This cycling news roundup presents a season’s worth of racing, packed into a single week — all in one comprehensive deep dive from the EuroTrash desk. Highlighting a stunning upset at Amstel Gold Women by late call-up Paula Blasi, we dive into the tactical masterclass of Remco Evenepoel and the rising talent of Matthew Riccitello at Tour du Jura. Beyond these top-tier races, we explore the GC battle at O Gran Camiño won by Adam Yates, provide updates on Ben Healy’s injury, and weigh in on the “straight-from-Asia” bike trend from Sea Otter. It’s the kind of exploration of the strategy, heartbreak, and surprises of elite cycling that you expect from PEZ and EuroTrash!
TOP STORY
Amstel Gold Race Reflections — from the Riders and their DSs
RACE NEWS
- Blasi at Amstel Gold Women: Called Up Yesterday, Won Today
- Foldager Snatches the Arrow at Brabantse Pijl
- Riccitello Rises to Team Leadership at Tour du Jura
- Classic Yates, Rising Pinarello at O Gran Camiño
TEAM, RIDER AND CYCLING NEWS
- Reader Poll: Would You Buy a Straight-from-Asia Bike?
- Ben Healy Out of Ardennes With Fractured Sacrum
MIKE’S RIDE OF THE WEEK: LAGUNA SECA GRAVEL & TRAILS (AND RACETRACK)
Amstel Race Reflections — from the Riders (and a DS)
Amstel Gold typically serves up unpredictable racing, and this year’s version was no exception — especially on the women’s side. Here’s what some of the top contenders — and their directeurs — had to say:
- Remco Evenepoel, winner: “I really love this race. Lots of short, hard climbs, and actually the race more or less opened on the same place this year again, so I was really confident. I felt much better than I did last year in the final. For sure, it’s the most beautiful victory of the season. For me this race is just under the monuments, so it’s really high on my ranking. It’s in my top 8 of victories in my career, probably.”
- Mattias Skjelmose, second place: “Last year I was lucky, and this year he just beat me with legs. I was on the limit, and I actually thought he would drop me on the climbs. So it was what it could be. I tried my best, and I’m happy with second.”
- Benoit Cosnefroy, third place: “…unlike at Brabantse Pijl, I’m not disappointed. There, I could have won if I had launched my attack 300 meters from the finish. Today, the riders up front were already gone. They were stronger. I did my best to get a podium place.”
Klaas Lodewyck (Director of Evenepoel’s Red Bull–BORA–Hansgrohe): “Today was an incredible day for the team. I think, from the start until finish, we really had control over the race. Everybody did their job to perfection, I would say. And yeah, Remco kept his head really cool, did a masterclass sprint, and so we have an Amstel now on the palmarès. That’s really great.”
- Paula Blasi, winner: “I think I will need a couple of weeks or even months to realise it. I wasn’t even supposed to be here. I just signed up yesterday because we had some injuries and sickness. It wasn’t even on my mind to be racing here. Now I need to take a breather and accept what happened.”
Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney, second place: “The attacks started, a bunch of different attacks on and off. I just tried to draft and stay behind Demi or Anna van der Breggen and wait for the right moment to go. It’s just a pity that we were not fighting for the victory in the back anymore…Honestly I think just seeing Wout [van Aert] pulling it off in Roubaix gave me so much faith for what’s next.”
- Demi Vollering, third place: “You cannot jump after everything.”
Check out PEZ’ full Amstel Gold coverage here.
RACE NEWS
Blasi at Amstel Gold Women: Called Up Yesterday, Won Today
Here at the EuroTrash desk, my crack reporting crew and I remain convinced: for suspenseful racing, watch the women. Today’s Amstel Gold served up yet another surprise ending, while on the men’s side, two of the three podium finishers were…two of the podium finishers from last year.
Witness: Paula Blasi, 23 years old, in her first full WorldTour season, and only at the race as a late call-up replacement — that’s your winner. You genuinely cannot write this stuff. She struggled early in the chaos of the tight, technical roads and decided simply getting clear was her best option. Vinke went with 26km to go, Blasi set off in pursuit, the two joined up, and then Blasi went solo on the Cauberg with around 23km remaining.
