10 Men’s Riders We’re Excited to Watch This Pro Racing Season

We’re purists, which means we don’t consider the pro cycling season to have “officially” started until the annual running of the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, the opening race on the Belgian calendar.

So for us, the last four weeks of racing in France, Spain, and the Middle East have been little more than an appetizer, an opportunity to speculate as to which riders are ready to make a big impact later in the season.

This year’s list contains many of the riders who made last year’s, but it’s also a bit shorter. Why? Well, the sport’s become a bit more top-heavy in terms of its superstars, with a few big names garnering most of the headlines and several of the riders we’re using to seeing on lists like these (Chris Froome, Peter Sagan, and Vincenzo Nibali) looking as if their best days are behind them.

Another rider who didn’t make the list, but is nowhere near the end of his career, is Egan Bernal (INEOS Grenadiers). The Colombian rider crashed into a car while training in late January and now faces a long recovery. We’ll certainly be keeping an eye on his progress, but we can’t promise big things from him in 2022.

So that leaves us with 10 riders we’re most excited to watch in 2022—and we also can’t wait to see who proves us wrong after being omitted.

Tadej Pogacar — UAE-Team Emirates

We’re running out of superlatives for Tadej Pogačar. After winning the 2020 Tour de France at the ripe “old” age of 21 years old, the Slovenian easily defended his title in 2021. He also won two Monuments (Liège–Bastogne–Liège and Il Lombardia), two WorldTour stages races (the UAE Tour and Tirreno-Adriatico), and a bronze medal at the Olympic Games in Tokyo. For many riders, that’s a legendary career; for Pogačar, it’s just a season.

Pogačar’s pre-season training was interrupted by a bout with Covid-19, but we see little reason to doubt that he’ll continue adding wins to his palmares this year. In 2022 he’s planning to ride all the spring Classics with the exception of Paris-Roubaix (we can’t wait to see him at the Tour of Flanders) and then to take a break before attempting to win both the Tour de France and the Tour of Spain, the first back-to-back Grand Tour bid of his career. Those are lofty goals, but frankly, we see little reason to doubt his chances.

Julian Alaphilippe — Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl

Alaphilippe remains one of the most exciting riders in the sport, someone capable of winning just about any race he enters. And while the 29-year-old won only four races in 2021, three of them were major victories: Flèche Wallonne, Stage 1 of the Tour de France (which earned him the Tour’s first yellow jersey), and the World Road Race Championship (which means he’ll spend another year in the rainbow jersey).

This year he’ll ride a similar program to previous years, with one key difference: instead of including cobbled classics like the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and the Tour of Flanders in his spring schedule, he’ll make a more focused bid to win Liège–Bastogne–Liège in late April. One of the sport’s five Monuments, Liège–Bastogne–Liège has short, steep hills, which are perfectly suited to a rider like Alaphilippe. And while the Frenchman has come close to winning it (he’s twice finished second), he’s never hit the top step of the podium. It’s a glaring hole on his resume, and one he hopes to fill this year.

Primož Roglič — Jumbo-Visma

It’s easy to feel sorry for Primož Roglič. The 32-year-old former world class ski jumper would be the most dominant rider in the sport were it not for Pogačar, his younger compatriot. That said, the three-time winner of the Tour of Spain (plus many other important stage and one-day races) is still one of the top-three riders in the world, and he has the talent and team necessary to any race he enters—when things go his way. So while he’s certain to pick up several important wins along the way in 2022, his main goal remains the Tour de France, a race he came tantalizingly close to winning in 2020.

To get there, he’ll follow roughly the same program he did last year: Paris-Nice, which he lost in spectacular fashion on the final climb of the final stage last year; the Tour of the Basque Country, in which he and his team got the better of Pogačar and UAE Team Emirates; and the Ardennes Classics. He’ll then shift from last year’s program: instead of a long break between the Ardennes and the Tour de France, he’ll add the Critérium du Dauphiné, a key pre-Tour event that many riders use to put the finishing touches on their form while testing themselves against key rivals.

If all goes as planned—and his super-stacked Jumbo-Visma squad is able to get their tactics right—we’ll see another Slovenian atop the final podium in Paris. Just not the one we’re used to.

Wout van Aert — Jumbo-Visma

One of the most impressive characteristics of cycling’s current generation of superstars is its incredible versatility. Take Wout van Aert. Last year the 27-year-old won a cobbled semi-Classic (Ghent-Wevelgem); a hillier, Ardennes-style Classic (the Amstel Gold race); and three vastly different stages at the Tour de France (a mountain stage over Mont Ventoux, an individual time trial, and the field sprint on the Champs-Élysées).

But despite all that he’s already achieved, van Aert still comes up short in some of his biggest goals: he’s never won the Tour of Flanders or Paris-Roubaix, the sport’s two cobbled Monuments, and he has yet to win a rainbow jersey in either the road race or the time trial at the World Championships.

In 2022 he’ll begin by focusing on the cobbled Classics, where a win in either Flanders or Roubaix would essentially make his season. From there he’s setting his sights on the Tour de France, where he’ll hope to challenge for the green jersey while supporting Roglič’s bid to finally win the French grand tour. This will be exciting to see as it’s been 25 years since a team was able to win both yellow and green in the same Tour de France—and that was at a time when riders came to the race with nine riders instead of eight. If van Aert does win the green jersey, he might need to do it on his own.

