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Friday, May 1, 2026

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Let your life lightly dance on the edges of Time like dew on the tip of a leaf. - Rabindranath Tagore

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Les Woodland's book Cycling’s 50 Craziest Stories is available in print, Kindle eBook & audiobook versions. To get your copy, just click on the Amazon link on the right.

Current racing:

• April 26 - May 3: Tour of Turkey
• April 28 - May 3: Tour de Romandie
• May 1: Eschborn-Frankfurt

Upcoming racing:

• May 8 - 31: Giro d'Italia

Latest completed racing:

• April 26: Giro dell'Appennino
• April 23 - 26: Vuelta Asturias
• April 26: Liège-Bastogne-Liège
• April 20 - 24: Tour of the Alps
• April 22: La Flèche Wallonne
• April 19: Amstel Gold Race
• April 15 - 19: Tour of Hainan
• April 14 - 18: O Gran Camiño
• April 17: De Brabantse Pijl
• April 19: Tour du Doubs race cancelled
• April 12: Paris-Roubaix
• April 6 - 11: Itzulia Basque Country (Tour of the Basque Country)
• April 7 - 10: Région Pays de la Loire Tour

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Tour de Romandie stage two reports

We posted the report from stage winner & GC leader Tadej Pogacar's UAE Team Emirates-XRG with the results.

Here's the Tour de Romandie stage two report from second-place Dorian Godon's INEOS Grenadiers team:

Dorian Godon claimed second place in a hard-fought sprint on stage two at the Tour de Romandie.

The French champion battled hard to stay within a reduced peloton on the run into Vucherens, with a number of attacks from general classification contenders punctuating the run-in.

Opening up his sprint early, Godon hit the front, but was overhauled by race leader Tadej Pogacar (UAE Emirates - XRG). The result continues his strong start to the race, following victory in the opening Prologue.

Late in the stage Dorian Godon leads the pack. Sirotti photo

Carlos Rodriguez was also present at the head of the bunch and finished in the same lead group after helping Godon late on.

The team got through a lot of work on the day, controlling the tempo and keeping the four-man break within reach.

Pogacar extended his overall lead to 17 seconds thanks to bonus seconds, with Rodriguez moving up one spot to seventh, 51 seconds back.

Here's the Tour de Romandie report from fifth-place Valentin Paret-Peintre's Team Soudal Quick-Step:

Valentin Paret-Peintre came close to a podium finish on Thursday, when the Tour de Romandie travelled from Rue to Vucherens. The 25-year-old from Annemasse got in the mix against some of the peloton’s fast men, after teammate Junior Lecerf attacked and stretched out the peloton in the closing 500 meters of stage two.

The peloton crosses the beautiful Swiss countryside. Sirotti photo

In what is his first stage race since the Volta a Catalunya, where he finished an impressive fourth overall, Paret-Peintre rode a smart finale, always in a good position but without coming to the front before it really mattered. The Frenchman made his presence noticed only with 150 meters to go, when he produced a strong turn of legs to take fifth place behind yellow jersey Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates), who scored another victory in Switzerland.

“Junior helped me there and I could show my speed and sprint to a solid top five. I feel better after yesterday’s stage and I’m really looking forward to the weekend. I want to help Junior in the general classification, but I’ll also see if there will be any opportunities”, Valentin said after the stage at the end of which Lecerf moved up a place in the standings.

And here's the Tour de Romandie Report from Team Visma | Lease a Bike:

The second stage of the Tour de Romandie posed no problems for Team Visma | Lease a Bike. The priority was protecting Jørgen Nordhagen.

Sports director Gaëtan Pons was clear about the chosen approach: “It was not a day to gain seconds, but to avoid losing time. That was our absolute priority today.” With that mindset, the team allowed other teams to set the pace in the chase.

Throughout the stage, the team stayed well organized in the peloton, focusing on protecting Nordhagen in the general classification. The young Norwegian started the day from a strong position and was consistently well supported by his teammates.

