After hearing this from the peloton, you may watch the final 150 kilometres of Milan-Sanremo differently

Dutch national champion Danny van Poppel, who lives in Monaco about an hour’s ride from Sanremo, will line up for his ninth Milan-Sanremo on Saturday. “On paper it should be a good race for me, but I was never really good here. It has changed so much over the last two years,” concluded the sprinter, who still has plenty of engine for the harder races.

“In the bunch, people are saying they ride the Cipressa more than a minute faster than a few years ago. It is becoming more and more of a climbers’ race. We have Primoz Roglic and Giulio Pellizzari with us, and in the end that is mainly because of Pogi, who wants to win here.” That gets the elephant in the room out of the way immediately.

For the past three years, the race has no longer started in Milan itself, but in the slightly more southerly town of Pavia. From there, the riders are sent out across the Po Valley. They travel south-west over the Passo del Turchino before, after 153 kilometres, reaching Voltri and beginning to follow the coastline westwards.

“It is already really nervous by then,” confirmed Tudor outsider Rick Pluimers. “You have to get over the Turchino, and then it already becomes hectic in the descent, because nobody wants to be too far back there. If it stretches into a line, you risk having to make a big effort to get back. On the other hand, every time you get down to the bottom, they stop to pee again anyway… it is always the same,” he laughed.

“Then you get down there and there are still 140 kilometres to go, but that is when the stress really starts,” the Dutchman continued. “You go through all those villages along the coast, where it is chaos with all the roundabouts, traffic islands and all the rest. You are focused, but it already hurts quite a bit there. After the finish you forget that, but it is already super fast at that point.”

“Those kilometres are really hectic, because all those villages and little roads on that coastal route look the same as well. That is exactly why it becomes so chaotic, because everybody thinks: we are already there,” added Van Poppel, who trains in this region more often than most.

Once the riders reach the Capi, the pace always rises again. “They always go hard on those climbs as well, so you need to be in position there too. Heading towards the Cipressa, it almost becomes like a lead-out for a bunch sprint on top of that, and that is when it really starts,” said Pluimers. Van Poppel believes that can sometimes be exaggerated a little. “It is very nervous, but if you ask me? If you are in the top 40 before the Cipressa, that is also fine as an outsider.”

Tomas Kopecky has been acting as road captain for Unibet Tietema Rockets for some time now, and he will take on that role again in the team’s first Milan-Sanremo. “To people on the outside, it may not always look like it, but in so many races you have those different crucial moments. It is always hectic, but especially in the Classics.”

“The more often you find yourself in that situation, the more you develop a kind of calm in the chaos. Controlled panic, while still thinking clearly and sticking to the plan,” he explained. “It is very tempting to keep pushing all the time, but in the end something always opens up somewhere. But heading into the Cipressa, you should not even think too much in terms of efforts — you just need to be incredibly good. That is where my finish line is, and then I will see how much farther I can get after that.”

“That is the difference now: in the past, riders were told on the team bus that the helpers could survive the Cipressa and still do something towards the Poggio, but that is no longer realistic,” Van Poppel explained. To use the words of Florian Vermeersch, runner-up in Omloop Het Nieuwsblad: “My job is mainly to cover the Capi and deliver the guys to the Cipressa in the best possible position. That is a very important role, and I am happy to take that on for this team.”

Once that battle for position is done, the handbrake can finally come off. Pluimers knows what that feels like: in 2025 he entered the Cipressa in perfect shape. “I was there in a good position, around fifth wheel. And I still remember how much it hurt. By the time I exploded, Pogacar and Van der Poel were only just launching. That was pretty impressive to see.”

“On the other hand, it was still only two or three riders, and everything behind them stayed pretty close together. It was up to the rest to try and hang on,” said Pluimers. Mike Teunissen, who finished eleventh last year, added: “They are the riders with the most talent, and on top of that they do not make mistakes. They know what they have to do, how to take care of themselves, how to prepare, and they do everything right.”

Reading all that, you might wonder why Milan-Sanremo is not especially known for the kind of major crashes we have seen in the Tour of Flanders, Paris-Roubaix and even Omloop Het Nieuwsblad in recent years. “It often does go well, but there are still crashes every year,” said Pluimers. “I know that, because I crashed myself two years ago just before the Cipressa.”

And if you have made it this far, Teunissen had one final Milan-Sanremo summary to offer. “A little bit of stress before the Turchino, but not too much. Then you take off the jacket and prepare yourself for the drag race and those climbs, trying to get a good result. It is the same every year.”