Tadej Pogacar, Jonas Vingegaard, Mathieu van der Poel: When do the peloton's superstars start their road seasons?
Cycling
The winter break is finally over, and cycling is back. After months of waiting, the peloton has returned to action, and already the racing has provided plenty of talking points. It’s great to be back!
The 2025 season has begun with a mix of WorldTour and smaller races, with riders testing their form and getting back up to speed while others are still waiting for their chance to get going. The sport never truly stops, but there’s something special about the start of the road season, when expectations are high, and every victory feels like a sign of what’s to come.
The early races have already given us some standout performances. Jhonatan Narvaez claimed victory at the Tour Down Under, marking an impressive start to his year. The Ecuadorian rider, riding in his debut race with UAE, showed his strength in the opening WorldTour race and he was rewarded with the victory. Meanwhile, Tom Pidcock took the overall title at the AlUla Tour, securing a strong start to his season and to his career with Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team. It seemed like we were talking about Pidcock’s transfer from INEOS for months, and its good to see that the move is already bringing out the best of him.
Beyond the racing, the UCI has introduced key rule changes for 2025, which could have a significant impact on the sport. One of the biggest changes is the introduction of yellow cards, which will serve as an official warning system before harsher penalties are handed out. This aims to address concerns over inconsistencies in punishments, allowing for clearer decision-making. Another important change is that WorldTour and ProTour riders are no longer allowed to compete in the under-23 World Championships, ensuring that the category remains focused on true development riders. Additionally, women’s race distances have been extended, further aligning them with the men’s calendar and pushing towards greater parity in professional cycling.
Despite all this action, many of the biggest names in cycling have yet to start their campaigns. Mathieu van der Poel has been busy winning his seventh Cyclocross World Championship, while Wout van Aert also completed his cyclocross season before switching his focus to the road. In the coming weeks, we will finally see the sport’s biggest stars return to competition.
When do the big names start racing?
Not all riders have revealed their full schedules yet, but here’s what we know so far about when some of the sport’s biggest stars will make their 2025 debuts.
Pogacar’s 2024 season was one of the greatest in cycling history. He won the Giro d’Italia, Tour de France, and the World Championships, securing a place among the sport’s all-time greats.
The question on everyone’s lips has been the one his fellow riders must be dreading: surely he can’t get any better?
Well, we’ll soon find out. Pogacar is gearing up for another ambitious season, with his first race of the year coming at the UAE Tour. A race he has dominated in previous years such as in 2021 and 2022, it will serve as an early test before he moves on to the spring classics campaign.
Unlike to last year, Pogacar is taking on more races in the spring, including a title defence at Strade Bianche, Milano–Sanremo (his main target for the spring), E3 Saxo Classic, and the Tour of Flanders. So, his spring schedule looks more similar to his plan from back in 2023, where he won in Flanders, and not in 2024 where he had a quieter spring ahead of his Giro-Tour double.
Evenepoel’s 2025 season will see him take on the Tour de France for the second time, after winning the white jersey and coming third on debut last year. But, that shouldn’t be in Evenepoel’s mind just yet, as he is in a race against time to reach full fitness after the double Olympic champion suffered a training crash with a delivery van in late 2024.
His season will hopefully begin at Brabantse Pijl in April, a race that suits his punchy riding style and will help him build towards the Ardennes Classics, where he will again aim for Liège-Bastogne-Liege, a race he has already won twice.
Pogacar will also be at the Ardennes Classics, meaning it is around two months before we see the first meeting between the triple crown winner and the double Olympic champion in 2025.
The two-time Tour de France champion has opted for a Tour-Vuelta double in 2025, meaning his preparation will be built around reaching peak form in July. His season will begin at the Volta ao Algarve and then he will head to Paris-Nice, a race he was beaten in by Pogacar in 2023. Later in the year, he will take on the Critérium du Dauphiné, a key warm-up race for the Tour.
His biggest objective remains reclaiming the Tour de France title. After losing out to Pogacar last year, Vingegaard will be eager to secure his third yellow jersey this year and not let Pogacar get his fourth.
