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2026 PTHC Calendar Revealed
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| Ad Bot |
Posted on 27-06-2026 20:52
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| Jakstar22 |
Posted on 27-06-2026 00:19
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With the 2026 season fast approaching, it is time to reveal the PTHC Calender. 24 races, 6 bands, 14 RDs and a whole lot of fun!
PT and PCT teams are both awarded points at this level which will make for some extremely exciting racing! Let's take a look!
| Country | Race | RDs |  | Tour de Suisse | 7 |  | Tour of Ukraine | 3 |  | Chrono d'Arenberg | 2 |  | Rheden GP | 2 |
The Tour de Suisse has had some changes, notably the ITT now at the beginning and a hill parcours. 2 flat stages for the sprinters will probably attract a weaker crowd, while the GC fight will be extremely intense with some large mountains to navigate.
Ukraine sticks to the same, TT heavy parcours. A short hilly prologue followed by a hill stage and finally a 25.9km ITT to finish. An interesting race as it will not only take a TT specialist, but also someone who can get up the short, sharp hills.
This race is just a beast. The individual time trial over the cobbles of Roubaix. 31.5km with maybe 1.5km of that being road without cobbles. Fabian Cancellara would have loved this race 
Finally, a hilly cobbles race in the Netherlands. An interesting finish to Band 1 as there are a lot of hill climbers with a really decent ability to cobble. Plus will the cobbles be selective? We will have to wait and see!
| Country | Race | RDs | | Criterium du Dauphine Libere | 7 |  | Tour of Lithuania | 3 |  | Philadelphia International Championship | 2 |  | Roma Maxima | 2 |
The prep race for the Tour de France, the Tour de France's little brother. The Criterium du Dauphine Libere has been called many names, but what it hasn't been called, is easy... 3 HUGE mountain days throughout, 2 flat stages, 1 interesting hilly stage that could cause some separation but also could be a selective sprint stage. Finishing off with a very short 5.5km ITT means we get a little bit of everything in this years edition, similar to its sister race, the Tour de Suisse.
We have had a change! The Irish race, Ras Tailteann has been removed from Band 2 with the Tour of Lithuania taking its place. 3 flat stages will draw a star studded cast of sprinters here. 3 stages of all out sprinting! We will be in for a treat!
Just like in previous seasons, the Philidelphia International Championship and Roma Maxima remain unchanged.
| Country | Race | RDs |  | Vuelta a Colombia | 6 |  | Tour of the Middle East | 4 | | Veenendaal - Veenendaal | 2 |  | GP Kigali | 2 |
The Vuelta a Colombia remains in band 3 with an unchanged parcours. Many huge mountains at high altitude will make for an exciting race!
The Tour of the Middle East gets quite the promotion this season! Moving for a C2 to a PTHC race. 2 exciting flat stages and 2 pan flat until you see a wall in the way mountain stages. This will be an exciting race in the Middle East and should attract quite a strong field!
Veenendaal - Veenendaal remains unchanged as well.
GP Kigali has been downgraded from a PT race to the PTHC bands. Still an attractive race for the PT teams so there should be quite a lot of interest here!
| Country | Race | RDs |  | Balkans International | 6 |  | Volta a Catalunya | 4 |  | Grands Prix Cycliste | 2 |  | Riga - Jurmala GP | 2 |
The first band with NO cobbles 
The Balkans International headlines Band 4 once again and with a change of parcour! A very mountainous race however 2 sprint stages may draw in a couple of top sprinters. Hill stage to start and then 3 big mountain days throughout.
A race that did not feature last year, the Volta a Catalunya, takes the place of the Tour of Lithuania in band 4. An interesting switch from pan flat to a really tough climbers race. Although with a fork in the road. A TTT on stage 2 will really show us who has the strongest team. Lots of climbing could give the weaker teams a chance to catch up but it would make life quite hard for their leaders. You'd hope to have a decent-to-strong TTT set up here in Catalunya!
The Canadian Classic, Grands Prix Cycliste, continues in band 4 with a switch to the parcour. Still an exciting hilly race in Canada though!
The Riga - Jurmala GP also continues in band 4 unchanged.
| Country | Race | RDs |  | Deutschland Tour | 5 |  | Tour of Slovenia | 5 |  | Hanko Classic | 2 | | Tour of the Battenkill | 2 |
Band 5 remains completely unchanged. A really tough band this one with a very hard cobbles classic in the US while also including TT heavy races with the Deutschland Tour being decided by a long ITT on stage 3 and the Tour of Slovenia having a TTT in the race and also a very long ITT to finish. Plus 2 hill stage finishes. A tough band!
| Country | Race | RDs | | Tour du Romandie | 6 |  | Cheshire Cycling Tour | 4 | | Clasica San Sebastian | 2 |  | Japan Cup | 2 |
2 big changes for the final band today. Tour du Romandie replaces the Volta a Portugal. Cheshire Cycling Tour moves from Band 3 and is extended by 3 stages to create a more balanced Band this season.
