The curtain rises on European street racing this Saturday, with the early season program forming a five-week-long build-up all the way in which to the primary WorldTour-level occasions for women and men on the continent, the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad in Belgium on March 1.
The depth of modern-day racing is such now that it appears onerous to imagine that there was as soon as a preferred notion that these late January and February occasions have been merely ‘coaching with race numbers.’ However that idea is lengthy since lifeless and buried.
“Coaching is one thing you do at residence,” Joxean Fernández Matxin, sports activities supervisor at UAE Crew Emirates-XRG just lately advised Cyclingnews. “Every time we race, it does not matter what stage the occasion, we race to win.”
On condition that Matxin’s crew have been probably the most prolifically profitable of 2025, to not point out taking two out of three Grand Excursions and two out of 5 Monuments, that’s clearly no mere boast. But when UAE will certainly be hitting the bottom working once more this spring in Europe, their rivals are usually not far behind.
Moreover, with relegation and promotion looming subsequent December, UCI factors at any time of the 2025 season are arguably extra coveted this 12 months than every other within the WorldTour cycle. This arguably makes for each harder-fought competitions, and it definitely makes for advanced strategic selections for groups – do they race the place most factors are on supply or the place they’re most certainly to get them? – proper from the phrase go.
There’s additionally the query of getting what Chris Boardman famously as soon as described as ‘insurance coverage’. By which the highest former UK racer meant that just a few comparatively minor wins within the bag early on make for a major drop in strain additional down the road.
The street calendar is already in full swing on the opposite aspect of the world after all, on the Tour Down Below and Cadel Evans Nice Ocean Races, and as soon as the Australian racing is over, at WorldTour stage, the Center East will decide up the slack on the UAE Excursions, deep into subsequent month.
However albeit at a decrease class – and far decrease temperatures on the market on the street, too – with regards to race curiosity, Europe is way from lagging behind. And, as a means of constructing anticipation for the primary physique of the street racing calendar later within the 12 months, too, the early season occasions of January and February on the Outdated Continent at all times have a significant contribution to make.
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Spain, Spain or…Spain to get the ball rolling
Each for the men and women’s elite, with regards to getting European street racing underway subsequent week, just one nation issues: Spain.
Throughout the Spanish borders, too, it is no coincidence that every one occasions subsequent week happen on the jap aspect of the nation, too, the place the climate tends to be the warmest right now of 12 months. It is also the place lots of the groups are nonetheless holding coaching camps.
First off on the ladies’s calendar are three one-day races held on consecutive days on the island of Mallorca, the Trofeo Marratxi-Felanitx (Saturday, January 25), the Trófeo Palma Femina (Sunday, January 26) and the Trofeo Binnisalem-Andratx (Monday, January 27). All ranked 1.1 and at 130 kilometres or much less, these ‘Problem Mallorca Femenina’ races are a current addition to the calendar, beginning in 2024. They mirror the a lot longer-standing collection of back-to-back one-day races for the boys on the identical island, which begin later in the identical week.
Marratxi-Felanitx is a lumpy 129-kilometre run by the south of the island, with Mallorca-born Mavi Garcia, using for the Spanish Nationwide squad, and main Italian sprinter Chiara Consonni, on her new crew Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto, two of the headline names. Palma Femina gives a a lot more durable profile, with two cat 3 climbs afterward and an uphill end on the citadel within the island capital. Binnisalem-Andratx ends the three-day collection with a brief however ferociously punchy journey by the mountains on the western aspect of Mallorca, concluding with a steep cat.1 uphill end in Andratx Port.
In the meantime, elite males’s racing opens up on the opposite aspect of the Mediterranean within the easterly area of Valencia. Though the primary occasion on the Spanish calendar is the 1.2-ranked Camp de Morvedre one-day Basic on Friday, the primary time lots of the WorldTour peloton could be seen in motion in Europe might be on the GP Castellón on Saturday, January 25.
One other comparatively current addition to the boys’s calendar, the 1.1-ranked one-day race within the northern aspect of Valencia was created to advertise the area’s well-established cerámica [pottery] trade, therefore its full title: Gran Premio Castellón-Ruta de la Cerámica.
