Remco Evenepoel is one of the many stars that has flown in to Barcelona where this weekend the Tour de France peloton will begin its 2026 edition. On the CyclingUpToDate Podcast, Rben Silva and Kieran Wood have talked about the Olympic Champion's ambitions, the pressure that surrounds him and detai...

Todays stage should put the grand in the grand dpart as a tour of Barcelonas attractions and history with the yellow jersey up for grabs.The Route: a 19.6km team time trial, the first time the Tour has opened with a collective effort since the 1971 prologue.The profile and map above say plenty, its all big boulevards with 90 corners on a persistent but very gentle rise. As the roads are wide, so are the bends.The final 5km sees the course head to the Montjuic hill. Here its still on wide roads, but with two marked climbs, the second is notably steeper. In past versions of these team time trials weve seen team leaders hit out alone to go for the win but this time the slope is more gentle and any solo flourish ought to come right at the end, a strong squad should be able to lead out their boss well into the final climb.The Rules: Paris-Nice rules, the format that has been used since the Dampierre stage of Paris-Nice in 2023. The time for each team is taken on their first rider to cross the line, and each rider gets credited with the time it takes them to complete the course. This means two things:a team is no longer as fast as its fourth or fifth rider, it doesnt have to finish as a group. If one rider sprints solo to the line and sets the fastest time, their team wins the stagea team with a specialist rouleur can let them go off the front to get the stage win but if they have a GC rider as well, then they get the time they cross the line with. Therefore teams with ambitions for the overall have to guide their leaders to the best time possibleThe Contenders: this stage feels like a selection trap. It has lured several teams into picking squads perfect for today in the hope of immediate glory and avoiding potential losses to rivals but its only 20km long.Netcompany-Ineos are a case in point, stacking the team with time trial riders including Josh Tarling who broke his collarbone three weeks ago. If you also have them as your prime pick, then which rider is left to sprint up the the final ramp in Montjuic? On paper Kvin Vauquelin goes for glory as its just the kind of intense effort to suit an ex-pursuit rider, and Frenchman in yellow would be a publicity bonanza but he was touch-and-go for selection after recent illness. But it could equally be a rampant Ganna.Visma-LAB also bring Edoardo Affini after injury last weekend to boost an already strong squad. They won the Aura Tour stage. The course was very different but look at the riders theyve swapped out and they only look stronger for today.Lidl-Trek have a very good squad and Juan Ayuso, born in Barcelona, would make a fitting yellow jersey. Mathias Vacek was ominous in the Tour de Suisse but they dont have the Ganna-like rider to pull them 1-2km/h faster but will rely on cohesion late into the stage.UAE have a poor record in team time trials, often because theyve ridden without Pogaar who is both an engine and a talisman. Pogaar could theoretically take yellow and aim to keep it Paris for then challenge but thats a tall order, the team is obviously strong four riders here were in the top-10 in the Suisse TT stage but can be out-muscled on a short, flat course, plus theyre likely to be a little short on technique. As an anecdote to illustrate, several teams booked the Catalunya motorsport circuit for practice, reserving exclusive 90 minute sessions. But RMC Radio said Lampre UAE showed up without a booking and tried to barter with TotalEnergies to use their slot but the French team said non.Redbull-Bora-Hansgrohe look solid but how much does Remco Evenepoel pull during the stage versus how much does he back off in order to better launch up the final climb?Any surprises? This blog will give you a refund if none of the five teams cited above win. Its notable Mathieu van der Poel went all out in the Tour de Suisse time trial and Alpecin-PremierTech want to do well so he can get in yellow if he can win on Sunday with the time bonus if they wont win here, keeping him in time bonus range is a tall order. Jayco have the TTT in their DNA; EF look cohesive; Movistar are not chaos engine of the past.Because today is under 20km the time gaps will be small anyway and while plenty of focus will go on extrapolating the time gaps, a reminder that UAE gave up a minute in the Aura Tour TTT but Isaac del Toro won well ahead of the rest.While some teams today know they wont win, all have an interest in going flat out. Riders might find themselves in a breakaway in the coming days and being the first on GC in the group could give them the yellow jersey.Netcompany-IneosVisma-LAB, Lidl-Trek, UAE, Red BullWeather: sunny and warm, 33C. A light SE breeze at 12-15km/h means a headwind for much of the course and this could gust to 35km/h at times. Itll drop during the race, a slight advantage for later starters.TV: the first team is Caja Rural starting at 5.05pm and UAE start last at 6.55pm CEST. If you tune in for the final hour youll catch most of the action.The post Tour de France Stage 1 Preview first appeared on The Inner Ring.

In order to shift the balance of points classification battle, ASO has made a change to the points system. Now, there'll be 70 points awarded to winner of "bunch sprint" stages - a change which affects the plans of many participants including Mads Pedersen. The 30-year-old has already won the points...