More importantly, Vingegaard will hope to have a crash-less spring, as his entire 2024 campaign was nearly derailed by his horror crash in the Basque Country last year.
Mathieu van der Poel
Fresh from his record equalling Cyclocross World Championship victory, Van der Poel will soon turn his attention to the road. He has not yet confirmed whether he will start at Paris-Nice or Tirreno-Adriatico, but his focus is clear: the spring classics. He will be defending his Tour of Flanders title and will look to complete a hat trick of Paris-Roubaix titles. Can anyone stop him this year?
His dominance on the cobbles last season made him nearly unbeatable. The question for 2025 is whether anyone can stop him, a certain Tadej Pogacar in Flanders may have something to say about that.
Roglic’s move to BORA-hansgrohe was one of the biggest transfer stories of last season, and now he is ready to begin his second year with his new team. His first race with his new team will be the Volta ao Algarve on February 19, followed by the Volta a Catalunya in March.
His main focus will be on the Giro d’Italia and Tour de France double, an ambitious challenge that will test whether he still has what it takes to compete for Grand Tour victories at 35 years old.
Wout van Aert
Van Aert’s season will begin at Clasica Jaen before he also heads to Portugal for the Volta ao Algarve. He will also race at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, the traditional Belgian season-opener. He has confirmed that he will once again hope to finally win either the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix, but the biggest news of his 2025 campaign is his decision to ride the Giro d’Italia for the first time.
Will this finally be the year Van Aert secures his first monument since 2020?
What can we expect in the coming weeks?
With several major names yet to race, February and March will be crucial in shaping the rest of the season. The cogs are turning, and the pedals are beginning to spin on the new season, and we can’t wait until the big guns dust off the cobwebs for another year of supreme action.
The addition of Pogacar at the Tour of Flanders could be huge, will we see him and Van der Poel pick up where they left off in 2023? Can Van Aert get in the mix? And then there’s Remco Evenepoel, how long will it take before we see the best of him? And lets not forget Jonas Vingegaard, who as usual will go about things more quietly than others with the dream of yellow defining his every move.
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- Whatever the result, I believe the strategy by UAE to launch Pogacar was absolutely the right one. Unfortunately, they just were not able to execute it the way they must have planned, being all over the place at the start of the Cipressa.Cooldude23-03-2025
- They are without doubt not just the best two classics riders of this generation, but amongst the best of all time. MvdP is more suited to MSR and PR (which Pog has yet to race), while Pog is now almost untouchable at LBL and Lombardia. RVV is the only one where both basically have an equal chance to win.Cooldude23-03-2025
- bravissima!
maria2024202423-03-2025 - According to Tadej's Strava upload, he went up the Cipressa at an average speed of 37.6kph. Rocket ship! He did the 5.63km verified 'Cipressa' Strava segment in 8:59 minutes, which has a 4.3% average grade and total elevation gain of 229m. Naturally, he got the Strava KOM.Pogboom23-03-2025
- In Track and Field, there's Usain Bolt in the sprints and Kenya's Kipchoge in the marathon. Though Bolt can quite easily beat Kipchoge in the 100m dash, he probably won't even finish a marathon. Tadej won't beat Mathieu in a sprint, yet he wins the TDF while MVDP languishes in 50th place. Both are great champions in their respective fields, but my admiration goes to Tadej for trying.FredMan23-03-2025
- They went into the race as co-leaders!frieders323-03-2025
- He can win that sprint if he plays it right but leaving tha gap was ridiculous ! A spring after 6+ hours isn't a guarantee for MVDPfrieders323-03-2025
- The climbs are steeper on Flanders giving Pogi the advanatge as we saw before when he won!frieders323-03-2025
- VDP is best in a short sprint, so Pog was purposely leaving a gap in hopes that VDP wouldn't have enough to sprint for 310 meters at the end of 300 KM. Kwiatkowski did the same thing to Sagan at that same point and won because of it.acem8223-03-2025
- Ganna started winning the occasional end of season sprint a few years ago. It's been fun watching him change from a TT specialist into something more.RidesHills23-03-2025