Mathieu van der Poel — Alpecin-Fenix

Last year was a bit of a roller coaster for Mathieu van der Poel, who, like van Aert, started out as a world class cyclocross racer before switching over to the road. In early March, he looked amazing, blowing the doors off of Alaphilippe and Bernal to win Strade Bianche and then taking two stages at Tirreno Adriatico. But he came up short at Milan-San Remo and the Belgian cobbled Classics.

After a long block of training followed by two stage wins at the Tour de Suisse, he won Stage 2 at the Tour de France and wore the yellow jersey through Stage 7. He then went home to focus on the Olympic mountain bike race, but he crashed spectacularly, injuring his back. He was able to get back on his bike and ready in time to finish eighth at worlds and third at Paris-Roubaix, but overall the season marked more misses than hits.

Between his back injury and apparent overtraining, question marks surround exactly when the Dutch superstar will start the new season. But we’re confident that he’ll make an impact whenever he does return—most likely in time for the cobbled Classics. And here’s the scariest part: if he’s healthy and learns to train more effectively, he could be even better than he was before.

Tom Pidcock — INEOS Grenadiers

Like van Aert and Van der Poel, Pidcock made his name racing cyclocross (he won the world championships in Arkansas a few weeks ago); and like Van der Poel he’s also pretty good on a mountain bike (he won gold at the Olympics in Tokyo). Last year he started his first full season on the road at just 20-years-old and immediately made an impact, scoring several top-10 finishes before taking his first big win at the Brabantsepijl in Belgium followed by a narrow second-place finish at the Amstel Gold Race.

More importantly, after winning gold at the Olympics, he completed his first Grand Tour–the Tour of Spain–after the Olympics, which means he starts 2022 with a solid base. Young riders often make huge strides after finishing their first grand tour–a scary prospect for those lining-up against the Briton in 2022. The jury is still out as to exactly what kind of rider Pidcock will become: a man for the cobbled Classics? The Ardennes? Or a possible grand tour contender? We can’t wait to find out.

Richard Carapaz — INEOS Grenadiers

Pidcock’s not the only Olympic gold medalist on INEOS Grenadiers: the team also boasts Ecuador's Richard Carapaz, who won gold at the Olympic road race a week after finishing third overall at the Tour de France. Carapaz also won the Tour of Italy for Movistar in 2019 and finished second at the Tour of Spain for INEOS in 2020, making him one of only a handful riders currently racing to have scored podium finishes in all three grand tours.

With Egan Bernal’s return unknown and Geraint Thomas entering the twilight of his career, Carapaz assumes the weight of the team’s grand tour ambitions in 2022. He was planning to go for a second win at the Giro, but those plans could change should Bernal’s recovery extend well into the season. Thomas could lead the way for the squad, but he’s well past the days that saw him win the Tour in 2018 and would therefore be better served riding in a supporting role. But no matter which grand tour Carapaz chooses to target, he’ll certainly be a contender.

Mark Cavendish — Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl

After winning four stages at the 2021 Tour de France, Mark Cavendish is just one stage win away from breaking the record for the most Tour de France stage victories in the event’s storied history. He wasn’t even supposed to be racing last year, but after a strong start to what some thought would be his final season and a mysterious injury to the team’s top sprinter, Sam Bennett, Cavendish found himself on the starting line. And he delivered in a big way.

But despite being one win away from making the record previously held by Eddy Merckx his own, Cav’s not even slated to ride the Tour this summer–at least on paper. His team manager, Patrick Lefevere, hasn’t said that Cav will indeed start the race, instead promising a Tour start to the team’s young sprinter, the Netherlands’ Fabio Jakobsen, while sending Cav to the Giro.

But Cav’s started off the year with two wins against some top competition, and Lefereve’s started to backpedal (a little). We think the best move is to send both sprinters to the Tour. Jakobsen can help Cavendish get the record, and then Cavendish can serve as the perfect lead-out man—and mentor—to the team’s future champion.

Sepp Kuss — Jumbo-Visma

Kuss makes our list as one of the top Americans on the men’s side of the sport, something that was emphasized last year when the then-26-year-old from Durango, Colorado, won Stage 15 of the Tour de France. One of the sport’s best pure climbers, Kuss has made a name for himself as a super-domestique able to ride a fast tempo in the high mountains for the sake of his captains.

But when given his chance, Kuss knows how to win, as we saw at last year’s Tour and the 2020 Critérium du Dauphiné and the 2019 Tour of Spain, where he won stages as well. He also managed to finish ninth overall at last year’s Tour of Spain, while helping Roglič take his third victory.

And while we’re tempted to wonder what could happen should the American be given a chance to lead the team for himself, we also love seeing him blow races apart for his teammates and winning the odd stage or two for himself.

Brandon McNulty — UAE Team Emirates

Another American riding in the sport’s upper echelon, Brandon McNulty’s been progressing steadily since joining the WorldTour in 2020. This year he won the first race he entered, then finished second overall at the Volta ao Algarve, a tough early-season stage race in Portugal that always attracts a strong field. His next test is Paris-Nice, an important March stage race with a course that McNulty should enjoy. This could be his best chance to take his first major victory, because from there he’s back to serving as one of Pogačar’s better support riders–something he proved after getting called-up to last year’s Tour

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