Christian Prudhomme rounds off his two decades in charge of Tour de France this Friday with a Grand Dpart in Barcelona. And the 2026 edition could be massive for the French cycling fans with the debut of their dauphin Paul Seixas. The edition kicks off with a 20-kilometer team time trial in Barcelo...

Comment & Analysis: In the blink of an eye, a near-130 metre section of Jervis Street was made two-way to appease some car park owners about making Capel Street car-free.There are some exceptions (mainly during Covid and a few recent bus lanes linked to BusConnects changes), but few traffic changes this large are implemented without public consultation and debate. If you Google two-way Jervis Street, youll find details not on the city councils website, but on the websites of car parks and on the business group DublinTown.According to Dublin Towns website, the car park enhancement plan on Jervis Street was apparently a trial.At this stage or from the start, some people reading this might already be thinking: Sure, cycling is allowed on Capel Street, so why bother with allowing it two-way on Jervis Street? Theres a few reasons:Dublin needs a cycle network, not just single routes.Jervis Street is a primary route in the GDA Cycle Network PlanHaving parallel routes means that the volume of people cycling is more split between the two routes, with people who are in more of a rush maybe choosing Jervis Street instead.In the old GDA Cycle Network Plan, Capel Street was the primary cycle route, and Jervis Street was a secondary route its likely that should be switched around, but for the other reasons listed above, its still useful to have Jervis Street as a solid link in the cycle network.This is an outline of the traffic layout currently on the street:The changes allow people driving out of the car parks on the street to get back to the quays without going around and down Church Street, etc. The changes also allow for people using the DublinBikes station or the general bicycle parking on the street to also use this route towards the quays westbound Ive used it while stopping off on the street on the way to Heuston Station:Jervis Street does not go the full way to the quays; the last bit between Great Strand Street and the Quays is Swifts Row:Swifts Row is likely the most difficult section, as far as I can see, there are two options:;Remove/relocate the loads/parking on the east side (left of this photo) and insert a contra-flow cycle track.Remove it and put in a two-way cycle path (it only works well with a two-way path in the mid section, see below).Allow contra-flow without lanes it might seem like a hard call to allow it here with how busy it is, but allowing contra-flow here would be better than having people cycle around a longer way with more risks. Width-wise, it should work, and an exit treatment could be put in place at the quays.The latter option above can be implemented more quickly than the other two. If the council cannot give space to cycling, some action is better than none.For the middle section, the two options are: Leave it as two-way for general access traffic and cycling.Install a two-way cycle path on one side of the road.As shown below, there is not enough space for two-way car access and any kind of cycle path:North of the entrance/exit to Jervis Shopping Centre car park, theres space for a two-way cycle path, and theres little reason not to install such:Theres really no reason for action not to be taken. There might be some difficulty, including how to design the junction with Parnell Street, but theres nothing that cannot be overcome if there is a will to get it done quickly.

Romain Grgoire has been crowned the successor to Dorian Godon as French national champion - one of the most prestigious special jerseys out there. Carrying this momentum, the 23-year-old hopes to find success at the upcoming Tour de France with eyes set on a potential stage win. "I feel incredibly...

Rben Silva and Kieran Wood have discussed Netcompany INEOS' lineup for the 2026 Tour de France on the CyclingUpToDate Podcast, tackling the removal of Carlos Rodrguez, what the team's ambitions must be and if the British team can even hold the yellow jersey at some point in the race. The team's G...

