Bicycle Racing News and Opinion,
Saturday, September 26, 2026
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Bill & Carol McGann's book The Story of the Tour de France, Vol 1: 1903 - 1975 is available in print, Kindle eBook & audiobook versions. To get your copy, just click on the Amazon link on the right.
Current racing:
- September 20 - 27: World Road Championships
Upcoming racing:
- Sept 27 - Oct 4: Le Tour de Langkawi
Latest completed racing:
- September 16 - 20: Tour de Luxembourg
- September 19: Flandrian 0.0 Classic
- September 18: Kampioenschap van Vlaanderen
- September 15 - 18: Giro d'Abruzzo
- September 16: GP de Wallonie
- August 22 - Sept 13: Vuelta a España
- September 13: GP de Montréal
- September 13: GP de Fourmies
- September 13: Trofeo Matteotti
- September 12: Memorial Marco Pantani
- September 11: GP de Québec
- September 10: Coppa Sabatini
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NSN Cycling Team posted this news:
Having ridden for Belgian teams for the entirety of his professional career so far, Cedric Beullens will start an exciting new chapter when he joins NSN Cycling Team on a two-year contract from 2027.
Beullens, 29, will follow current teammate and fellow Belgian Lennert Van Eetvelt in joining NSN from Lotto Intermarché, ending his five-year tenure with the team.
Cedric Beullens in an undated photo
During his time there, Beullens has established himself as one of the most reliable and underrated domestiques in the peloton. A 12-time Monument starter, he will prove to be a key part of NSN’s squad for the Spring Classics, something that stood out to Kjell Carlström, the team’s General Manager.
“We’re looking forward to adding Cedric to our roster for the next two years, and believe his experience and knowledge – particularly in one-day races – will prove to be a huge asset for us,” he says.
“He has shown that he can help leaders in the Classics, not just in the early part of the races, but right up until the finishes, which is something we believe will strengthen our options and help the team produce even better results from 2027.”
For Beullens, the opportunity to join NSN was one he could not turn down.
“I’m really happy to be joining NSN,” says Beullens. “From the first conversations, I felt a strong ambition within the team and a clear vision of where they want to go. That really appealed to me, and I believe it’s an environment where I can continue to grow and get the best out of myself.
“I’m looking forward to meeting everyone, racing together and being part of this project. Personally, I want to keep developing as a rider, take on new challenges and help the team achieve some big results over the next seasons.”
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This is from Team Lidl-Trek:
After more than a decade as a professional cyclist, Max Walscheid has decided to retire from racing at the end of this season. His decision was made easier as Lidl-Trek and Schwarz Group offered the perfect transition.
At the end of the 2026 season, Max Walscheid will stop racing professionally but remain with Lidl-Trek, moving into a new role at the CRIVIT Performance Center in Bad Wimpfen alongside the Health & Performance Team. The 33-year-old, who will continue his medical studies, will draw on his experience in high-performance sport and medicine to further strengthen the team.
Throughout his career as a professional cyclist, Walscheid rode eight Grand Tours and 14 Monuments, whilst collecting 15 victories – including becoming World Champion in the Mixed Relay Team Time Trial in 2021. But over the years he also developed himself into a great support rider for top sprinters like Jonathan Milan and especially for the northern classics in Flanders and Roubaix, where he finished 8th in 2023.
His last race will be the Sparkassen Münsterland Giro on October, 3rd – a race Walscheid won already back in 2018.
Max Walscheid finishing stage one of the 2026 Tirreno-Adriatico. Sirotti photo
While Walscheid still has more studying to do in order to become a fully-qualified doctor, he will now take a role within the team that includes equipment and performance testing and diagnosis, alongside projects at the CRIVIT Performance Center where he can begin applying the knowledge accumulated through more than a decade at the highest level of cycling, as well as using his educational background.
“I believe sport has formed me and my character and I will never leave this part behind,” he says. “So working in a high-performance environment with opportunities to test, to optimise – that’s something I find extremely interesting.”
“Max only spent one year racing with Lidl-Trek, but he certainly made it count. He rode the best season of his career, and he was a great addition to the sprint train of Jonathan Milan, as well as supporting Mads on the cobbles,” says Andy Schleck, Lidl-Trek CEO.
“What makes him right for this new role is the combination of his racing experience and medical studies. He knows from the inside what a rider goes through, from a Grand Tour to Roubaix, and his medical training gives him the tools to understand why. Very few people have both, and we’re pleased to keep that perspective within the team.”
In Max's words:
"When you love something like I love cycling and you dedicate such big part of your life for such long time to it, it is never easy to say goodbye.
"It hurts, yet it is the perfect moment and I am very lucky to choose this moment after a great last year with my team and whilst being on personal peak condition.
"When signing last year with the team, I communicated honestly that I can see the end of my chapter as a rider already on the horizon. Yet I was extremely motivated to make the absolutely most of it, as I‘ve always been.
"Instead of being critical, the team was very supportive and interested in me. First and foremost as a rider, but also beyond.
"Therefore I am grateful, to continue working with Lidl-Trek in our performance department. Whilst finishing my medical degree I will work now behind the riders and I’m very much looking forward."
