“It might be too big a change” – Murmurs inside the peloton suggest tradition could block Tadej Pogacar’s Giro–Vuelta switch

In modern cycling, innovation rarely fails because it lacks logic. More often, it fails because the sport is not ready to let go of what it has always done. That tension sits at the heart of the debate sparked this winter by Tadej Pogacar, whose call to reshuffle the Grand Tour calendar has exposed how powerful tradition still is inside the peloton.

“I’ve been saying for years that it would be much better if the Giro and the Vuelta swapped dates,” Pogacar said, arguing that weather conditions and rider participation would benefit if Spain’s Grand Tour moved to the spring.

The idea itself is simple. The reaction to it has not been.

From a sporting perspective, Pogacar’s reasoning is hard to dismiss. The Tour–Vuelta double remains one of the most demanding combinations in the sport, particularly for riders who also target the World Championships. A calendar shift would, in theory, reopen the Vuelta to riders currently forced to choose.

Inside UAE Team Emirates - XRG, the proposal has been met with open minds rather than defensiveness. Team manager Joxean Fernandez Matxin admitted the idea had not occurred to him previously, but said Pogacar’s explanation changed that. “When I read Tadej’s explanation, I thought there’s actually something in that,” he said in quotes collected by Sporza.

Matxin’s support is rooted less in ambition than in logistics. “For example, we can never reconnoitre the Giro climbs because there is so much snow there in April,” he explained, pointing to repeated experiences of stages being cancelled or neutralised due to cold or rain. From his base in Spain, the contrast is obvious. “In Spain, the weather in May is nicer than in Italy.”

Yet logic, in cycling, has never been the only currency.

Across the peloton, the response has been notably cautious. Not because the idea is radical, but because it would disturb an order that has remained largely untouched for decades.

Ralph Denk, manager of Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe, offered a reminder that the calendar has already evolved once before. “When I started racing 40 years ago, the Vuelta took place in April,” he said, recalling a time when Spain hosted the season’s first Grand Tour.

But Denk was equally quick to question whether exceptional weather moments justify wholesale change. “Two years ago there was that Livigno stage in the Giro when snowfall on the Umbrail Pass caused chaos,” he said. “But does that happen every year? I don’t think so. Last year, for example, the weather during the Giro was excellent.”

The implication is clear: isolated problems may not be enough to outweigh the comfort of familiarity.

At Lidl-Trek, sports director Steven de Jongh captured the underlying hesitation more directly. “In itself, I would find it logical for the Giro and the Vuelta to swap places, especially if you look at the weather,” he said. “But the race is tied to tradition, so it might be too big a change.”

That sentence, more than any other, explains why Pogacar’s idea is unlikely to gain traction quickly. The Grand Tours are not just races. They are institutions, bound to broadcasters, organisers, sponsors and national identities.

De Jongh also pointed to a practical complication that logic alone cannot solve. The Giro and the Vuelta are run by different organisers, RCS and ASO, respectively. Even if sporting arguments align, coordination at that level would be far from straightforward.

For Pogacar, the calendar discussion is not framed as a demand, but as an observation. Yet the response it has triggered shows how resistant cycling remains to structural change, even when proposed by its most dominant rider.

The irony is that Pogacar’s status may work against him here. His success allows him to question the system, but it also makes it easier for the system to say no.

For now, the Giro–Vuelta switch remains hypothetical. Not because it lacks merit, but because in a sport defined by history, changing dates may prove harder than winning races.