Visma | Lease a Bike and Simon Yates will continue puzzling after Giro course announced

After the Tour de France, the second grand tour was fully announced Monday with the Giro d'Italia course for 2026. Visma | Lease a Bike has defending champion Simon Yates in its ranks, who also gave an act at the announcement of what will be on the program next May. Like Head of Racing Grischa Niermann, Yates gave his opinion.

The Giro will start next year in Bulgaria, where the riders will be put on a plane to Italy after three days. The first real showdown looks to be stage seven, with a 246-kilometer stage that will finish atop Blockhaus. Subsequent weekend stages could also be treacherous.

After the second rest day they resume with a forty kilometer individual time trial from Viareggio, while the devil seems to be in the fourteenth stage with arrival atop Pila. This is a warm-up for the as always leaden final week, in which multiple big stages are scheduled. The race ends on Sunday, May 31 in Rome.

'It’s a nice parcours. The first thing that springs to mind is the completely flat 40-kilometre time trial, but there are also a lot of tough uphill finishes. Now that we know the route, we will decide what to do as a team, and who will ride the Giro', Niermannn said.

'It looks like a challenging parcours, even though it takes a while before we get to the first uphill finish. As is usually the case in the Giro, it’s heavily backloaded with some very hard stages in the Dolomites and Alps near the end. It should be a good course for a climber, but we also have to keep the long time trial in mind. Overall, it looks good," Niermann explained on behalf of Visma | Lease a Bike.

Yates was allowed to look back on his victory last season in Rome. 'To be honest, I’m still in disbelief that I managed to pull it off. It’s something I’ve worked towards for so long, and obviously a moment I will never forget. It feels like a defining moment in my career. The Giro is just a different race from every other race on the calendar.'

'The feeling you get when you ride through the fans on the way to sign-on is incredible, and they show so much passion on the side of the road. I’m sure everybody who has raced the Giro feels that as well - not just the guy who wins.'

Will we see Yates return to the Giro next year as defending champion? 'The course of the upcoming edition is very demanding. Blockhaus is a very tough climb, I rode it in 2022, and it can really change the race. The Aosta stage will probably be key: it is extremely tough, but suits my character well,' he hinted in advance.

In a few weeks we will know the program of Yates and the other leaders of Visma | Lease a Bike. Jonas Vingegaard has also hinted several times that he would like to ride the Giro, as the Dane has never contested the Italian race.