Tour Down Under, Tirreno-Adriatico, Milano-Sanremo, E3 Saxo Classic, Ronde van Vlaanderen, Liege-Bastogne-Liege, Criterium du Dauphine, Tour de France, Grand Prix Cycliste de Quebec, Grand Prix Cycliste de Montreal, World Championship Time Trial, World Championship Road Race, Il Lombardia
It’s a loaded schedule, but with one Grand Tour, he has lots of chances for one-day races. But let’s discuss each race and then explain why I omitted some others.
The Tour Down Under is in Australia in mid-January, and Remco has traditionally done a race outside of Europe in a warmer climate to commence his season in the past. It would make sense for him to go to Australia for his sponsors, and he might really enjoy the trip. It’s not a race that suits him particularly well, but he would be the favorite if none of the other members of the Big Four show up. It’s mostly just a warm-up race anyway. And there is plenty of time to travel back to Europe and re-acclimate to the cold weather and time zone after TDU.
Tirreno-Adriatico is a race Remco has not had great success at in the past. But as with any stage race that includes climbs (essentially all of them) Remco would be the favorite for Tirreno if, as stated above, Primoz Roglic, Jonas Vingegaard, and Tadej Pogacar do not show up. Remco would be in an even better position if Tirreno included a time trial, as it normally does. Again though, this is mostly a preparation race for his next appointment in Italy.
Milano-Sanremo is a race Remco has yet to ride. But it is one I believe he can win despite the ferocious competition and the course not being tailored to his abilities. Let me explain. Normally, Remco would not be rated as possessing the explosivity to follow an attack from Pogi and/or Mathieu van der Poel, Wout van Aert (or others who will arrive on the scene next year) on the Poggio, which is the final climb of the race. But in 2025, I am anticipating a Pogacar nuclear bomb on the Cipressa, the penultimate climb. This is potential suicide, but he will take the risk. Why? Because the Slovenian craves victory in MSR more than any other race at this point in his career, and he has tried the last two years to drop the competition on the Poggio to no avail, and lost the sprint both times. Pogi will have to change his plan and throw caution to the wind next year. And the race goes away on the Cipressa, Remco may be able to follow. If those two are pulling full gas to the finish line, they may not be caught by the desperate peloton. Remco would be a big underdog in the final sprint against Pogi, but if he plays a wily tactical game, makes the Slovenian do most of the work in the valley between the Cipressa and Poggio, and attacks at the right time, he could sneak away and win the race. This is highly unlikely, but possible. I hope Remco and Pogacar are away after the Cipressa is the scenario that plays out next year.
E3 Saxo Classic is a nice Cobbled Classic preparation race for the Tour of Flanders. It has the potential to be clash of the titans before the main showdown the following Sunday. I really cannot predict how Remco would fare here, only that I think he has a better shot in De Ronde because it’s a lot harder.
A Belgian supertalent who never took part in the biggest Belgian race is a travesty. Remco is not that person, however, and his team manager hinted at his debut in the Ronde van Vlaanderen next year. This will send the Belgian press into a frenzy. The pressure on him before this one will be greater than before the Tour de France. Unfortunately, this is not a race I can imagine him winning with the current competition. I do think the modern race dynamics favor him with the war likely to open 130-100 kilometers from the finish line. But with MVDP and Pogi likely to rampage up and down the hellingen for two hours before the final haymakers are launched, I do not see Remco at this stage in his career as able to follow all of the decisive moves. Still, a podium finish may be possible, especially given his time trialing abilities and the flat finish, where late solo attacks are often successful for the minor placings. More importantly, though, is the fact that Remco is likely to ride Flanders displays how well he is developing physically and mentally as a cyclist. Cobbled Classics are brutal tests of mental and physical strength, with handling and positioning (in addition, of course, to oscillating power) paramount for hours and hours. Remco previously seemed a bit sheltered by his handlers, for better or worse, depending on the races he did or did not participate in. For example, he waited far too long in his career to ride the Tour de France. If he does ride RVV next year, it will signal how well his bike handling and mental stamina, as well as physical explosiveness, have improved. He is no longer the one-trick pony “diesel” climber/TTer he used to dominate races in his earlier years in the WorldTour and as a junior, he is blossoming into an ubercyclist with a wide range of abilities, as is necessary to stay competitive in the modern era. I hope he proves me wrong in Flanders next year and competes for the win.
As a two-time winner of Liege-Bastogne-Liege, he will aim for a third victory and another showdown with Pogacar is more than likely. Liege is of course the only Monument Remco has yet won in his career, and both of those victories of course have an asterisk as Pogacar did not finish either edition. It’s hard to imagine a scenario where Evenepoel beats Pogi on this course next year, but plenty of stranger things have happened in cycling before. I just hope Jonas and Roglic participate too.