What followed was a masterclass in refusing to look back. The favourites behind failed to organise an immediate response, and Blasi steadily extended her advantage as the urgency arrived too late. FDJ’s Berthet and Chabbey were doing the work, but nobody wanted to pull for Vollering — the usual paranoia that hands lone attackers their greatest victories. Niewiadoma-Phinney attacked on the final Cauberg, Vollering covered it, but Blasi held on for a 27-second winning margin. Niewiadoma edged Vollering for second in a photo finish.
“I wasn’t even supposed to be here. I just signed up yesterday,” said Blasi. Cyclingnews Yesterday. She wins a Women’s WorldTour monument. The women’s peloton keeps delivering — and we’re here for every bit of it.
Top Ten — 12th Women’s Amstel Gold, courtesy of Pro Cycling Stats
Foldager Snatches the Arrow at Brabantse Pijl
DBP Looks like a classic Classic.
The list of past winners of Brabantse Pijl — the “Brabant Arrow” — reads as it should for a one-time non-weekend — but first-tier — race: Evenepoel. Pidcock. Alaphilippe. Sagan. Van der Poel, for goodness’ sake.
It may be that this Friday Classic is suffering from a condition afflicting much of pro cycling: The biggest names show up only for the biggest races. We fans miss out — but if so, the next tier of riders sees new chances: Witness Anders’ Foldager win in Belgium.
To be clear: nothing against Foldager. The 24-year-old Dane is a legitimate talent. Foldager bided his time beautifully on the S-Bocht Overijse, timing his sprint to perfection as a late attacker was swallowed up, edging Quinten Hermans and past winner Benoît Cosnefroy to the line. Smart, composed, clinical. He earned his Jayco AlUla team a needed win; his sports director Valerio Piva admitted it was a “nice surprise,” noting Foldager had been in strong form but had never won at this level.
From here, I’d love to see Foldager win (and for his Jayco team to see success while Michael Matthews bounces back). But I’d also love to see races like De Brabantse Pijl return to their luminary form — at least, in part, to give the PEZ Weekend Omnium prize the notoriety it deserves. (see below)
Top Ten — 66th De Brabantse Pijl, courtesy of Pro Cycling Stats
Classic Yates, Rising Pinarello at O Gran Camiño
The last three days of the 2026 O Gran Camiño had it all — solo attacks, summit finishes, a controlled demolition job, and the quietly thrilling emergence of a 22-year-old Italian who rides for a rebranded team and carries a very famous surname.
Stage 3 set the table beautifully. Iván Romeo, Movistar’s Spanish national champion, had been stewing since a disrupted time trial on day one, and on the road to Padrón he served up his answer. With 11km left, Romeo hit his aero position and put the power down, dropping his two companions with apparent ease before soloing home 15 seconds clear of Alessandro Pinarello (riding a…Scott bicycle, not that of his forebears). It was the kind of move that makes you sit up straight. Behind the winner, though, eyes were drifting to the young NSN rider who’d just finished second on a WorldTour stage race in only his debut WorldTour season.
Stage 4, the queen stage, was Adam Yates’s masterclass. On the brutal Alto Cabeza de Meda — 5.1km at 9.4% — the UAE Team Emirates-XRG man went clear solo, taking both the stage and the race lead. He now held 34 seconds on Nordhagen and 54 on Pinarello. Yates, typically understated, said he’d simply been training well and needed to put it together. He did.
The finale on Monte Santa Trega unfolded as a controlled affair, with Yates content to ride within himself — and it was Pinarello who sprinted to the stage win from the select group on the steep closing climb.
Final GC: Yates first, Nordhagen at 32 seconds, Pinarello at 48. The veteran took the race. But the name to write down for the future? The kid from Conegliano.
GC Top Ten —5th O Gran Camiño, courtesy of Pro Cycling Stats
Riccitello Rises to Team Leadership at Tour du Jura
Good things come to those who wait — and Matthew Riccitello, the 24-year-old Tucson climber, has been waiting patiently enough. On Saturday at the Tour du Jura Cycliste, Riccitello soloed to victory atop the Mont Poupet for the sixth win of his professional career, with his Decathlon CMA CGM teammate Léo Bisiaux taking second to complete a tidy team one-two.