Romandie is a stage racers paradise with some great climbs and 2 ITT's throughout the race. Hopefully the hill stages don't allow big gaps to open between the GC riders.
The Cheshire Cycling Tour is just a hard race. 4 days, all with cobbles will be a really selective and exciting race!
Clasica San Sebastian and the Japan Cup both remain unchanged.
And thats it... Some great bands this season and lots of changes! The information on when the PTHC band choices would begin will be announced later.
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| Ulrich Ulriksen |
Posted on 27-06-2026 00:41
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Thanks to Jakstar for a nice intro. A couple of notes on the stages:
- Be aware, the AI can get tempted by weak cobbling sprinters in cobbled stage races.
- The Balkans organizers have figured out how to make the finishing climb in Ioanninia a little bit longer, in addition to the new first stage noted above.
And since nobody objected - we will likely have wildcards for CT teams in the PTHC.
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| Heine |
Posted on 27-06-2026 06:48
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I just know one thing for sure, I am going to select the wrong bands...
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| kandesbunzler26 |
Posted on 27-06-2026 11:42
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Thanks for covering this, Jakstar!
It seems like an easy choice for me this year, although post transfers it'll probably be a totally wrong one.
I also hope Franceville will feature in one of the other categories, orherwise 
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| cunego59 |
Posted on 27-06-2026 11:58
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kandesbunzler26 wrote:
Thanks for covering this, Jakstar!
It seems like an easy choice for me this year, although post transfers it'll probably be a totally wrong one.
I also hope Franceville will feature in one of the other categories, orherwise
I feel exactly the same on all three accounts 
Can you clarify this? Does that mean that if you field a weak cobbling sprinter alongside a cobblestone specialist who should be the leader, that the team might focus on the sprinter?
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| whitejersey |
Posted on 27-06-2026 12:06
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Will have more thoughts at some point but first thought about Chesire being a stage race again:
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| knockout |
Posted on 27-06-2026 12:07
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Is the opening stage of Romandie a TTT or a ITT?
On first glance, I only see two bands i want to race. Will have to find arguments for a third one 
A Big Thank You To All MG Reporters! |
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| Jakstar22 |
Posted on 27-06-2026 12:12
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knockout wrote:
Is the opening stage of Romandie a TTT or a ITT?
On first glance, I only see two bands i want to race. Will have to find arguments for a third one
Sorry yes it’s a TTT. I was seeing what I wanted to see
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| baseballlover312 |
Posted on 27-06-2026 14:24
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Can you clarify this? Does that mean that if you field a weak cobbling sprinter alongside a cobblestone specialist who should be the leader, that the team might focus on the sprinter?
Yeah, sorry if this is too in the weeds, but do you mean that the AI will prioritize sprinters over cobblers generally, or that a sprinter will take precedence over a cobbler within your team? Essentially wondering if this can be avoided in race planning or if it's just something to know.
Also, has a concerted effort been made to reduce ITT's in stage races this year? Both in the GTs and now here it seems that TT's are on the way out. Dauphine and Suisse with only 12 ITT km's total between them and no flat ITT km's in Romandie either. Still plenty of TT km's in the flat and hilly races, and lots of TTT's, but it seems like not much going on for traditional stage racers this year.
The PTHC bands are never perfect for us with the cobbled races split among 5 different bands, and then the band missing them is always Band 4 with Balkans, such that Aranburu has never been able to ride the race that suits him most. But that's part of the game! I'll need to give some thought to which cobbled bands I prioritize this year.
Thanks for the preview Jakstar!
Edited by baseballlover312 on 27-06-2026 14:34
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| jt1109 |
Posted on 27-06-2026 15:38
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baseballlover312 wrote:
Can you clarify this? Does that mean that if you field a weak cobbling sprinter alongside a cobblestone specialist who should be the leader, that the team might focus on the sprinter?
Yeah, sorry if this is too in the weeds, but do you mean that the AI will prioritize sprinters over cobblers generally, or that a sprinter will take precedence over a cobbler within your team? Essentially wondering if this can be avoided in race planning or if it's just something to know.