The story: Max Walscheid - two careers in one
There was a time when Max Walscheid thought becoming a professional sportsperson belonged to a different universe. During his formative years in Germany, the idea of it never really entered his psyche. None of his family members had a history in elite sport and there were few professional athletes in his immediate surroundings. He recalls visiting the track and field facilities near home and experimenting with what his body was capable of, but professional sport was something that happened to other people.
“I never really thought of it as an opportunity for myself,” he says. “The professional sports world seemed to be in a completely different dimension.”
Studying medicine, though, was different: “I always wanted to study medicine when I was still going to school. I just thought it was a pretty cool job.”
So, a young Max Walschied had two ambitions that existed almost independently in his mind; one seemed realistic, and the other almost unimaginable. Sometimes, though, life has a way of surprising you. Walscheid discovered bike racing, and found he had a talent for it.
While he was a relative latecomer to the sport, he advanced quickly through the under-23 ranks and was spotted in 2015 by a WorldTour team. From then, his journey in professional cycling began. The years that followed were filled with a relentless education on elite performance: learning how to train, race, eat, recover, travel and, ultimately, survive at WorldTour level. Medicine, on the other hand, was put on hold.
“Once I was a pro, I paused studying for four years completely. I definitely had to catch up on some training as my base was not very big. I had a rather thin under-23 programme and definitely needed to raise my physical abilities to keep up in the WorldTour,” he explains.
“I was completely overwhelmed and busy with being professional. Nutrition, tactics, travelling – there was a lot to learn, which I didn’t know back then.”
The seasons rolled on and university disappeared into the background. In 2020, however, the world came to a sudden and abrupt halt. The Covid-19 pandemic struck and, like everything, professional cycling was brought to a standstill – Walscheid found himself with time to think again.
“Racing paused, nobody knew how the season would proceed and suddenly I had time and thought: what I could do with that?”
It didn’t take long for the 33-year-old to work it out: “I restarted university and went back to my studies,” he says.
Walscheid stresses that he didn’t have a grand plan to complete a medical degree while simultaneously maintaining a WorldTour career when racing resumed. He just restarted his studies and kept going, fitting in studying and lectures when he could alongside a demanding training and racing schedule. The progress was often slow, but it was progress nonetheless. There were no shortcuts for the German, he attended a regular schedule, completed theory and practical elements, and was present like any other student.
“I realised that it is possible. In the end, progress added up,” he states.
Last winter, when he made his move to Lidl-Trek, he took on his first full-time semester alongside training camps, testing and travel. His schedule, as he admits, was “on the limit”.
“Doing that was really demanding, but eventually I rode the strongest season of my career,” Walscheid says. While he had finally seemed to strike the balance of pursuing his medical education with the demands of being a professional cyclist, Walscheid still struggled to see how the two worlds could ever meet.
“People kept telling me that it was such a nice sweet spot to have the theoretical background, education towards being a doctor and then credibility in sports, being professional myself. That’s always nice to hear, but honestly I didn’t see many job opportunities where this would either really count or which sparked a lot of interest,” he says.
“Of course. I could become a regular doctor, maybe including some sports medicine into my daily work, but then more than a decade as a WorldTour professional would have been gone, and there wouldn’t be many cross-links anymore.”
At the end of 2026, though, after eleven years in the professional ranks, Walscheid has found his solution. While he will hang up his race wheels by the end of this season, concluding his career at Sparkassen Münsterland Giro, he won’t be waving goodbye to the sport he has dedicated his life to.
His next chapter will take him to the CRIVIT Performance Center in Bad Wimpfen now. So this is by far not the end of Walscheid’s story in cycling, but a logical continuation of his dual-careers so far. He once put medicine aside to pursue cycling, then spent years fitting university around an elite sporting career. Lidl-Trek will help him bring those two identities together.
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Chladoňová’s Team Visma | Lease a Bike posted this news:
Viktória Chladoňová has been crowned U23 World Champion in Montréal. The 19-year-old Team Visma | Lease a Bike rider powered away from Isabella Holmgren in a thrilling two-up sprint to claim the rainbow jersey after a hard-fought 134-kilometer race.
The newly crowned world champion can hardly believe it herself: “It’s an amazing feeling to wear this jersey. I trained so hard for this, and after the time trial I was even more hungry for this one. It was a very strong ride from all the girls, and I’m so happy I could finish it off. I knew I had good legs for the sprint, so I tried to stay on Isabella’s wheel and follow her move. It was a very hard sprint, so I’m super happy to be the first one across the line.”
Viktória Chladoňová
The U23 women faced ten laps of a challenging Montréal course, with the demanding Côte Camillien-Houde, Côte de Polytechnique and Pagnuelo climbs playing a key role in the race. It took some time for the race to come to life, but Chladoňová was one of the riders to make a move.
The Slovakian attacked on the Côte Camillien-Houde and later managed to break clear on the Pagnuelo climb together with Holmgren and Fleur Moors. The three riders worked well together at the front of the race and quickly established a thirty-second gap.
With the rainbow jersey within reach, the pace increased in the final lap. Holmgren launched a strong acceleration, which proved too much for Moors, leaving Chladoňová and Holmgren to battle it out for gold.
The two riders entered the final sprint together, with Chladoňová leading into the finish. Holmgren was the first to launch her sprint, but Chladoňová immediately responded. The 19-year-old then powered clear to take a convincing victory and become U23 World Champion.