After Liege, Remco will take the traditional preparation for a top GC rider: altitude camp, Dauphine, and Tour. I think Remco should ride the Dauphine again next year as it is a tried-and-true preparation/prediction race before the the Tour de France. He did it last year when he was returning from injury and thus did factor in the final GC, but he still won the time trial. If he’s in Tour shape at the Dauphine, next year, as he should be, he will be excellent. The problem is, Pogacar and Roglic will probably also do the Dauphine next year (Jonas will not if he rides the Giro d’Italia), and unless the hierarchy of GC competitors changes drastically, Pogi should clean the race as he does nearly every bicycling competition.
The Tour de France will be Remco’s biggest goal of the 2025 season. With a podium finish under his belt in which he broke a Pantani climbing record (on Plateau de Beille) and won a time trial in 2024, Remco will be targeting nothing but the victory next year. The problem for the Belgian is, of course, that Pogacar was nearly three minutes ahead of Remco on Plateau de Beille, and Vingegaard nearly two. Remco was nearly ten minutes behind Pogi when all was said and done at the end of July this year, and with the way the rest of the season played out, you would find yourself pretty good odds at the casino if you thought Remco could wear yellow in Paris next year. I would not rule it out completely myself, but I also would not put a penny of my own cash on the line for it. Remco is still not yet 25 years old and in theory has quite some room for physical improvement. He is a professional of the highest order and his team’s training is solid. I would confidently state that Remco is now the second-best rider in the world based on his diversity of abilities compared to Jonas (who is the better GC rider at this point). Before we just pencil in Pogacar as the winner of the next five Tours and every single race he rides, I would caution the viewer that prior to 2024, there was no way Pogi could beat Jonas in July. That, of course, feels like ancient history now. Of course, Jonas had a bad crash in April which hampered his preparation and Pogacar stepped way up. And let’s not forget that Remco also crashed in the same one that took out Jonas (his injuries were not nearly as severe, but surely also harmed his training in the run-in to the Tour). But that’s cycling; anything can happen. So there is certainly some chance that Remco can step up and rival Pogacar next year in France. Just not a huge one.
After the Tour, I think Remco should do the Pogi final third of the season, starting in Canada with Quebec and Montreal. I think Montreal is a good course for him, though as with most of this schedule, he will likely run into the Pogacar buzz saw again. But with the Slovenian potentially riding the Vuelta, his form in Canada may not be top-notch, and he may also skip the races altogether. In any case, Remco will be preparing for the World Championships with these two races.
The World Championship Time Trial will likely be Remco’s major target in the final trimester of 2025. As the two-time defending champion, he will be greedily trying for another. The problem is that the race is in Kigali, Rwanda, which could complicate things with travel outside of Europe, potentially unsafe food and water, and I read recently that the nearby hotels jacking their rates and potentially pricing out some national teams from even sending their U23 and juniors. The whole event seems to be gathering steam towards its move towards a different host, which would be a shame, but I would rather see the best riders compete than a farcical race held in Rwanda just for the sake of saying that the UCI Worlds could check off a new continent on its list.
Assuming the Worlds happens as planned, the road race is quite interesting. According the UCI, the race is 267.5 kilometers with over 5,400 meters of elevation gain. That is a crazy amount of climbing, bigger than almost all of the biggest Tour de France mountain stages of the past decade, granted packed into shorter ascents and in a longer course. The obvious favorite is Pogi, but Remco has a shot here, having snuck away away in 2022 and won in Australia, when Pogacar was in the race. Hopefully we see another battle in this unique race.
Of course to conclude his season, Remco must return to Northern Italy to try his hand at Pogacar’s playground, Il Lombardia. Remco finished second here this year but was thoroughly dismembered by Pogacar’s 48k solo and 3:16 margin of victory. Remco had a life-threatening crash here in 2020, so I believe he will continue coming back to this race until he finally, poetically, wins it. However, this would be the race that, at this moment, I would feel most comfortable betting heavily on Pogacar to win in 2025 despite his astonishingly short odds. He’s simply too good and Remco will not be able to do anything about that next year. Maybe in 2028 🙂
So there is Remco’s program for 2025. I think he will be even better than he was this year, but I do not believe it will be enough to compete with Pogacar (nor Jonas in the Tour). But that’s why they ride the races, so I am eager to see if the form chart can be upset.
Primoz Roglic (with some hot takes) up next.
Cheers to December.
Puncheur 
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