Evenepoel, Del Toro and Pidcock line up for the 2026 GP Québec: route and favourites

The Grand Prix Cycliste de Québec 2026 takes place this Friday, September 11, on an urban circuit of 205.4 kilometers and nearly 2,900 meters of positive elevation. Remco Evenepoel, Isaac Del Toro, Tom Pidcock, and Paul Seixas lead a top-level participation in a race that will also serve as the first major Canadian test before the World Championships.

GP de Québec 2026: route, favorites, and keys to the first major Canadian event before the World Championships

The peloton faces this Friday the first half of the traditional Canadian doubleheader of the WorldTour. Two days later, the GP de Montréal will arrive, but first, there is a race with quite different characteristics and, above all, more open to different profiles of cyclists.

Québec does not present the long and repeated climbs that the riders will find in Montréal. Its toughness comes from the accumulation of laps and a final part of the circuit where several short climbs occur before reaching the finish line at the Plains of Abraham.

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This allows both explosive cyclists capable of attacking in the last kilometers and fast riders who manage to survive the selection to play their cards. Recent history shows it, Arnaud De Lie won the sprint in 2023, Michael Matthews did the same in 2024, and Julian Alaphilippe triumphed by attacking in 2025.

Alaphilippe starred in a very different race exactly twelve months ago. A succession of attacks allowed a leading group to form, which included, among others, Alberto Bettiol, Mattias Skjelmose, and Paul Lapeira. Tadej Pogačar was left behind and could not close the gap, while Alaphilippe ended up breaking away solo on the last climb to win ahead of Pavel Sivakov and Bettiol.

The keys to the GP de Québec 2026

• Date: Friday, September 11
• Category: UCI WorldTour (1.UWT)
• Distance: 205.4 km
• Elevation: around 2,900 m+
• Format: urban circuit of just over 10 km completed 20 times
• Decisive point: Côte de la Montagne, 600 meters with slopes of up to 13%
• Finish: uphill finish at the Plains of Abraham
• Last winner: Julian Alaphilippe
• Victory record: Michael Matthews, with three wins

A short circuit that will accumulate wear over 20 laps

The route generally maintains the design introduced in 2025. The organization then modified the traditional circuit of Québec and moved part of the race towards the Plains of Abraham, in addition to eliminating difficulties such as the Côte de la Potasse and the Montée de la Fabrique.

The result is a lap of just over ten kilometers that the riders will have to complete 20 times. Each lap accumulates approximately 145 meters of elevation, so a race without major climbs ends up approaching 2,900 positive meters.

Most of the circuit does not present major difficulties, but everything changes when the peloton leaves the area near the river and returns towards the historic center of Québec.

There appears the Côte de la Montagne, an explosive climb of about 600 meters with gradients reaching 13%. It will be one of the main points to launch attacks or eliminate the fastest riders.

From its summit, there is just over a kilometer left, and there is still the Montée Rue Saint-Louis to face, approximately one kilometer at 3%, before reaching Avenue George-VI and the finish line at the Plains of Abraham.

The difficulty will, therefore, be much more in the repetition than in a specific climb. After twenty laps of the circuit, the last climbs should allow for significant selection, although not necessarily enough to prevent a small group from arriving.

Evenepoel, Del Toro, and Pidcock lead a very open list of favorites

Remco Evenepoel appears as one of the main names in the race. The Belgian returns to competition after preparing at altitude for his final season objectives and arrives in Canada after finishing second in the Tour de France. Québec may not be the Canadian circuit that best suits his characteristics, but the accumulation of climbs offers him enough terrain to try to break the race. Additionally, Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe has Maxim Van Gils as an alternative for a reduced group finish.

Another major candidate will be Isaac Del Toro. The Mexican arrives backed by a UAE Team Emirates-XRG with numerous options to toughen and move the race. Brandon McNulty, Jhonatan Narváez, Adam Yates, and Tim Wellens are part of a block that can propose different scenarios in the final laps.

We should also keep a close eye on Tom Pidcock. The Brit has just returned to the road after being crowned world champion in XCO in Val di Sole and has already left a clear signal of his form with his victory in the GP Industria & Artigianato. The short and explosive climbs of Québec fit particularly well with his characteristics.

Paul Seixas will be another rider to watch. The Frenchman faces the two Canadian events as part of his preparation for the World Championships, and although the Montréal course seems to suit his qualities better, the accumulated toughness of Québec may allow him to arrive with the best in the final lap.

Lidl-Trek also has several interesting cards, especially Quinn Simmons, Juan Ayuso, and Giulio Ciccone, three riders capable of anticipating if the big favorites start to watch each other. Visma | Lease a Bike also presents alternatives with Louis Barré and Bart Lemmen among their most interesting men for this type of route.

And if the race ultimately ends in a reduced sprint, it is impossible to forget Michael Matthews. The Australian is the true specialist of Québec: he has won here in 2018, 2019, and 2024, in addition to accumulating several second and third places. His history shows that few riders know how to manage a race of these characteristics better. Pasted text.txtTXT

Other names with options include Dorian Godon, Paul Lapeira, Lennert Van Eetvelt, Alberto Bettiol, Ben Healy, Corbin Strong, and Jhonatan Narváez. In a race that historically allows for very different strategies, the control between Evenepoel, Del Toro, and Pidcock may reopen the door to long-range attacks, as happened in 2025.