It was a deserved win, full stop. But it also arrives with a certain bittersweet edge. Riccitello spent the Volta ao Algarve riding in service of teammate Paul Seixas — and Seixas has since gone on an absolute tear, winning the Faun-Ardèche Classic and then three stages plus the overall at Itzulia Basque Country. Seixas is just 19 years old. Think about that. Riccitello, who finished fifth overall at the Vuelta and won the white jersey only last season, is playing shepherd to a teenager who is five years younger.
Yes, the Tour du Jura is a 1.1 — the startlist was more Jura than WorldTour — but a win is a win, and Riccitello proved the strongest when it mattered most, delivering a perfectly timed attack on the decisive slopes of Mont Poupet. “I’m just happy,” he said afterward. “The team rode really well and I’m happy I could finish it off.”
Happy is good. Now let’s see if Decathlon will eventually let him off the leash at a Grand Tour of his own.
TEAM, RIDER AND CYCLING NEWS
Reader Poll: Would You Buy a Straight-from-Asia Bike?
Last week I walked the massive Sea Otter exhibitors’ area with Richard (aka Mr. Pez). On prominent display: straight-from-Asia brands.
Bikes have — of course — been manufactured in Asia for decades, but largely on behalf of North American and European brands. Now we’re seeing brands that are unabashedly, solely Asian (principally Chinese). They boast similar quality — typically at a lower price.
So we decided that for this week’s reader poll, we’ll ask you, dear readers: How do you feel about these brands? And more to the point: Would you buy a straight-from-Asia bike? (Note: we mean manufactured in Asia by an Asian country — not a Trek or a Giant produced primarily in Taiwan.)
Please mark your response below — and, as always, share your explications, elucidations and exclamations at mike@pezcyclingnews.com.
Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post’s poll.
Ben Healy Out of Ardennes With Fractured Sacrum
Call it the EuroTrash curse: Two days after I suggested watching for a big Ben Healy performance at Amstel Gold, I learned that he’ll miss the Ardennes Classics altogether, after scans revealed a small, non-displaced mid-sacral fracture sustained during the Itzulia Basque Country.
Healy crashed during his recon of the race’s opening time trial. His pain initially subsided and, after consulting the EF Education-EasyPost medical team, he continued racing. Doctors monitored the injury throughout the week, and while Healy experienced some stiffness, his discomfort appeared to be diminishing. After the race concluded, however, his soreness flared up, prompting the team to order an MRI.
The scans confirmed the fracture. Surgery is not required, but Healy is expected to be sidelined for three to four weeks. EF Head Doctor Jon Greenwell noted that riding through the injury risked compounding it with secondary problems.
Healy had been targeting the Ardennes — Amstel Gold Race, La Flèche Wallonne, and Liège-Bastogne-Liège — since the start of the season. He will now return home to rest before beginning rehabilitation.
The Tour de France remains the goal. Healy indicated he hopes to use the Tour de l’Avenir Rhône-Alpes as a warm-up, though he acknowledged recovery timelines will dictate next steps. “As soon as there’s no pain,” he said, “hopefully we’ll be on track.”
MIKE’S RIDE OF THE WEEK: LAGUNA SECA GRAVEL & TRAILS (AND RACETRACK)
At Sea Otter last week, I didn’t just stroll through the exhibitors’ area; I also went for a ride.
Specifically, I took off from the Laguna Seca Raceway — the infield serves as Sea Otter-central — into the surrounding hills, which are ribboned with gravel roads and trails. The views from those hills are stunning.
I found my way to a trail loop — the same loop that my high school riders used to race around, back when I was a NICA coach. Riding up the famed “Hurl Hill” brought back some vivid memories.
Note: I didn’t only ride gravel and dirt. I did also sneak on for one lap of the raceway, including the famed corkscrew turn.
As many of our reader/riders dig deep into the meat of their 2026 training plans, we thought we’d reshare this vital bit of advice on how to keep it real, goal-focused, and FUN.
Gotta Comment, thought or suggestion? Drop us a line at Content@PezCyclingNews.com
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