If there’s one thing you don’t want influencing a world championship road race, it’s a giant crater in the middle of the road.
The City of Montreal insists that won’t be the case when the UCI road world championships rolls into town this September. Despite a rough winter that’s left streets battered, and plenty of residents frustrated, officials say the work is already underway to make the course race-ready. Montreal is somewhat famous for its potholes but there is a plan to fix them so that it’s smooth asphalt, not something similar to what we saw at Sunday’s Paris-Roubaix.
“We have no choice but to be ready,” Mayor Soraya Martinez Ferrada said. “It’s our responsibility to deliver a city that corresponds to what the UCI needs… for roads.”
According to reporting from the Montreal Gazette, the city has identified key trouble spots along the 36-kilometre race route. There are plans to repave sections of Notre-Dame St. E., Pierre-Dupuy Ave., and Camillien-Houde Way.
The 2026 road worlds
Set for Sept. 20–27, the event is expected to bring roughly 1,000 riders from 80 countries and as many as 500,000 spectators. It will be Montreal’s biggest sporting moment since the 1976 Olympics
A spike in pothole complaints this spring has raised eyebrows about whether the city can deliver in time.
Officials, though, are saying all will be well for the big races. Teams from the UCI will inspect the roads in the lead-up, while contractors are expected to be on standby for any last-minute fixes.
“Will there be no crashes at all? I can’t say,” organizing committee GM Joseph Limare, said. “It’s part of the sport. But let’s make sure any crashes are the result of the racing, and not from the quality of the asphalt.”
Beyond the racing, there’s the usual tension when a big event takes over a city. There will be: road closures, disrupted commutes and a full month shutdown of part of Parc Ave. as a start-finish hub. The city says a detailed plan is coming in June, with outreach already underway to hundreds of affected businesses and residents.
The road worlds will be here before you know it, and Canadian Cycling Magazine will be onsite to take in all the action. If you can, you should go too–it’s not often we cycling fans get to see the best of the best go for rainbow jerseys. Well, it’s been a minute, for sure–the last time was 1974, when none other than Eddy Merckx took the win, completing the first Triple Crown. Since then, only Stephen Roche and a certain Tadej Pogačar have accomplished the feat in men’s racing. For the women, Annemiek Van Vleuten is the only one to do so in 2022.