A really hilly affair, too, that includes a 14-kilometre cat.3 climb, the Alto de Serratella, early on, and the brief however punchy cat.2 ascent up Col de Ayodar in direction of the finale, Castellón is as more likely to be determined by a break as it’s by a small group dash. Final 12 months it was gained by Michael Matthews (Jayco-AIUIa), who will as soon as once more be headlining the race begin listing in 2025.
Sizzling on the heels of the GP Castellòn is the equally rugged Clàssica Communitat Valenciana 1969-Gran Premi València, one other 1.1 race which runs out of the regional capital and south by the mountains to the small city of La Nucia.
The realm is well-known to many groups due to their coaching camps, and UAE Crew Emirates, who used to have many winter camps in La Nucia, would be the greatest crew on the beginning line at their second European occasion of 2025.
Alternating between flat finales like in 2024 and far hillier ones like in 2023 and 2025, it is onerous to foretell who will succeed Arnaud De Lie (Lotto) and Dylan Groenewegen (Jayco-AIUIa) because the final two winners. However Spanish Nationwide Champion Alex Aranburu (Cofidis), who’s proved his aptitude on such various, hilly terrain prior to now in his native Basque Nation, may nicely be in with a shout.
5 days in Mallorca
Is it a one-day race? Is it a stage race? No, it is the Problem Mallorca. For years one of many first races in Europe, the Problem has one of many oddest codecs, too, with as much as 5 one-day races held back-to-back on consecutive days.
However given the Problem Ciclista Mallorca – to offer the races their full title – has been working since 1992 for the elite males, it is clearly an efficient format, given it permits riders to drop out and in of various races, relying on their long-term objectives. And when the Problem Mallorca Femenina started in 2024, the construction was the identical, too.
One key to success, too, is their selection. The opening Trofeo Calvia on Wednesday, January 29 is hilly whereas the Trofeo Ses Salines on January 30 is way flatter. Trofeo Serra Tramuntana on January 31 and Trofeo Andratx on February 1 take the riders into the mountainous northwesterly aspect of the island, whereas the ultimate Trofeo Palma on Sunday, February 2 sees the riders conclude their island sojourn with a number of flat laps of the capital. Then after the virtually inevitable bunch dash to shut out the Problem, it is straight to the close by airport for a flight again to mainland Spain – or past.
France will get going
After over every week of solely racing in Spain, the final day of the Problem Mallorca overlaps with the primary day of the biking calendar in France, on the one-day Grand Prix Cycliste la Marseillaise.
Operating deep into the hills above the Mediterranean French port earlier than dropping right down to the coast for a end, Marseillaise’s palmares incorporates an intriguing mixture of Classics and time-trialling specialists, like final 12 months’s winner Kevin Geniets (Groupama-FDJ) and climbers corresponding to Aurélien Paret-Peintre (Decathlon-AG2R La Mondiale). One of many delights of early season racing is its unpredictability, the truth is, and Marseillaise is a number one instance.
Three days later and just some hours drive additional north, France celebrates its first stage race of the season, the longstanding Étoile de Bessèges – Tour du Gard. Received by Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) final 12 months, Bessèges tends to consist of 4 more and more onerous phases captured primarily (however not solely) by sprinters able to getting over the smaller climbs, earlier than a last brief time trial.
It’s typically affected by the occasional spell of powerful wintry climate circumstances, and historically Bessèges is a course which includes a fair proportion of flat, uncovered terrain, typically working on technical, twisting nation backroads. In consequence, echelons and time bonuses on the mass begin phases could nicely as soon as once more play their half in deciding the general winner – however usually it is the ultimate, last-day time trial which has the final phrase.
Valencia sure
If this 12 months’s version of the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana (February 5-9) and Vuelta CV Feminas (February 9) appear notably emotive affairs, do not be stunned. The tragic occasions of final autumn, which noticed a whole lot of individuals perish within the worst mass flooding in Valencia’s trendy historical past, will present a sombre backdrop to a area nonetheless battling to search out its toes, restore the immense harm brought about, and are available to phrases with what occurred.
Few particulars have but to emerge, and the one-day Vuelta CV Feminas race route is as but unpublished and the beginning and end cities are virtually the one official knowledge obtainable for the boys’s race. Logistically the organisers themselves have been amongst these badly hit by the flooding, with the race headquarters and materials all affected. However after some preliminary doubts, they lastly introduced the race would go forward.