Bookmakers were thrown into panic in April when a French teenager won three stages and the overall at Itzulia Basque Country. They might not have heard of him, but at that moment, Decathlon CMA CGM's 19-year-old wonderkid Paul Seixas became the youngest rider in history to win a World Tour stage race presenting the bookies with a problem. Could this upstart kid win the Tour de France? Too terrified to rule it out, they slashed Seixas's odds to 5/1, making him joint second-favourite, with two-time champion Jonas Vingegaard, to win the world's biggest race.Surely the bookies were being overcautious. Not since 1937 has a rider younger than Seixas started the Tour, let alone won it. Besides, at the time of Itzulia, the Frenchman hadn't even committed to making his Tour debut that would come a month later, with a social media video of him breaking the news to his grandparents. As of today, the longest stage race Seixas has finished was just eight days. But the manner of his Itzulia victory showcased a physical maturity that makes those statistics practically irrelevant. Bolstered by the hopes of a home nation desperate to end a four-decade drought, Seixas arrives with the kind of boundless momentum that signals one of the most captivating Tour debuts ever.Seixas proved he could time trial as a junior. (Image credit: Getty Images)The youngster's rise has been genuinely unprecedented. After winning the junior time trial world title in 2024, he turned pro at 18, and has since won a major Classic (Flche Wallonne), finished runner-up in a Monument (Lige-Bastogne-Lige), and podiumed at the elite European Championships, all before his 20th birthday. Tadej Pogaar was, at the same age, yet to become a pro cyclist; as for Vingegaard, he was still working part-time in a fish factory. Even the great Eddy Merckx, the most prolific cyclist of all time, was 20 when he took his first of more than 500 victories. Seixas's physical talents are undeniable, then, but what no one can predict is how well he'll handle the psychological toll. How does a 19-year-old shoulder the heavy hopes of a win-starved nation? France in July is a pressure cooker of national pride, catalysed by a media deprived of a homegrown champion since Bernard Hinault in 1985. It's a pressure that has, over the years, overwhelmed even hardened veterans. Now it's the turn of a teenager to try and bring the yellow jersey home.Victory at Flche Wallonne proved a launchpad for his career in April. (Image credit: Getty Images)Chris Froome is the earliest Tour winner Seixas remembers watching. He was just six years old when he sat alongside his paternal grandfather Jos Manuel following the 2013 edition on TV. Two years later, he started riding with local cycling club Lyon Sprint Evolution. Seixas would visit his grandparents in the Alps regularly, and train on the 4km climb behind their house. At eight years old, he was already riding "as if he had three lungs", according to his former coach Marc Pacheco.Yet anyone assuming this early promise translated into immediate, untouchable dominance would be mistaken. He was small for his age "he had the motor of a Ferrari in the body of a Renault Twingo," Pacheco told RMC Sport. Camille Charret, now of Cofidis, first met Seixas when the two were 12 and competing in the same local race circuit. "He was a very late bloomer, really thin, but still very strong for his size," Charret says. "He didn't win all the time. He won regularly, but not every weekend. He wasn't dominating."Media attention will be heightened at the Tour de France. (Image credit: Getty Images)That changed around the time Seixas and Charret became team-mates at VC Villefranche Beaujolais in 2021. Seixas won the under-17 national road championships that July, a breakthrough victory that cemented his promise but changed nothing about his character. "He's very humble," Charret says, noting a laidback approach that extended to his team-mate's housekeeping "when you're sharing a room with Paul, you can't be scared of mess," Charret laughs and, crucially, in how he absorbed the weight of always being the favourite. "Even when the whole team was counting on him, he never seemed stressed. It's not at all in his nature." Still, the Tour's a different beast to junior racing, and the French fans, for all their polka-dot-clad passion, can be demanding. Might Seixas fare differently with millions watching? Charret doesn't think so. "Knowing him, he's a bit how can I say this without causing offence? euphorique, a bit lost sometimes. I don't think he clocks everything," he says. "He can be really detached from things, and that's an advantage in cycling because it means he doesn't know what's waiting for him. He doesn't put pressure on himself, because he knows what he can do. Clearly it works."Leading in the Basque country came naturally to the young Frenchman. (Image credit: Getty Images)Seixas's ability to handle pressure will be tested as never before this July. Until now, he has risen to the hype; on his Strade Bianche debut, he finished second to Pogaar, and did the same at Lige-Bastogne-Lige, a race he won as a junior just two years ago. When his Tour participation was announced in May, the media furore took on a new dimension. Former French pro Pierre Rolland hailed Seixas as "the chosen one" on L'quipe's evening television show, saying he was "born to win" the Tour. National outlets Le Monde and France24 both labelled him a "prodigy".Then, just three weeks ago, as Seixas-mania swelled, disaster struck. On the penultimate stage of the Tour Auvergne-Rhne-Alpes, he crashed heavily, then somehow closed a four-minute gap to get back to the bunch before collapsing at the finish, childlike, in his father Emmanuel's arms. "I'll keep fighting until I have nothing left in my legs," the bloodied rider said afterwards. That moment came the following day, when he was dropped on the opening climb and abandoned the stage, his arms heavily bandaged.A heavy crash at the Tour Auvergne-Rhne-Alpes was the low point of Seixas's year so far. (Image credit: Getty Images)The race had been supposed to stamp Seixas as a main contender for the Tour. Instead, the bookies