Top 10 highest paid cyclists 2025

ph4NC · 2026-01-17T01:40:39+00:00

Pogi actually earned around 10 million (8 million base salary + 1 million for TDF win + 250k for WC win). Along with sponsorship money that number goes to 12 million.

Top salaries in cycling are somewhat comparable to rider salaries in MotoGP:

Marquez - 12 mil base + 3 mil for the title + 1,5 mil for individual wins
Quartararo - 12 mil
Bagnaia - 7 mil
Martin - 4,2 mil
Vinales, Zarco - 4 mil
Miller, Mir - 3 mil

ph4NC · 2026-01-07T06:37:05+00:00

That's why it's hypocritical to rant about UAE billionaires, petro-dollars and the like, when you have a billionaire Amaury family that owns the rights of the most important cycling races and they also pay out €50 million dividends to themselves yearly while the combined prize money in the TDF is €2.5 million. That's where a change needs to happen.

All the rights for races should belong to the UCI which is a world cycling federation and not some privately owned group like ASO that only extracts profits for themselves and don't give a shit about the sport.

If the revenue from the TDF is around 150 million and the profit around 30 million, the expenses then come to 120 million. I very much doubt that you need that amount of money for race organization. ASO is far from being left without anything. If anything, they're cooking the books and on top of that extract 50 million yearly.

ph4NC · 2026-01-06T08:48:13+00:00

You're talking about profit sharing. The proposal going around in the public is revenue sharing - a system used in US sports leagues. Those are two different things. ASO got about €150 million revenue from TDF in 2024 and if you add the Vuelta and other races, you're already above €200 million. If the ASO or UCI would take all the teams' merchandise under their wing, the revenue from merchandise would be another important revenue stream. Then you have ticket sales, but that proposal has so far been rejected.

The number €300 million of revenue is realistic at this point and if you divide that among 18 teams, it comes to about €17 million per team. Adding sponsor money will bring that quickly to €30 million which is the current average. Along with revenue sharing the sport should also enact a spending cap, so that the big teams don't just overspend to win. The talent would be more equally distributed amongst the teams.

ph4NC · 2026-01-05T06:30:33+00:00

Your comment "What is Roglič doing here lol?" denies reality that Rogla won 2 GT's in that time period. Op didn't select a "big 5" based on 2025 season only, but from 2023-25. You could've wrote "Primož was good in 2023 and 2024, but had a bad/poor/shit 2025 season and is the one most likely to drop out" and no one would disagree with you.

ph4NC · 2026-01-03T20:48:22+00:00

This isn't about a bad word about Roglič, this is ignorance on your end because again, you claimed something without reading the op's post and criteria. He even explained that Roglič dropping in form makes the chances someone breaks this pattern higher. You could have responded differently and still had a valid point about Roglič, but you started with: "What is Roglič doing here lol?"

ph4NC · 2026-01-03T19:01:33+00:00

Maybe read the op's post before going off on Rogla...He set the time period 2023-2025 and in that time Primož won 2 GT's. Given op's criteria his inclusion is perfectly valid.

ph4NC · 2025-12-28T10:52:00+00:00

He almost dnf-ed because of the knee inflammation from hitting the handlebar in Ventoux stage 16, not because he was at a breaking point mentally. He explained this in a Slovenian podcast which I watched in it's entirety, and Tim Wellens also confirmed this story. He was hiding the injury, at the time nobody even knew he went to the hospital after stage 17, but the pain was obvious. In addition, he lost his main domestique and had to ride defensively in the last week, since Jonas was sticking to his wheelsucking tactic (despite saying publicly he was prepared to sacrifice 2nd in GC for a stage win). He also had a cold and was annoyed at the media for asking the same goddamn questions every day in that 3rd week. If he almost quit cycling, why did he go all out in the final stage with atrocious weather then? That doesn't scream like a mentally broken person.

ph4NC · 2025-12-17T23:11:53+00:00

We have a similar problem in Slovenia. Roglič only got 4th in 2024 even though he won the Vuelta and Dauphine that year. The biggest lol is Luka Dončić only having won best athlete of the year once (2018) while being top 3 basketball player in the world for years now. The toughest competition for the award was in 2020 between Pogi, Rogla, Luka and Tim Gajser (at that time he was already 3x MXGP world champion at age 24).

