What if modern cycling was simply… faster?

Tadej Pogačar’s demonstration at Strade Bianche and the astonishing performance of young Paul Seixas bring a crucial question back into focus. What if the models used for twenty years to judge cycling performances have become obsolete? Between technological revolution, training transformation, and new nutrition science, the rider of 2026 might simply be… a different athlete from the one in 1995.

By Jeff Tatard – Images: @Jefftatard, DR

The white roads of Tuscany always have something brutal about them. The dust, the bumps, the uncertain trajectories. Nothing perfectly controlled. And yet, it is precisely in this almost primitive setting that modern cycling sometimes best reveals its evolution. During the Strade Bianche, Tadej Pogačar decided to attack nearly eighty kilometers from the finish. Not a tactical acceleration. A frank, violent, almost insolent attack. The peloton immediately exploded. For a few moments, only one rider seemed capable of enduring this violence. He was 19 years old. His name was Paul Seixas. A few minutes later, the hierarchy re-established itself. Pogačar flew towards Siena, but behind him, the young Frenchman resisted and finished second. And suddenly a question arose. If a 19-year-old rider can already perform at this level, are we really facing abnormal performances? Or is it our way of analyzing them that has fallen behind?

Cycling’s Permanent Suspicion

Since the late 1990s, cycling has lived with a form of chronic suspicion. The sport’s history is too marked for it to be otherwise. Over the years, certain analysts have tried to objectify this suspicion by modeling performances based on estimated power in major climbs. The idea is simple: compare current performances with those observed in the past. But this reasoning assumes one essential thing: that today’s cycling is comparable to yesterday’s. And it is precisely this that is becoming debatable.

Antoine Vayer’s Models

For over twenty years, Antoine Vayer has established himself as one of modern cycling’s most well-known and controversial analysts. A former coach for the Festina team in the late 1990s, he gradually specialized in performance analysis based on riders’ estimated power in major climbs.

His approach is based on a relatively simple principle: from speed, gradient, and estimated rider weight, it is possible to evaluate the power developed, generally expressed in watts per kilogram. These estimations then allow for performance comparisons across different eras.

Over the years, Vayer thus proposed a famous classification, distinguishing between “human,” “suspicious,” or “mutant” performances. This approach has shaped public debate and contributed to fostering permanent vigilance around exceptional performances.

But these models also rely on an implicit hypothesis: that the physiological and technological conditions of cycling remain comparable over time. However, it is precisely this hypothesis that is now beginning to be questioned.

Because if a young rider like Paul Seixas can already approach certain power levels observed among the peloton’s best climbers, then a question arises: have performances become abnormal… or have the references used to judge them become incomplete?

Between 1995 and 2026, Cycling Changed Dimension

Comparing the performances of the modern peloton to those of the 1990s is almost like comparing two different sports. Equipment, training, nutrition, and even the physiological understanding of effort have profoundly evolved. Each individual progress seems modest. But added together, they radically transform the level of performance.

The Technological Revolution

The modern bike has little in common with that of the mid-1990s. Carbon frames have become stiffer and lighter, aerodynamic wheels allow for maintaining high speeds with less energy, and tubeless tires offer superior efficiency while improving traction. Added to this are electronic drivetrains, optimized gear ratios, and an overall bike design focused on mechanical efficiency. Taken together, these advancements represent several percentage points of performance gain. On a thirty-minute climb, this can already represent nearly a minute. Without the rider producing a single additional watt.

Aerodynamics Has Become a Daily Science

In the 1990s, aerodynamics primarily concerned time trials. Today it is everywhere. Profiled helmets, optimized textiles, wind tunnel studies, numerical simulations: every detail is analyzed. At high speeds, these optimizations can represent several tens of watts saved. On a classic race or a long mountain stage, this advantage becomes considerable.

Scientific Training

Modern cycling has become a data-driven sport. In the 1990s, riders primarily trained by volume and feel. Today, every session is measured, analyzed, and integrated into extremely precise load models. Power meters have revolutionized preparation, physiological zones are perfectly identified, and altitude camps are scientifically planned. The result: riders reach the highest level much earlier and with much more structured preparation. We even observe a phenomenon that would have been almost unthinkable twenty or thirty years ago: some champions are capable of winning… from their very first race of the season. This year, Mathieu van der Poel won Omloop Het Nieuwsblad in his comeback race. A week later, Tadej Pogačar won Strade Bianche, again in his first appearance of the season. And a few weeks earlier, Remco Evenepoel had also opened his year with a victory at the Challenge Mallorca. This type of immediate performance illustrates how much modern preparation allows riders to arrive very close to their peak form from the very first competitions. Twenty or thirty years ago, the first races were mainly used to build rhythm and gradually develop condition. Today, planning is so precise that some riders arrive at the starting line already at a level that allows them to win. Comparing these situations with those of 1990s cycling therefore becomes particularly delicate. The physiological, technological, and methodological contexts are simply different. And ultimately, this is perhaps excellent news: it means that cycling continues to evolve, progress, and push the limits of sports performance.

