What had been said? Never, ever tackle a major race without having raced beforehand. You need to build your base, put real kilometers in your legs, especially to get back into race rhythm and atmosphere. My friend, you can train as much and however you want, but racing is a completely different thing...

Well, let's wrap up this dogma from the sacred texts too and send it off to the undifferentiated waste bin, along with all the others that Teddy has demolished over these years, ineffable and unperturbed. But yes, like the one about it being impossible to win the Giro and Tour in the same year—with today's cycling it's no longer conceivable. Like the one that now it's hyper-specialization, you're either strong in one-day races or strong in grand tours, there's no more room for the universal rider, there's such competition now that you have to choose right away what you want to be. Like the one that it's no longer conceivable to race the entire season, from February to October—those days are gone, today it's no longer possible. Like the one that it's no longer time for big breakaways from far out, other times the Cuneo-Pinerolo, now everything is decided in the final meters, on a knife's edge of just a few seconds...

This is what we had become, this is how we had become. The priests of temples and times, the scribes and Pharisees, telling us about it in that solemn way of theirs, with no room for discussion, let alone doubt.

Let's face facts: 2026 is starting and Teddy is here again to prove that only the strongest sets the rules of the game, when there really is one who's that strong. So strong as to ridicule all the dogmas and introduce just one, his own: whoever has legs and brains, whoever is a phenomenon, does what he wants. And goodbye to the sacred texts, the super-technicians, the obtuseness of tradition.

From Strade Bianche 2026 a brief and quick message: no dear friends, it's not true that you can't win a major race without having raced before. Stop. Until next time.

And for those who won't take it as gospel, only one choice possible: get comfortable and wait for the end of this boring phenomenon, when mediocrity might return.