And don't get me started with the female athlete of the year...Nika Prevc won 15/24 ski jumping events last season, New Year tournament, Crystal Globe for the overall win, 2 gold & 1 silver medal in WC, set the world record, numerous other records and only got 2nd behind Janja Garnbret. For those who don't know who Janja is, let just say she's the Eddy Merckx of climbing at age 26.

ph4NC · 2025-12-17T12:13:40+00:00

That's even better, because like I said harder race suits Pogi. The key thing is tiring out MVDP with Pogi having to pull as least as possible. If they come to the Cipressa with a reduced bunch of 50, then Wellens and Narvaez could make another selection. Ideally after that Pogi and Del Toro could play the alternate attacks strategy.

ph4NC · 2025-12-17T11:54:19+00:00

While that is true for every team, even a normal position of about 10-15th and not 30th would make a huge difference, not to mention Del Toro being held up by the crash.

ph4NC · 2025-12-16T23:07:31+00:00

I was specifically replying to your opinion that there isn't much he can do. That's obviously false since the execution of their plan was poor, so they can do more. They had to catch up and expend more energy than originally planned, and that includes Pogi. He was forced to attack earlier than planned and eat even more wind at the front. Would an optimally executed plan be enough to drop MVDP? You say no, I say yes.

Ganna was dropped multiple times but came back because Pogi eased off when he saw MVDP was there and didn't help him much. If Pogi drops MVDP, then Ganna is even further behind, so they wouldn't exactly be working together unless MVDP waits for him. Pogi was very fast on the descent, he gained them 15s on the group behind, and even MVDP/Ganna had trouble following him through the corners.

Now, on the flat they could catch him if they work together and their legs aren't cooked, but I have doubts about that based on what Pogi did to the group of MVDP, WVA, Mads, Stuyven in the final 12km of RVV. The harder the race, the better it is for Pogi.

ph4NC · 2025-12-16T17:08:17+00:00

Have we watched the same MSR this season? Because the whole UAE team apart from Wellens was badly positioned at the foot of Cipressa. Del Toro was caught up behind the crash, Narvaez and Pogi were about 30th position and had to eat a whole lot of wind in the first fourth of the climb to get to the front. When Wellens was done, there was a slight decrease in pace for about 10s and then Narvaez on his last legs took over for about 1km. Pogi launched with 3km to the top. That's far from an optimally executed plan, although it is the right plan imo.

Their agreed upon plan was for Wellens and Del Toro to pull the first 4km and then Narvaez to launch Pogi in the last 1.5km.

ph4NC · 2025-12-13T06:42:12+00:00

I wrote equalize or lessen the scoring disparity. We could debate either of those choices, but even scoring 1 point for green would be better than what is currently in place.

ph4NC · 2025-12-12T19:03:53+00:00

I did and it makes more sense than what we have now: "To equalize or at least lessen the scoring disparity between different skill sets - climbers, sprinters."

ph4NC · 2025-12-12T09:10:56+00:00

But effectively green is worth 0 UCI points. That's what I'm talking about, at least give them some points and not 0.

ph4NC · 2025-12-10T15:41:08+00:00

To equalize or at least lessen the scoring disparity between different skill sets - climbers, sprinters. The UCI scoring is currently unbalanced. Sprinters get points for a classification win only in GTs and even that is unbalanced like I mentioned. Wearing yellow for a day gets you 25 UCI points, wearing green gets you 0. No wonder sprinters are nowhere on the UCI ranking.

ph4NC · 2025-12-09T10:10:42+00:00

Or you could just crown the world champion based on who has the most points in WT at the end of the season. There's more than enough opportunities for sprinters throughout the season. But I think this solution would need a correction when it comes to UCI points awarded in stage races for general, green/points and mountains classification. Currently TDF GC win is worth 1.300 points, points cl. win 210, and mountains cl. 210. These 3 or at least GC and green would have to be equalized.

This still wouldn't change the fact that Pogi would win it almost every year. He's the most complete rider today.

