across crosswinds, climbs, and punchy finales here, they’re usually arriving in Italy with both form and confidence.

If Paris-Nice is “the Race to the Sun,” Tirreno is the Italian pressure cooker: sharp stages, sprint trains, a GC that can change fast, and that sense that riders are already thinking about Sanremo even when they say they aren’t. In 2025, Juan Ayuso won overall, with Filippo Ganna second and Antonio Tiberi third, and the race ended with Jonathan Milan sprinting to another stage win while Ayuso sealed the GC.

Tirreno’s 2026 intrigue comes from how it feeds into Sanremo specifically. Sprinters who want Sanremo need two things here: top-end speed and the ability to survive a week that isn’t built for them. GC riders who want Sanremo as a target (rare, but not impossible) need to show they can handle chaos and still have punch. And the Ganna/Ayuso/Tiberi-style podium from 2025 is a reminder that this race can reward a wide range of riders, from time trial power to climbers too depending on how the decisive day unfolds.

Sanremo is famously hard to predict, but the lead-in races do give away patterns: who is already winning uphill sprints, who is recovering overnight, and who can handle stress when the race turns messy. The early season isn’t about perfection, it’s about signals.

All eyes will be on Tadej Pogacar and Mathieu van der Poel, after their epic duo last year. It is one of the few races Pogacar is yet to win, can he finally master Milano-Sanremo in 2026?