Hello and welcome back in 2026! The WWT season is 8 days away and the WT season is right on its heels, so before that let's check out your stars and faves of the 2025 season, as voted by you!
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Rider of the Year
Tadej Pogacar - 94.7%
Tour, Worlds, three Monuments, etc. etc. Tadej extends his title in this category as well, and once again does it with a statistically unlikely percentage of the votes: 160/169. MvdP is the only other man to get more than one vote: 3.
Sprinter of the Year
Tim Merlier - 63.9%
A somewhat surprising runaway victory for Tim Merlier ahead of Johnny Milan (15.4%) and Jasper Philipsen (8.3%). Merlier ended the season with more wins than them (16 vs 12 and 9), with 2 Tour stages and the Scheldeprijs as chief accomplishments. Perhaps it is his impressive conversion rate that convinced all the connoisseurs on r/peloton, as Merlier participated in 20 mass sprints for the victory (as far as I can tell), and therefore won 80% of those.
Time Trialist of the Year
Remco Evenepoel - 94.8%
An obvious winner, with his fantastic overtake of Tadej Pogacar during the Worlds in Rwanda as a highlight.
Climber of the Year
Tadej Pogacar - 80.6%
Four Tour stage wins?? But last year I had 6! And 6 Giro stages! Still the most dominant climber when he chooses to be. See Hautacam.
One Day Racer of the Year
Tadej Pogacar - 66.5%
Where GTs were his stomping ground last year, it was arguably the spring classics this year, being on the podium everywhere from Strade through to Liege, showing he can compete in Roubaix for the first time, and rounding the year off with a 2nd Worlds and 5th Lombardia.
Young Rider of the Year
Isaac del Toro - 73.3%
One of the revelations of the season. Came into the year as the winner of the Vuelta Asturias, a TDU stage, and the Tour de Avenir. Started winning at Milano-Torino, started impressing the world at the Giro, and couldn't stop winning after.
Matthew Brennan received 18% of the vote. If he and the Pauls (Magnier and Seixas) also break into the highest level of races in 2026, this could become a hotly contested category.
Best Old Rider of the Year
Primoz Roglic - 52.1%
He can still win this category without the Vuelta, but it isn't too unfair to say he defaulted to the win here. But new challengers are appearing: Michael Matthews gets 21% of the vote in his first year among the elders.
Most Combative Rider of the Year
Ben Healy - 47.4%
A commanding win for Healy, beating out the trio of Abrahamsen (12.9%), Arensman (11.7%) and Simmons (11.1%).
Healy dipped and bobbed his way to solo wins in the Tour and Itzulia, fought his way onto the WC podium, and is perhaps also helped by the fact that it looks like he's fighting the bike whenever he's riding.
Most Improved Rider
Florian Lipowitz - 21.1%
The most hotly contested category by far ends with an 8-vote victory margin for the 'Best of the Rest' of the Tour de France over a tie between his main rival for that spot (Oscar Onley, 16.4%) and the turbo acceleration of Matthew Brennan (also 16.4%), with Del Toro one vote further behind them.
Vauquelin, Pidcock, Scaroni, Seixas, Magnier and Riccitello also received 5 or more votes.
Best Non-WT Rider
Thomas Pidcock - 60.5%
A hugely succesful transfer to Q36.5 saw Pidcock competing at the top level at not just his usual races (Strade, Ardennes) but also in a Grand Tour GC with 3rd in the Vuelta: a great year for the Brit.
Best Team
UAE Team Emirates - 81%
UAE had their sights set on the record of 85, and they shot way past that as the team reached 97 wins in a single year. We've already discussed Pog and Del Toro, but Almeida, Ayuso and McNulty also delivered impressive victory counts each.
Most Improved Team
XDS-Astana - 48%
"What a year, the team is secure" ~ Alexander Vinokourov
Astana fought tooth and nail to avoid relegation in a year-long charge, kicked off and embodied best by Christian Scaroni, who finished top 20 in the UCI rankings of the year. Q36 and Uno-X both receive 11% of the votes.
