New UCI track ranking points worth more than a Tour de France stage victory - A simulation reveals the impact of 2027 rule change

The new UCI regulations that award ranking points at track, mountain bike cross country, cyclo-cross and gravel championships could have a significant impact on the 2027 team road rankings and even make a difference in securing Grand Tour wild card invitations, a simulation has revealed.

Track riders seem especially advantaged as they can target and win several world titles and placings in one track championship. They often sacrificed their professional road racing careers to race on the track but from 2027 they could become strategically important points scorers in professional road teams.

Italian website CyclingPro and then CicloWeb calculated the ranking points that would have been scored at the recent 2026 Shanghai track World Championships to highlight the theoretical impact on the 2027 team rankings.

Tim Torn Teutenberg, who rode for Lidl-Trek and will move to Soudal in 2027, scored over 500 points at the 2026 Shanghai track World Championships. That is more than he scored all season in 2026, including for his victory at the Philadelphia Cycling Classic.

Teutenberg scored 300 points for winning the Elimination Race world title, and further points for places in the Omnium and Scratch. In comparison, a stage victory at the Tour de France is worth 210 points, while victory in a WorldTour one-day race like Strade Bianche and the Paris-Nice stage race is worth 500 points. 

CyclingPro calculated that Iuri Leitão (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA) scored 425 theoretical points, Carl Fredrik Bevort (Uno-X Mobility), 395, Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek), 362.5 and Mark Stewart (Modern Adventure) 357.5. The UCI rules do not specify the division of points in team events but these calculations follow the UCI regulation regarding the division of points in team time trials.

If 2026 mountain bike world champion Tom Pidcock repeats his victory in 2027, he would score an extra 300 points for his Pinarello-Q36.5 road team, helping in the fight for WorldTour race invitations for 2028 and WorldTour status in 2029. 

Nine WorldTour and ProTeams finished within a 2000-point range in 2026 and so even a few hundred points scored on the track or in other disciplines in 2027 and 2028 could help secure WorldTour status in 2029, or wild card invitations to WorldTour races and Grand Tours in 2028.