Jorgen Nordhagen in an undated photo

Nordhagen himself handled the stage without issues, confirming his steady form in this Tour of Romandie. After the stage, Pons expressed satisfaction with his rider’s performance: “Jørgen is a young rider with a lot of potential, and it’s great to see how he holds his own among such strong competitors. We are in a good position in the standings, and that was the most important thing today.”

Tomorrow, another challenging stage of over 176 kilometers is on the program. The decisive moment of the day will likely be the Col du Mollendruz, a climb of 9 kilometers at an average gradient of 6.1 percent.

Presidential Tour of Turkey stage five reports

We posted the report from fifth-place Dario Balletta's Team Polti-VisitMalta with the results.

Here's the report from stage winner Casper van Uden's Team Picnic-PostNL:

After displaying some strong lead-outs in the opening stages in Türkiye, Team Picnic PostNL remained determined and took their spoils on Thursday afternoon in a sprint finish win with Casper van Uden.

Casper van Uden wins Tour of Turkey stage five.

A hard day of racing saw a fast tempo throughout the afternoon, but Team Picnic PostNL were steadfast and rode excellently throughout the day, always ensuring they were represented at the front and in the moves. Timo de Jong was part of a promising ten rider group, but that was brought back on the last climb of the day. On that ascent the two-striped squad showed excellent fighting spirit for all six of the riders to make it over the top of the climb in the reduced peloton.

From there, their full attention turned to setting up a fast finale with Casper van Uden; confident and steadfast in the belief that he had the speed to finish off the lead-out. In an almost picture perfect fashion, the team still had four riders together at just over one kilometre to go, peeling off one-by-one and bringing Van Uden deep into the final and in an ideal position. Not hesitating when another rider jumped early, Van Uden sprung into his wheel and used that slipstream as a slingshot, powering past him and able to celebrate a brilliant team victory come the line.

Harry Sweeny has knee surgery

Here’s the update from Sweeny’s Team EF Education–EasyPost:

On Monday, Harry Sweeny underwent a successful operation to remove an inflamed plica in his left knee.

Harry’s injury first flared up at Milano-Sanremo and has hampered his training and prevented him from racing ever since. In consultation with our medical team, Harry decided to have surgery now in order to give himself enough time to recover from the operation and prepare for the Tour de France.

Harry Sweeny racing at the 2026 Tour Down Under. Sirotti photo

“I've been struggling since Sanremo,” Harry said. “It's been quite off and on. I wasn’t able to race. I've been able to do a few days of good training, but then it would come back, and then I would be good for a few more days. Honestly, it's been really quite difficult. I hadn’t had an injury in nearly 10 years, unless you count a crash on my collarbone, but in terms of actual injuries, it's been a really long time, so it’s been a difficult period for me to figure it out and keep my head in the right space. Now that we know the cause of the problem and had the operation, I am looking forward to getting back on track. The rehab should be one week to 10 days off the bike, and then we expect that I should be able to start training again with a lot of physiotherapy and hopefully still make the back end of the Tour camp with the team. I love the Tour de France. It is such a special race. So, it's a good motivation, to get the rehab on track now the surgery is done.“

EF Pro Cycling head doctor Jon Greenwell is optimistic about Harry’s recovery. Getting the surgery done now was the right decision to give him the best chance to be fit for the Tour.

“Harry started with knee pain during Milano-Sanremo,” said Doctor Greenwell. “We've been managing it ever since, but it hasn't really settled down and gone away. So we did an MRI scan a couple of weeks ago, which shows the cause of the pain, which is an inflamed plica – a thickening of the lining of the knee joint. Harry consulted with a surgeon last week and we decided the best approach is to get it dealt with now. We'd been through everything else that we could do and it hadn’t settled down or gone away enough to enable him to return to racing properly. The reason that we wanted to get it done now is that we're hoping to have him back ready for the Tour de France.”