Best Non-WT Team
Uno-X Mobility - 63%
A fan-favorite team that reaches higher and higher every year, and they crown their 2025 season with a Tour stage win, the Omloop het Nieuwsblad, and 6th in the Tour GC
Best Stage Race
Giro d'Italia - 64%
The GTs finish this category with 93, 36, and 2 votes each. The Vuelta was widely considered a bad move, but the Giro was excellent this year with suspense until the final moments and the Finestre delivering an all-time classic GC stage involving Simon Yates, yet again.
Best non-GT Stage Race
Criterium du Dauphiné - 24%
A fight between the French one-week races, as Paris-Nice comes second with 19% of the vote. The Dauphiné turned out to be a bit of a spoiler for the Tour, as the final 3 was the same in both races. Ivan Romeo's breakaway stage win stands out as a memorable one.
Best One Day Race
Milano-Sanremo - 51%
Cycling fans are suckers for MSR. Predictable unpredictability and always one of the most spectacular 15 minutes of the year. No other race comes close; Roubaix, Flanders, and the Amstel Gold Race are next in our ranking.
Best non-Monument One Day Race
Amstel Gold Race - 30%
A nice bit of internal consistency with the previous question. AGR is voted 4th overall and best of the rest, and we can now declare that the Best Race Formula is Pogacar coming 2nd out of a 3-man group.
Dwars door Vlaanderen, or as one of you put it, 'that race where a guy beat 3 Visma guys', is second at 16%.
Best Stage in a Grand Tour
Giro Stage 20 to Sestrière - 52%
Probably a large part of why the Giro was the best race this year was this wild day of cycling over the Finestre. I wonder how many of you still even know the winner of the stage, as the action very much took place behind Chris Harper on the road.
2nd place goes to Stage 21 of the Tour, the addition of Montmartre made for a great finale of the Tour. 3rd place goes to Stage 9 of the Giro: riders might hate it, but we love a Strade stage.
See the pattern? It's Wout van Aert. Best stage without WvA-involvement was the Ventoux stage, 4th with 7% of the votes.
Best Nation
Slovenia beats Belgium, 30 to 27%. There have been years where Pogacar got more help from his compatriots, but the combined palmares of Evenepoel, Merlier, Philipsen, Van Aert, De Lie, et al. has been deemed just inferior. Better luck next year!
WvA, still epic.
Glad the Ventoux stage was rated highly, gosh it was so excellent.
And the pattern continues in your comment as it was Rue L'Epic at Montmartre where the TdF Stage was special
Oof, that's such a good extra detail! Thanks for pointing it out 😊
fml
Shouldn't you be in bed by now?
har har very funny
yes
Getting older ain't so bad. I can do whatever I want. I can cry about being old anytime I want. That's pretty cool.
Most choices are very logical. Except Dauphiné which I find very surprising considering Suisse, Paris-Nice or Renewi
I think stage 1 of the Dauphiné does a lot of the heavy lifting there. The surprise attack from Vingegaard showcasing his more aggressive mindset, that led to a dream breakaway with van der Poel and Pogi, Remco bridging across easily, and that final sprint where for the first time that year we saw Pogi win the 3-way battle against his two main rivals at the same time... Add to that the Combloux demolition by Pogi, highly symbolic, and it feels like in terms of both sporting dimension and storylines, this race foreshadowed many of the most important dynamics of the year and maybe even the current peloton.
ETA: plus all the hullaballoo about Pog's TT, which led to a lot of grandiose premature declarations. So all in all, I do think it was very memorable.
Pogi carrying Slovenia hard in the Best Nation category.
Just about the only vote outcome I disagree with. I think that vote should consider the strength in depth of the nation.
I agree, Belgium should have had this one.
renewi tour was the best stage non GT race by far, if you don't know why go back and watch it, the dauphine was ok, but it was clear it would be a boring tour de France, UAE tour was second best because of Pogacar shenanigans
Can't believe Milan didn't win climber of the year
Wonder who the 5.3 percent are that didn't vote for Pog and Remco in their respective categories