swung his odds back out to 10/1. L'quipe published eight articles on its website documenting Seixas's crash and withdrawal. Le Figaro, one of the country's biggest national newspapers, published nine. Fortunately, the injuries were inconsequential, but the saga served to remind that the rider described as "buitenaardse", or extraterrestrial, by Belgian outlet Sporza was, in fact, human. It also showed that, win or lose, Seixas remains a huge news story."The media has to have a balanced approach, and avoid starting hazardous comparisons with Hinault or Pogaar when he hasn't won that much yet."Alexandre Roos, L'Equipe's chief cycling writerHow, then, might the media approach his Tour debut? Alexandre Roos, L'quipe's chief cycling writer, is wary of "overselling" Seixas's prospects. "The media has to have a balanced approach," he tells Cycling Weekly, "and avoid starting hazardous comparisons with Hinault or Pogaar when he hasn't won that much yet." Roos believes Seixas is right to ride the Tour this year to "get used to it early" adding that the media should not be expected to treat him differently from any other high-profile rider. "His team particularly has to protect him, because they can't prevent the media from writing about him."From Twingo to Ferrari - Paul Seixas's rapid career progressionSeptember 2006: Born in Lyon as the first child of karate practitioners Emmanuel and Emanuelle Seixas. July 2013: Watches the Tour de France for the first time with his grandfather Jos Manuel. 2014: Joins his first cycling club, Lyon Sprint Evolution. 2021: Moves to Anse, north of Lyon, and joins VC Villefranche Beaujolais. July 2021: Wins under-17 title at the French Road Championships. January 2022: Wins under-17 title at the French Cyclo-cross Championships. January 2023: Joins AG2R Citron U19, the feeder team for the team now called Decathlon CMA CGM. September 2026: Wins the junior time trial at the UCI World Championships in Switzerland, a day before his 18th birthday. January 2025: Turns pro with Decathlon-AG2R La Mondiale, despite being courted by all the top teams. June 2025: Enjoys a breakthrough ride at the Critrium du Dauphin, finishing 8th overall. August 2025: Wins the Tour de l'Avenir, the under-23 Tour de France, still only 18. October 2025: Finishes third behind Tadej Pogaar and Remco Evenepoel in the road race at the European Championships. April 2026: Wins three stages and the overall at Itzulia Basque Country; wins Flche Wallonne; finishes runner-up at Lige-Bastogne-Lige. May 2026: Decathlon CMA CGM announce he will make his Tour debut in July. June 2026: Abandons the Tour Auvergne-Rhne-Alpes while sixth in GC after crashing hard on stage seven.At Decathlon CMA CGM, Seixas has a designated press officer who deals with his interview requests. It's a measure only super-talents like Pogaar and Peter Sagan have had before him. In researching this feature, Cycling Weekly asked to speak to Seixas's coach and a sports director, but our requests were denied by the team; a press officer assured us it wasn't personal, it was policy. To assist him further in navigating the pressure, the team has drafted in Romain Bardet as an aide well qualified for the job as the last Frenchman to finish on the podium at the Tour (third in 2017) and joint holder of the best French GC result this century (second in 2016). The man who shares that accolade with Bardet is Jean-Christophe Praud, the 2014 Tour's runner-up. Did he find it hard to cope with the home pressure that year? "No, absolutely not. I was focused on my personal objectives in the race," Praud says. "I was also lucky that the media didn't take a lot of interest in me because I only went into second place after the time trial, the day before the Champs-Elyses. They were focused on Thibaut [Pinot] and Romain, the young guard. The media had chosen their little sweethearts, and I was protected behind that." It also helped that Praud was already a mature, experienced rider. A latecomer to road cycling, having started out in mountain biking, the Frenchman was 34 when he made his Tour debut, and 37 almost twice Seixas's age when he finished second. The expectations on him, he acknowledges, were not as great as they will be for his teenage compatriot. Even so, he does not foresee Seixas being fazed by the furore this July. "It's about your mentality and how you apply it," Praud says. "Performance is about maturity, and you can be mature in your discipline at 19 years old, just as you can be at 25, 30 or 35." He goes further. "It'll be easy for Paul. He knows what he wants and where he's going, and he's got the legs for it. I get the impression that media pressure just runs off him. [The team should] just let him be. He's ready."Seixas addressed a room of more than 100 reporters on Thursday evening. (Image credit: Getty Images)The portrait of Seixas ahead of his Tour debut is one of a calm and fearless racer, a boy who can retreat into his bubble, undaunted by immense expectation. In interviews, he has seemed bullish about his prospects - prompting his maternal grandmother Annie to joke to Le Tlgramme that he had "some nerve". Her grandson had been quoted in a team press release saying: "It is not in my nature, nor is it my conception of cycling, to compete in the Tour de France with the sole aim of learning the ropes." The preparation is over. Seixas spent the second half of May on a training camp in Spain's Sierra Nevada, racking up more than 37,000m of climbing in just two weeks, before heading to the Pyrenees to recon the key mountain stages. It's a lot of volume, a lot of stress on the body of a teenager; yet, as Seixas's results have shown, he isn't like other riders his age. Is there a serious chance he could upset the bookies? "He can be in the mix for the podium this year, and probably win it in the next three years," says L'quipe writer Roos. Decathlon CMA CGM are being more cautious. "At 19, in the Tour de France, there's no such thing as failure," said sports director Luke Rowe on his podcast Watts Occurring. "Being on the start line is already a success." The yellow jersey odds may be against him, but Seixas is ready to have a punt.