Nutrition Has Transformed the Physiology of Effort

For a long time, in-race nutrition relied on relatively limited and rather empirical intakes. In the 1980s and 1990s, riders mainly consumed water, a few energy bars, sometimes gingerbread or even sandwiches prepared in team cars. Carbohydrate intake generally hovered around 40 to 60 grams per hour, an amount that then seemed sufficient to sustain effort. But the physiological understanding of endurance effort has profoundly evolved. Sports nutrition science has gradually shown that the ability to maintain high intensity for several hours largely depends on the availability of carbohydrates in the body.

Over the past decade, nutritional strategies have therefore been completely rethought. WorldTour team nutritionists now work with very precise protocols, combining different carbohydrate sources to increase the intestine’s absorption capacity. The glucose–fructose combination, which uses two different intestinal transporters, thus allows for intakes far superior to those observed previously. Today, some riders regularly consume 120 to 150 grams of carbohydrates per hour during the most demanding stages.

This evolution profoundly changes the physiology of racing. By maintaining a high level of available glycogen in the muscles, riders delay the onset of metabolic fatigue and avoid sudden drops in power linked to energy depletion. Concretely, this means they can produce very high efforts for much longer, especially in the decisive phases of the race. Where, twenty years ago, a long offensive could quickly lead to energetic failure, modern nutritional strategies now allow for sustaining high intensities for several hours, which also helps explain why some contemporary cycling performances seem so spectacular.

The Seixas Paradox

It is precisely for this reason that Paul Seixas‘s performance becomes so interesting. If certain old analysis frameworks were applied to what he has recently shown, especially against the peloton’s best riders, these figures might seem perplexing. Some evaluation models built twenty years ago were based on the idea that certain physiological limits could not be crossed without arousing suspicion. But the reality of modern cycling has become more complex. Today, young riders reach the highest level with a scientific, physiological, and technological background that simply did not exist two or three decades ago.

At 3bikes, we find it difficult to imagine that a rider like Seixas, trained in the extremely supervised environment of modern cycling, would operate outside the rules. The context of current cycling has little in common with that which prevailed twenty years ago. Controls are omnipresent, teams have structured medical units, and the preparation of young talents is now part of closely monitored programs, often since adolescence.

Moreover, what makes the story even more interesting is that some attentive observers had already perceived Seixas’s extraordinary potential long before his current performances. After his French cadet cyclo-cross champion title in 2022, when he was only 15, Antoine Vayer himself had mentioned in an interview the exceptional talent of the young Frenchman. He already explained that this boy seemed to possess rare physiological qualities and that he would probably one day fall outside the traditional analytical frameworks used to evaluate performances. In other words, he already recognized that this type of talent could exceed the statistical benchmarks built from previous generations.

This is where the paradox becomes particularly interesting. If even the most critical models recognize the existence of exceptional physiological profiles, then perhaps we must accept that certain performances in modern cycling are not necessarily anomalies, but simply the expression of a new generation of athletes. If a young rider like Seixas can already reach these physiological levels at 19, then the question changes nature. It may not be the performances that should be considered suspicious, but the historical references used to judge them that need to be re-evaluated.

A Disturbing Conclusion

Cycling will probably always remain a sport viewed with a certain distrust. Its history is too heavy for it to completely disappear from collective memory. But the emergence of young riders like Paul Seixas perhaps forces us to shift our perspective slightly.

Because if a 19-year-old rider, trained in the scientific and technological environment of modern cycling, can already reach these performance levels, then the question deserves to be posed differently. Perhaps certain analytical frameworks built twenty or thirty years ago are no longer sufficient to explain what we observe today.

What if the performances of the current peloton are not extraordinary because they are artificial… but simply because cycling itself has become extraordinarily high-performing? More scientific. More technological. More optimized.

Bikes have evolved. Training has become a science. Nutrition has changed the physiology of effort. Young riders reach the highest level with years of structured preparation and tools that previous generations simply did not have.

So perhaps the rider of 2026 is not producing impossible watts. Perhaps he is simply producing the watts of a sport that has, itself, profoundly evolved.

And sometimes, to understand modern performances, one must accept a simple idea: cycling is no longer exactly the same sport it was thirty years ago.

=> All our Society articles

=> And to better understand the impact of carbohydrates on endurance performance, we invite you to read this scientific article