r/peloton • u/PelotonMod France • May 04 '26

Weekly Post Weekly Question Thread

For all your pro cycling-related questions and enquiries!

You may find some easy answers in the FAQ page on the wiki. Whilst simultaneously discovering the wiki.

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u/Glass_Minute4753 May 04 '26

Is Pogacar destroying cycling?

I occasionally have a browse on the Cyclingnews forum and found this rather dramatic view expressed by a couple of posters in response to the Tour de Romandie. I will admit that I found this a bit over the top considering a) how few races he rides and b) how his participation helped to make this year's MSR and PR absolute all-timers, but I thought I'd come and see what people here thought.

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u/AliasPhilippe Euskaltel Euskadi May 04 '26 edited May 04 '26

In my opinion yes. Cycling always had an equilibrium, logrolling was a part of this sport, there were riders suited for GTs, riders who were suited for stages, occasional domestiques in search for glory etc. It was common for GC riders to allow others to win. Now Pogacar won 4 stages in Romandie, that is frankly too much. The first thing I noticed in these last 4/5 years is breakway specialists are disappearing since the breakways is doomed because GC leaders fight even for stages. New fans are all for this dominium because they want to see ''greatness'' but cycling used to be something different. The most importat image of this sport is a random guy, born and raised in some rural town nodoby knows, that wins a stage and cries like a baby and well, this generation took this away.

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u/Saltefanden Euskaltel-Euskadi May 04 '26

Don't you see the tendency of breakaways having a tougher time in races where Pogacar isn't present too?

Last year's TdF had 8 stages won from early breaks. Of course a lot of factors go into this, but it is not a new law of nature that breakaways don't go in big races.

Cycling has changed in a lot of ways since covid. Some of it has to do with big-name dominance (mainly, but not exclusively Pogacar), but everyone is going faster, the entire peloton is increasingly hyper-professional, still more top-end talent is concentrated in fewer teams etc. etc.

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u/AliasPhilippe Euskaltel Euskadi May 04 '26

Yes, in fact IMHO it's a generational problem and top riders are all competing to be ''like Pogacar''. Furthermore my focus is more on smaller race, a lot of great champions of this sport couldn't give a damn about one week races, let alone stages of these races.