Mega Thread – Velogames Fantasy Cycling Sixes 2026

Welcome to the mega thread for the 2026 season of the men’s classics. The basic principals of this one are to pick your favourite six riders for each of the 44 races in the competition. There are three tiers of scoring, so the five monuments plus Amstel Gold and the world championships carry extra weight compared to the rest. The scoring in general has received a slight buff for 1st and 2nd places on last year too, so that should encourage you to stack who you think will win, rather than just picking the most balanced team you can. I’ll add new races to the top of the thread and try to keep things brief, otherwise this piece will end up being 40,000 words long!
On second though, I might just remove the text for old races and replace it with my wins and losses, or else this really will be 40,000 words long! At least!

Trofeo Laigueglia – Category 3

There are a few interesting changes to this race for 2026. The start moves west down the coast to incorporate more of a rolling start. As a consequence, there’s one fewer circuit at the end. They’ve also changed the order of the main climbs in the middle portion of the race. The long and the short of it all is, the race remains a good hunting ground for the hilly specialists, but they’ll slightly fewer chances to make the difference in what should be a frenetic finale. The weather in the north west of Italy is looking warm, dry, and calm for Wednesday.

At the time of writing, there are no riders more expensive than 22 credits, so lots of opportunities to create whatever team you like. I would consider all of the following riders as the main contenders: Christian Scaroni at 22 credits; Michael Storer and Alex Aranburu at 20 credits; António Morgado and Romain Grégoire at 18 credits; Benoît Cosnefroy at 16 credits; and Antonio Tiberi at 14 credits. Overall, Astana are bringing a very strong team so Velasco and Ulissi might also fancy their chances. In previous years I would have recommended Marc Hirschi as well, but he’s become such a hard rider to figure out. There’s some good Italian filler in the budget picks from Team Polti, Solution Tech, and Bardiani. I’m thinking the Bais twins, Tonelli, Crescioli, and Mifsud for Polti; Iacchi for Solution Tech who also have a 12 credit Ben Granger; and Tolio, Turconi, and Covili for Bardiani. Other bargain picks include Garofoli, who’s in some form; Pinarello for NSN; and Gualdi for Lotto.

Kuurne – Brussel – Kuurne – Category 3

This classic nearly always ends in a straight up bunch sprint unless there are some strong riders and favourable conditions for an attack. I don’t believe that’s the case this year and we will just have a sprint for the win. The weather looks dry and only a little bit windy, so the race should be easy to control.

Well that went about as well as could be expected! Brennan crashes in one race, then wins the following day. Philipsen makes the end, but with no teammates. Magnier suffered a mechanical at the pivotal moment in the race and missed the sprint. Milan didn’t look at the races at all. And there were many riders in the top 30 who I didn’t mention and didn’t consider at all! Hopefully your opening weekends were stronger than mine.

Omloop Nieuwsblad – Category 2

The opening salvo of the Spring Classics, is a 207.2km with a little over 1600m of vertical ascent. The course this year has two addition climbs right before the final Muur and Bosberg climbs. This should open the race up more for attackers and keep things interesting right to the end. The usual pattern of this race involves a strong solo rider or group of riders holding off a group of stronger classics types and sprinters. Sometimes it ends in a full blown bunch sprint, but perhaps that’s an unlikely outcome this year with the additional climbs so near to the finish.

As expected, Mathieu van der Poel dominated the race and collected maximum points, as he finished ahead of a group of good classics riders who in tern, managed to hold off the sprinters. Other wins included Christophe Laporte, who finished just in front of the sprinters, which was headed by Tobias Lund Andresen and also contained Paul Magnier, Jordi Meeus, Jenno Berckmoes, and Laurence Pithie. There were strong performances from many riders I didn’t mention. Florian Vermeersch started his classics campaign with a solid 3rd place, and Tim Van Dijk looked very strong indeed in 2nd. So well done if you picked either of those!