What is thought to this point is that this 12 months’s Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana kicks off in Orihuela within the area’s deep south with an intriguingly lengthy 34-kilometre crew time trial, adopted by two mountainous mid-race phases and a last run into the area’s capital on Sunday, February 9.
At the very least two of the later phases will run by areas most badly affected by the flooding, within the phrases of the Spanish sports activities each day MARCA “not simply to try to present a better [media] profile for what occurred, but additionally to supply these affected a small and short-term technique of reduction from a scenario which stays extraordinarily delicate.”
The French custom continues
Again within the Sixties and Nineteen Seventies, coaching camps in southern France for prime Belgian and Dutch groups have been as frequent as they’re in southern Spain now for nearly all of the squads, and alongside them, a collection of one-day and stage races developed to offer the celebs an opportunity to undergo their early season paces. Together with GP Marseillaise and the Étoile de Besseges, the Tour de la Provence (February 14-16), Basic Var (February 21) and the Tour des Alpes Maritimes et du Var (February 22-23) all proceed with that custom.
Maybe as a result of it is the earliest, the Tour de la Provence has the simplest route, with a lumpy stage beginning within the regional capital, Marseille, opening up proceedings. Then stage 2 from Forlcalquier to Manosque is by far the toughest, taking in 2,335 metres of vertical climbing and a fearsome cat.1 ascent of Col de L’Aire Deimasco, halfway by the day. Stage 3 from Rognac to Arles is lengthy (197 kilometres) however rather more simple, though crosswinds on the flat Camargue marshlands may but do some harm within the GC.
On the next weekend, the one-day Basic Var is barely being held for the second time. In 2024, it cut up off from the next two-day race, the Tour des Alpes Maritimes et du Var, the organisers taking a leaf out of the Problem Mallorca playbook and holding two separate occasions to extend the potential for additional publicity.
Whatever the format, the formulation stays the identical as when Var and Alpes Maritimes have been all one race with a historical past stretching again to 1969 and a primary version gained by Raymond Poulidor. Whereas it’s a one-day race, Var has retained a typical stage 1 rolling course with a tough finale, whereas Alpes Maritimes sticks to having numerous mountains together with the Col d’Eze – of Paris-Good fame – and Col de Châteuneuf alongside the way in which.
Full rosters are a good distance from being determined, however Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) is already slated for the marginally extra Classics-rider-friendly Tour de la Provence. In the meantime within the Basic Var-Alpes Maritimes combo’, Basic defending champion Lenny Martinez (Bahrain Victorious) would be the large draw for the native followers each on the one-day race on Friday, February 21 and over the next weekend, too.
Spain’s one-way ticket south
Curious however true: yearly Spain’s early season races run in a single unbroken clockwise arc, beginning on its jap seaboard in Mallorca and Valencia for the primary races in late January, then on southwards to the one-day Classics in Murcia and Alicante, after which lastly westwards, first for the Clásica Jaén after which the five-day Vuelta a Andalucia-Ruta del Sol.
The five-week trek south and east throughout Spain solely stops this 12 months on the ultimate stage of Andalucia on February 23, when it reaches the area’s most southerly metropolis of La Línea de la Concepción, with Morocco a scant 14 kilometres additional away throughout the Strait of Gibraltar.
The elite ladies’s calendar follows an analogous route, beginning in Mallorca and the one-day Vuelta CV Féminas in Valencia and persevering with in the identical area for the unwieldily named Setmana Ciclista Volta Femenina de la Comunitat Valenciana.
The primary European-based stage race on the ladies’s calendar, the Setmana has been steadily rising up the classes because it started in 2016 as a 2.2 race, shifting as much as 2.1 in 2021 and a pair of.Professional in 2023. In 2025’s version from February 13-16, it retains a four-day format, and as soon as once more, too, boasts a formidable (albeit provisional for now) begin listing, with each Marianne Vos (Visma-Lease a Bike) and Demi Vollering (FDJ-SUEZ) pencilled in to race.
Per week later the elite ladies’s calendar follows the identical course of Spanish journey as the boys, with the Clasica de Almería within the nation’s most south-easterly area. Run by the identical organisation for the boys’s Clasica de Almerica because it started in 2023, Almeria has had rather more rugged routes than the elite males’s race and it will be fascinating to see if that tendency continues. It has a curious observe report of being gained by only one squad up to now, Cynisca, and by solely North American racers, too: Emilie Fortin of Canada took her one profession victory to this point in 2023 adopted by gravel star Lauren Stephens of the USA in 2024.
