The UCI Road World Championships bring the world’s leading riders together each year to compete for the rainbow jersey, with road races and individual time trials contested across changing host cities and countries. Unlike the established routes of the great Classics, every edition creates a new course shaped by the geography, roads and character of its host region.
Around the Peloton explores the World Championships through these changing landscapes, following the courses beyond the competition to uncover their cities, monuments, natural environments and cultural history. From technical urban circuits to mountain roads and open countryside, each championship becomes a unique journey through its host country and a new chapter in more than a century of cycling history.
The 2026 Men Elite World Championship begins far from the circuit that will eventually decide it. Before Mount Royal, before the repeated climbs and before the familiar Montréal skyline closes around the race, the peloton spends more than one hundred…
The 2026 UCI Road World Championships open in Montréal with a race against the clock, but the course is more than a technical test of pacing and aerodynamics. Over 39.2 kilometres, it traces the relationship between the city and the…
