Tobias Halland Johannessen reveals 2025 Tour sickness and schedule for 2026

The Norwegian has laid out a clear roadmap for the new season. He will start his year at the UAE Tour, use Strade Bianche as a springboard if selected and then target the Ardennes Classics. From there, the aim is to arrive ready for a GC push at the Tour de France, with a podium finish as the ambition. In the latter part of the season, Johannessen will look to carry form towards the World Championships, with the Vuelta a España in play if freshness allows it.

“At altitude you always feel rough at the start, but by day 12, I feel quite good,” Johannessen told Domestique. “We are doing more lactate measuring so we can track progress well. I am better at this point of the year than last year.”

2026 marks Uno-X Mobility’s first season at WorldTour level, and they have made the step up with a core that has evolved and grown together. “We have been quite professional for the last years. We are just trying to do everything better. We are a young group, every year we develop, the training and the setup included.”

A major winter theme is aerodynamics. With clothing partner Fushun's wind tunnel in Denmark, Johannessen has refined his position and skinsuit details. “The setup is super impressive. I will not tell every gain, but it was quite massive,” he said. “I enjoy the TT bike more now. The position is more comfortable and seems faster, which makes it easier to train and perform.”

The gains are all the more important given that the 2026 Tour features a team time trial on the opening day as well as a key individual time trial on stage 16. The team time trial format is a new one for the Tour, with the times taken individually at the finish, making the stage something like a high-speed lead-out to the two climbs up Montjuïc in Barcelona. 

“You get your own time for GC, so the GC rider needs to sprint to the line,” Johannessen said. “It is important to be well-drilled. We have a lot of good guys and we enjoy working together.”

Uno-X will rehearse specifics from the next altitude camp into July, leaning on shared language and tight communication that defines the team's identity.

Johannessen’s first step on the road to July will come at the UAE Tour, which provides an early test for top GC contenders, though the flat run-in to the finishing climbs makes it a different challenge to the mountain stages of the Grand Tours. 

“Often it is an easier day and then one big climb full gas. I enjoy that kind of racing,” Johannessen said, who will look to be to the fore on the new climb of Jebel Mobrah on stage 3. "That is the one I look most forward to because that is where us smaller guys can have a real advantage and you can set some power peaks, which is quite fun to do."

A self-confessed motor racing fan, Johannessen joked that a look at the Yas Marina circuit would be a bonus. “I hope we can see the Formula One track because I am a massive car fan. If not, I need to go back one time to see it.”

After the UAE Tour, Strade Bianche could feature on Johannessen’s programme, and he sees it as a natural bridge towards his Classics campaign if he lines out. The Ardennes are a big focus in 2026 after a crash derailed last year's campaign, and he will warm up for the races with a debut at Itzulia Basque Country in April. “I think that is a race that can suit my profile quite well,” he said.

“The Ardennes Classics is always a big goal for me and last year it got ruined by a crash I had which took out my back for a couple of months. So I hope to be back there in good shape and that is one of the main goals of the spring,” he said.

In particular, Flèche Wallonne and the stiff Mur de Huy finale seem tailored to Johannessen’s punch. “Flèche is the one that is closest to my profile because I really enjoy the explosive racing up the Mur. It is such an iconic finish line, so I hope to do well there,” he said. 

“But for me, the big one is Liège. It is the dream to be top five there one year and of course to win it, which is quite hard these days with [Tadej] Pogačar. It is such a hard race, and I think it is one of the hardest races I will do in my life and to do well there is a dream.”

Despite excelling in a frigid edition of Flèche in 2024, he joked that he prefers heat. “That was one of the coldest days I have had on the bike ever. I think we had snow halfway. Yeah, we are Norwegian, so we were prepared for the weather. But for me, I think it is better if it is warmer because I struggle with the cold. I like it when it is 30 degrees.”

After the Classics, thoughts turn in earnest towards the Tour de France, and Johannessen will replicate last year’s build-up by riding the Critérium du Dauphiné, which has been renamed as the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes. Fifth overall at last year’s race highlighted Johannessen’s form ahead of the main event. 

Johannessen’s Tour de France focus is sharpened by lessons learned last year. He finished sixth overall in 2025, the best Norwegian result in Tour history, and that came despite an illness that nearly forced him out of the race in the opening week. 

“I struggled quite a lot with a cough, and I was quite sick the first week of the tour. I think it was stage 7 on Mur de Bretagne where I was feeling so bad halfway that I was almost pulling the plug,” he said. “I was the last one in the race, and I was not feeling good, but then I decided to just go all out to the finish and then just take it from there. A couple of days later, I felt quite good again and then it was possible to continue.”

The brief for 2026 is to put together three steadier weeks by avoiding early energy drains and giving himself a platform to fight deeper in the high mountains and the time trials. “I think there is for sure more gains we can do than being sick the first week of a Grand Tour because that took a lot of energy out of me. I think we can do it even better this year,” Johannessen said.

When asked about his maximum potential at the Tour, Johannessen is honest about the challenge but clear about the dream. The podium is the target, whether this year or in the years to come.

“I hope I can do the podium one time because that would be quite big,” he said. “But if I do a better race [than last year] and end up seventh, I would not be disappointed because it is such a hard race and there are so many good cyclists around you which are in their peak shape so it is a hard one to predict but I would for sure enjoy a podium.

“Of course, that is a dream. I think more about myself. It might be that I do a better race and end up seventh because some guys do it even better. But I feel like I did not do it close to perfect last year. So I hope to be able to do the three weeks with quite a good feeling every day, which is impossible, but better than last year.”

The World Championships in Montreal are also circled in Johannessen’s calendar. “It is a course that suits me quite well. I have never had a good feeling because of different reasons, I have been sick one time,” he said. 

“So that is a race course I really want to prove myself on because when I think about it, it should suit me quite well. And it is a super cool course which I think can make one of the hardest World Championships in a lot of years, because it is much more demanding than you see on television because it is never flat on that course.”

Depending on how July goes, he may add the Vuelta to the mix, for stage hunting or to support a GC teammate. 

“My autumn season is still to be decided a bit because I think there is still a possibility that I could do two Grand Tours this season,” he said. “So that would be super cool because the Tour is of course the biggest, I think for us cyclists it is also really nice to do the Giro or the Vuelta. I feel like it is just as big for me as a cyclist even though the Tour is the big one for everyone else. I think the Vuelta would be a dream race for me to do. And I think it would be possible to do it this year if I can manage to get myself going again after the Tour.”

He admitted he would have preferred to try the Giro-Vuelta double after riding four consecutive Tours, but the focus on perfecting his preparation for July won out. 

“For me, I would have liked to do it,” he said. “Maybe if I were deciding I would have done maybe the Giro and the Vuelta just to try something new because I have done the Tour now for four years. But I think I really want to go again, do everything perfect with preparation and try again in the Tour because I felt quite good. 

“But still, I feel like I have more in me with the GC there. So it is easier to focus just on that and then after I can see if I am still fit enough to race the Vuelta for stages maybe or to help some other GC guy in the Vuelta. So I think that is a good plan for me.”