I can grab this one in the flat cobbled stage races the game will sometimes not always pick your sprinter (if their good enough) as the teams leader over the cobbled leader (who will be given a (free role) instead, limiting their protection from teams
A similar issue can apply to Hilly cobbled races with Low-Medium level cobbles 1-3*, where the game will assign a leader to the highest hill stat, not the cobble stat first
Better awareness has been applied to showing the managers the level of cobbles in the profiles this year, which should be seen in Green/Yellow/Red cobble box, and has required a ton of work again by UU to get a spread across all divisions so thanks "again" to UU.
This should help when planning these races this year immensely for those carefully selecting their cobbled teams by profile |
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| baseballlover312 |
Posted on 27-06-2026 15:48
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jt1109 wrote:
baseballlover312 wrote:
Can you clarify this? Does that mean that if you field a weak cobbling sprinter alongside a cobblestone specialist who should be the leader, that the team might focus on the sprinter?
Yeah, sorry if this is too in the weeds, but do you mean that the AI will prioritize sprinters over cobblers generally, or that a sprinter will take precedence over a cobbler within your team? Essentially wondering if this can be avoided in race planning or if it's just something to know.
I can grab this one in the flat cobbled stage races the game will sometimes not always pick your sprinter (if their good enough) as the teams leader over the cobbled leader (who will be given a (free role) instead, limiting their protection from teams
A similar issue can apply to Hilly cobbled races with Low-Medium level cobbles 1-3*, where the game will assign a leader to the highest hill stat, not the cobble stat first
Better awareness has been applied to showing the managers the level of cobbles in the profiles this year, which should be seen in Green/Yellow/Red cobble box, and has required a ton of work again by UU to get a spread across all divisions so thanks "again" to UU.
This should help when planning these races this year immensely for those carefully selecting their cobbled teams by profile
Thank you! That's very helpful!
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy |
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| Ulrich Ulriksen |
Posted on 27-06-2026 16:08
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No need for tears, Franceville lives on.
No one was mourning East Java but that and Eritrea have been removed (which gives Cunego a different reason to mourn), the current AI doesn't seem to handle very short mountain races particularly well.
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| Ulrich Ulriksen |
Posted on 27-06-2026 17:08
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baseballlover312 wrote:
Also, has a concerted effort been made to reduce ITT's in stage races this year? Both in the GTs and now here it seems that TT's are on the way out. Dauphine and Suisse with only 12 ITT km's total between them and no flat ITT km's in Romandie either. Still plenty of TT km's in the flat and hilly races, and lots of TTT's, but it seems like not much going on for traditional stage racers this year.
Forgot to respond to this. Generally TTs tend to be much more selective in short races so we always have to be careful that a race with an TT doesn't turn into an TT race by accident.
Yes, on PTHC. Last year we saw incredibly deep fields in Colombia, East Java and Andorra but relatively light fields in the races with ITs so felt like a swing in the other direction might be merited.
I think going forward we will see Suisse and Dauphine swing from year to year, this year just happens to be a non-IT swing.
On GTs - I think Heine's intro may have underplayed the IT in the TDF - 52k should generate some significant gaps. But do think a very IT heavy GT might make sense next year.
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| baseballlover312 |
Posted on 27-06-2026 17:13
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Ulrich Ulriksen wrote:
baseballlover312 wrote:
Also, has a concerted effort been made to reduce ITT's in stage races this year? Both in the GTs and now here it seems that TT's are on the way out. Dauphine and Suisse with only 12 ITT km's total between them and no flat ITT km's in Romandie either. Still plenty of TT km's in the flat and hilly races, and lots of TTT's, but it seems like not much going on for traditional stage racers this year.
Forgot to respond to this. Generally TTs tend to be much more selective in short races so we always have to be careful that a race with an TT doesn't turn into an TT race by accident.
Yes, on PTHC. Last year we saw incredibly deep fields in Colombia, East Java and Andorra but relatively light fields in the races with ITs so felt like a swing in the other direction might be merited.
I think going forward we will see Suisse and Dauphine swing from year to year, this year just happens to be a non-IT swing.
On GTs - I think Heine's intro may have underplayed the IT in the TDF - 52k should generate some significant gaps. But do think a very IT heavy GT might make sense next year.
Thanks for the explanation! Makes sense, although to some extent I think it's natural that the races that require less versatility will have deeper startlists generally. Just like a pure hilly race or a pure flat race without a TT will have less startlist diversity.
I think my main thought on the Tour TT is just that it happens so early on that there will be way more mountain stages afterwards for those gaps to be undone via the usual GT breakaway shenanigans. But of course still a very significant ITT overall.
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy |
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| Bikex |
Posted on 27-06-2026 18:03
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Thanks for the writeup jakstar. I can understand the ideas behind most of the changes and assume quite a lot of thoughts went into this. So good job to the team designing the races, mainly UU I guess. For me the choice will as always not be that easy. |
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