Fourteen World Tour races, nine ProSeries races, four national championships (for eight events total between road and time trial) and sixteen .1 races for a total of 60 events across 6 continents: this is, among elite men and women, the overall breakdown of professional races scheduled for the month of April, the last month before the start of the Grand Tours season, both for women and men.

Given the richness of the calendar for the coming weeks, let's put things in order and see what the most attractive appointments will be in a month when athletes will be called upon to travel to almost every corner of the planet.

WORLD TOUR

Clearly, the attention of cycling enthusiasts will focus on the events of the highest category which, in the month of April, will be eight for men and six for women. The Classics of the North, those of the pavé and those of the Ardennes will dominate with Dwars door Vlaanderen (April 1), Tour of Flanders (April 5), Paris-Roubaix (April 12), Amstel Gold Race (April 19), Flèche Wallonne (April 22) and Liège-Bastogne-Liège (April 26) which, on the same day, will see both some of the most renowned male champions and many of the most appreciated female champions take to the road and battle it out.

The men, in addition to these one-day races, will have two more opportunities to make their mark on the world's premier stage thanks to two 6-day stage races which, in the second and last week of the month, will also allow climbers to chase significant victories: the Itzulia Basque Country (April 6-11) and the Tour de Romandie (April 28-May 3).

PROSERIES

Alongside the World Tour races, April will see a considerable number of ProSeries races take place, capable of attracting many protagonists and protagonists of the cycling world, although the number of appointments at this level remains rather unbalanced between men and women.

If the latter will only have De Brabantse Pijl (April 17) and Scheldeprijs (April 8) to compete for, their male counterparts, in addition to these two Belgian races (which will be held on the same day), will be able to aim for another one-day race (the Gran Premio Miguel Indurain on April 4) and three stage races, one at the end of the month (the Presidential Cycling Tour of Turkiye scheduled from April 26 to May 3) and two others which, between the third and fourth week of the month, will be held practically in succession: the Tour of Hainan (confirmed as the first Chinese race of the season) from April 15-19 and the Tour of the Alps from April 20-24.

OTHER RACES

Awaiting the usual late June slot, April will also see the first round of national championships (all in countries with limited cycling tradition) with championships in Peru, Panama, Costa Rica and Egypt, events which will be accompanied, on April 9 and 10, by the road and time trial races of the Oceania Road Championships which, after being cancelled in 2025, will return to the calendar this year and will be held in Brisbane.

In Europe, meanwhile, the calendar of professional April appointments will be completed by a series of .1 races (seven for women, nine for men) among which stand out three stage races scheduled in Spain, the O Gran Caminho (April 14-18) and the Vuelta Asturias (April 23-26) in the men's calendar and the Vuelta Ciclista Andalucia (April 24-26) in the women's calendar.

IN ITALY

Following the postponement to a date to be determined of the Giro Ciclistico della Città Metropolitana di Reggio Calabria and the Giro della Magna Grecia (originally scheduled, one after the other, from April 10-14), only three pro races will be held on Italian soil.

We are talking, in addition to the already mentioned Tour of the Alps, about the men's Giro dell'Appennino (April 26) and the Gran Premio Della Liberazione Donne (April 25), both .1 races that will add a touch of Italian color to a month heavily dominated by Belgian (13 races) and French (9) events.