Milano-Sanremo holds the distinction of being the longest professional road race of the season and serves as the inaugural monument of the spring. It's a monumental day in the cycling season, attracting the world's best classics specialists and sprinters to the start line. Let's delve into its profile.
The biggest pro race in the calendar! Albeit having a slightly different route the 288 kilometers (plus neutral start) will heavily weigh on everyone’s legs by the end, which has it’s usual features except for the first climb of the day. The race’s traditional route through the Ligurian sea, includes the Tre Capi. No important attacks will come here, however the teams looking to make damage on the climbs may look to push the pace.
Pavia - Sanremo, 288 kilometers
Capo Mele – 1,9Km; 4.2%; 52Km to go
Capo Cerve – 1.9Km; 2.8%; 47.4Km to go
Capo Berta – 1.8Km; 6.7%; 39Km to go
Quickly the riders will move on to the final and decisive features.
The Cipressa is 5.6Km at an average gradient of 4.1% it doesn’t make for a particularly hard climb, but taking into account when the riders top it they’ll have over 6 hours of racing. It doesn’t usually see attacks, but it is a familiar image to see the teams with puncheurs, climbers and punchy sprinters to come to the front and push the pace, this year the climbers too.
The purest sprinters try to remain hidden, but always well positioned as the descent from Cipressa is very technical, so not only will there be the teams trying to suffocate the sprinters early on as there will be the fight for positioning before the climb and in the summit of it, making for a very nervous and fast section of the race.
Cipressa: 5.6Km; 4%; 21.6Km to go
And the final climb is the Poggio di Sanremo, the hardest easy climb in the world! Like everything in this race, it is influenced by the distance, 282Km raced at the summit. It is mostly a climb in false flat roads, starting with a set of bends still very near the sea, but in the last 800 meters the steepest ramp in it comes, a short one but 8% of gradient, and it’s a place regularly chosen by riders to make a final attack.
Poggio di Sanremo: 3.6Km; 3.7%; 5.5Km to go
And just as important as the climb is the descent, it’s quite a technical one which allows some recovering after the climb, and it’s a big threat if anyone gets to the bottom solo, no surprise as in the base of it there are only 2200 meters to the line. This is where Matej Mohoric made his decisive attack in 2022 to victory.
Descent of Poggio di Sanremo
The Via Roma will be the place where the winner will be crowned. The finish is familiar already, a flat straightforward road meaning leadouts and chasing are still very possible which is an advantage for the sprinters, but for that they need good support and a smart sense of positioning. And remember, a sprint after 7 hours of racing is different than after 4/5.
Milano-Sanremo Finale
Map Milano-Sanremo 2024
Rúben SilvaEditor-in-Chief
A founding contributor to CyclingUpToDate since its launch in January 2022, Ruben Silva has played a central role in shaping the site’s editorial direction and long-term growth. Before joining the project, he built his experience through independent blogging at Echelons Hub and by producing race previews for Ciclismo Internacional, developing a strong analytical voice rooted in daily engagement with professional cycling.
Beyond editorial work, he has been closely involved in the expansion and coordination of CyclingUpToDate’s wider network, helping establish and support sister platforms across multiple languages. This includes ongoing collaboration with CiclismoAlDia (Spanish), CiclismoAtual (Portuguese), WielrennenUpToDate (Dutch), and RadsportAktuell (German), contributing to a shared editorial vision and consistent international coverage.
He also helps oversee editorial governance across the network, setting standards for accuracy and consistency and coordinating updates or corrections when needed.
Originally from the Porto metropolitan area in Portugal, he holds a bachelor’s degree in Geography. His path into cycling journalism was shaped not through formal media training, but through independent reporting, community engagement, and sustained on-the-ground involvement in the sport.
Over the course of his career, he has conducted approximately 100 interviews across road cycling and cyclocross, ranging from one-to-one conversations and online formats to press conferences and on-site pre- and post-race coverage. His interviews include leading riders, team managers, and prominent figures within cycling media: Tadej Pogacar, Jonas Vingegaard, Mathieu van der Poel, Primoz Roglic, Wout van Aert, Joao Almeida and Tom Pidcock; managers like Patrick Lefevere and Joxean Matxin; and YouTube personality Bryan Kennedy (BKXC)...
Within 18 months of launch, he helped grow CyclingUpToDate’s English-language platform into one of the most-read cycling news websites, built entirely from the ground up. As both a professional journalist and lifelong cycling enthusiast, his focus remains on delivering accurate, timely, and well-contextualized coverage.
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- Just looked again at the photo. Yeah I stand by that. If MS had fallen over in Brands direction I don’t even think she would have hit her. You must be a UCI race commissioner. I’ll be sure to check my sock height should I ever see you on a ride. Looks like everyone else on here sees what I see.mij08-11-2026
- I said looking at the photo it doesn’t appear she deviated. Chill out, not stating my word is the final judgement. Just commenting that based on the photo I don’t see it. And BTW the Dutch coach even said she didn’t impede her.mij08-11-2026
- Blah Blah Blah !frieders308-11-2026
- MS said she was changing gears so that caused her slight deviation. Nothing was intentional.frieders308-11-2026
- How can you use a photo post incident to judge the incident itself (which is not hard to find if you’re prepared to invest the same amount of time in searching as writing that comment? It’s harsh but technically right even though this or worse is not always sanctioned in every race. The two things that went against MS (who unfortunately for her would still have won without making her mistake) are that it was not a bunch sprint where there could have been an overlooked incident or mitigating circumstances explaining a deviation. Everything was focused on just those 2, Schreiber was riding beautifully balanced which made her sudden deviation look unnatural stroke as if it could have been in some part intentional whilst she was slowly drifting ever closer towards the barrier to a point that would have reached obstruction level. In her defence, it might have been the realisation she was heading towards that that made her react suddenly and caused the deviation involuntarily. In any case, congratulations to her for the ride of her life, in people’s minds she will be credited for it.Jumpyjohn07-11-2026
- Good boy Obviously doesn’t need that much help dealing with pressure, as some have suggested. Wiser (and humbler) than many far further along their careers. About offering him the moon, recently someone came up with an explanation of the downfall of a football great (either referring to Maradona or Portuguese Ronaldo) saying it was kind of normal after coming back from the moon, except that others, including some who actually did go to the moon like Armstrong (Neil in case anyone is too switched off to realise) didn’t go through any of the same motions after coming back. A lot of how you deal with situations has less to do with the situation than with your character.Jumpyjohn07-11-2026
- I think that they're not really used to dealing with this type of incident in a cyclocross race, and the situation has been magnified because it was a race for a championship title. It's very unfortunate that the race had to be decided in this way.
santiagobenites07-11-2026 - Seriously why do they keep doing stupid things like this. Its one thing to relegate when the placings are minor, when the action is blatant. But when it is ambiguous, why dont they at least take advice from some higher up to avoid embarrassing themselves. This is similar to the Halland goal when his teammate was clearly offside and interfered in play and VAR gave them the goal. if you dont have evidence you cannot convict. Even for doping they have these rulesabstractengineer07-11-2026
- So all those who went to watch, including all from abroad, waled there, spent nothing? Most places hosting events of the sort manage to make it worthwhile. If it was so obviously fruitless, don’t you think by now they’d have run out of hosting candidates? Why do you think the Tour can command such high prices for departure and arrival locations? If it didn’t bring anything locally they’d have to pay to get authorisation to use cities.Jumpyjohn07-11-2026
- What a travesty ! That little deviation did nothing to impede Brand !frieders307-11-2026
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