Professional Cycling 2025 - PoGOATcar?
A thread for discussing the professional cycling season 2025.
The season is fully on with many races already being done, and another being raced right now.
That race is arguably the most beautiful race of the season, Strade Bianche.
In contrast to how unpredictable cycling used to be, there's no point in discussing who will win because we already know Pogacar will win, so the most interesting question is probably: when will he attack and crush everyone?
Pogacar had arguably the greatest season of all time last year, winning the Giro + Tour double (+ 12 stages), World Championship, two monuments and many other races. Many are already touting him as the GOAT of cycling, which I think is not an unfair claim, given his dominance, racing style and versatility. But perhaps worst of all - he's very likable (at least when he's winning).
Will it be another season of pure relentless dominance or will Jonas Vingegaard or perhaps even Remco Evenepoel or someone else be able to challenge him?
2 Replies
Pogacar certainly had a season for the ages, but to claim GOAT he'll need to sustain it for a while longer.
Looking forward to the start of Paris-Nice tomorrow. I was confused browsing the list entries, I thought Romain Bardet retired at the end of last season, but apparently his last race will be the Dauphine.
Yeah, I agree. One could argue for best in terms of sheer dominance (though I know there have been very dominant riders in the past, doing it in the modern era in this manner is unprecedented), but for the GOAT he needs to keep it up. But it's absurd to think it's even a conversation at a time when he's 26 - he's two years younger than Froome was when he won his first Tour for crying out loud!
Last season was unimaginably good.
If looking only at the races where he 'tried' to win and had a realistic chance (i.e., not sprint stages and not stages where a break was far ahead and won), he only failed to win 7 times last year - which includes 4 second places and 2 thirds.
It's difficult to imagine that season record will ever be beaten - but at the same time it would not surprise me in the slightest if he beats it himself this year lol.
Today he even managed to beat my jinx and despite a rough crash still won convincingly. Have mercy.