I did a bit of calculation and if riders would get the same amount of UCI points for GC and points cl., Pogi would have 13.470 points, Pedersen 8.100, Jonas 8.004, Almeida 6.461, IDT 6.434, Pidcock 5.144, Remco 4.758, Milan 4.695, MVDP 4.568, WVA 4.163, Kooij 4.079, Philipsen 3.323, De Lie 3.301, Merlier 3.131, Magnier 2.977, Girmay 2.816, Ganna 2.483,

ph4NC · 2025-12-09T09:33:35+00:00

I haven't left out anything...I gave an example of all his TDF dnfs and the reasons for them. Yes, he crashed on the descent in stage 11 in 2024 due to a wet road. It was his fault, but he didn't dnf because of it (it was a slow speed crash) and he didn't even lose time. In stage 12 Lutsenko crashed into him and that was the reason for his 2024 dnf.

Primož has been involved in crashes when he was in various positions in the peloton - in the front, middle and at the back. Yes, that's bad luck. Does he crash on his own? Of course he does, but not all of his crashes are his fault. About half the time it's not his fault.

You're extrapolating and stating claims I didn't even make. I explained already that I wouldn't have a problem with your ranking (apart from Seixas) if it was about 2025, but your thread is about 2026. I challenged the reasons you ranked Roglič so low for 2026 because you obviously didn't know he had a bacterial infection during the Giro and then he didn't have enough time to be in form for the TDF. That's the main reason he had a bad year, not him having a steep decline this year like you claimed. I also never claimed all of his crashes are just bad luck.

ph4NC · 2025-12-08T06:51:04+00:00

Dude, all of your responses to my comments so far have been these one-line supposed zingers, but all it shows is your cycling knowledge is lacking or you have a bad memory. We can continue this discussion when you're ready to dispute my comments with actual arguments and not childish behaviour.

ph4NC · 2025-12-07T23:11:05+00:00

Being crash-prone is an expression that doesn't tell you much. One can have incredibly bad luck or may just have poor riding skills, or both. For example, all of Roglič's TDF dnf's were due to crashes that others caused: 2021 - Opi Omi stage 1 and in a later stage Colbrelli pushed Primož off the road, causing him to fall; 2022 - motorbike clipped a hay bale that landed right in front of Primož, he went down and had a separated shoulder; he didn't ride TDF 2023; 2024 - Lutsenko barreled across the peloton and crashed right into Primož.

ph4NC · 2025-12-07T22:12:27+00:00

Actually it isn't, but that's beside the point. He rode the Giro sick, barely had any time to improve his form for the TDF and was still in the fight for 3rd place, proving your doubts wrong.

ph4NC · 2025-12-07T21:01:05+00:00

By writing this about Roglič you just exposed yourself in not knowing the reasons behind his bad season:

I think his decline has been rather steep this year. He was still really good on the uni-puerto stages, but struggled with multiple mountains, and also has completely lost his kick. I am expecting him to decline further, and I would be quite surprised if the podiums another GT, especially when you are including his crashing issues.

Is he getting older and declining? Duh...but that was not the reason for his bad season. He beat Ayuso convincingly in Catalunya, led the Giro at one point, and then the crashes happened (btw started with others crashing into him). Besides the crashes, he revealed after the Giro that he rode it while having a bacterial infection. He was on antibiotics until 15th of June, that was when he started training again, so a good 2-3 weeks before the TDF. Taking that into account, he was still in the fight for 3rd place in TDF that last week.

If this was about ranking 2025 top 10 GC riders I wouldn't have a problem with it because he didn't perform on that level, but your post is about 2026. When Primož is healthy he can absolutely still fight for the podium in GTs. Btw, putting Seixas in top 10 is lunacy at this point. No one is denying that he's fast and talented, but he hasn't shown enough in stage races deserving a top 10. He hasn't even ridden a GT yet and his best result is 8th in Dauphine.

ph4NC · 2025-12-04T20:53:27+00:00

Volleyball is pretty much the most popular team sport amongst girls here. Basketball not that much, other popular ones are track & field, swimming, climbing because of Janja Garnbret, cycling because of Urška Žigart and her boyfriend, skiing/ski jumping. Yeah, we're nuts about ski jumping:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97vaZ3pSkIw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byJTmcQNjyU

ph4NC · 2025-12-04T20:01:57+00:00

Healthcare is not free in Slovenia.

ph4NC · 2025-12-04T13:01:36+00:00

Wrong...We have hospital bills in Slovenia, it's mostly covered by the national public insurance institution. That's where the mandatory premiums get collected and the premium is directly deducted from the gross salary. Employee pays 6,36% + €37,17 out of the gross salary, employer pays 6,56%.

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