After Comunitat Valenciana, the elite males’s Spanish racing calendar continues with the Vuelta a la Región de Murcia on Saturday, February 15. Because the title suggests it is a former stage race squeezed down over time to a single day. Irrespective of: it is undulating course, typically concluding with a trek over the Cat.2 Collada de la Gallina climb earlier than bombing again down the very technical descent and into the close by metropolis capital, virtually invariably produces among the most enjoyable racing of the early season: witness Ben O’Connor’s dramatic solo successful assault final February, for instance.
The sprinters then come to the fore for the Clásica de Almeria on February 16 – a pleasing however normally considerably predictable run previous the limitless seas of plastic greenhouses that dominate some components of the province – and that is adopted 24 hours later by one other race in jap Andalucia, the Clásica Jaén. As the primary race of the season recurrently to function off-road sections, the ‘Basic of the Olive Groves’ has proved extremely popular with followers because it started in 2022, and Wout van Aert’s return there this 12 months can also be more likely to be a significant draw.
After one of the current additions to the Spanish street calendar, subsequent up is one in every of its most veteran occasions, the Vuelta a Andalucia-Ruta del Sol, which celebrates the centenary of its first version this 12 months. Lowered to a single five-kilometre time trial final 12 months due to farmer’s protests, this 12 months Andalucia is again to its full 5 phases – all of them very hilly, barring the ultimate Sunday’s flatter last run alongside the coast. High individuals will embody Enric Mas (Movistar), Marc Soler (UAE Crew Emirates) and Tom Pidcock (Q36.5).
The Stars Collect In Portugal
Portugal’s long-term contribution to professional biking hardly ever – and unfairly – will get the credit score it deserves amongst the worldwide media, however each February for every week not less than, the Volta ao Algarve and the more moderen addition of the Figueira Champions Basic do their greatest to set the report straight.
This 12 months’s third version of the Figueira Basic could also be missing the famous person presence of Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep), who kicked off his final season with a surprising trademark lengthy solo breakaway to victory. However its 2,200 metres of vertical climbing, culminating in a number of ascents of the brief, Ardennes-style, ascents of Rua Parque Forestal (1.3km at 7.8%) and Enforca Câes (0.8km at 7.3%), will certainly see some ferocious race motion nonetheless.
Julian Alaphilippe, using his first occasion for his Tudor crew, tops the invoice in Portugal’s greatest one-day race, and the a number of World Champion might be joined within the Volta ao Algarve (Feb 19-23) three days later by a bunch of different prime names. In what is nearly definitely set to be the strongest begin listing of any European early-season race, Algarve can even play hosts to the 2025 debuts of Primož Roglič (Purple Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe), Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike), with João Almeida (UAE Crew Emirates), Arnaud de Lie (Lotto), Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike), Geraint Thomas (Ineos Grenadiers) and Tao GeogheganHart (Lidl-Trek) all additionally current
Algarve historically reserves two days for the sprinters, phases 1 and three, however it additionally contains an modern ‘breakaway’ day on stage 4 and a summit end at Fóia on stage 2 – the area’s highest level. The massive novelty, although, is a 20-kilometre time trial on the final day up the race’s emblematic ascent, the Alto do Malhão, the place a worthy successor will emerge to three-time winner Remco Evenepoel.
The Historic Route
Born out of the roots of the long-absence Vuelta a Galicia, O Gran Camiño – The Historic Route strikes away from the standard stomping grounds for early season stage races in direction of the rather more troublesome climbing challenges supplied by Spain’s far north-west.
Prolonged from 4 days to 5 for the primary time in 2025, O Gran Camiño additionally has an unprecedented begin this 12 months in neighbouring Portugal. On paper, the important thing factors for the GC battle are the flat mid-race time trial in easterly Ourense on stage 3 and the hardest stage of the race by the mountains of Lugo on stage 4.
However on the treacherously stunning terrain that Galicia invariably gives, actually, something can occur at any level – and even on stage 5, with unpaved roads bringing the pack into the cathedral metropolis of Santiago de Compostela, the sparks may nonetheless fly. Just one factor is for certain: after back-to-back victories for Jonas Vingegaard, this 12 months the race could have a brand new winner.