Become a Confident Cyclist in 7 Days →
News

UAE Emirates XRG Assigns Motorcycle Escort to Tadej Pogačar for Training Rides

May 19, 2026
0 Comments

UAE Team Emirates is tightening security around Tadej Pogačar, adding a motorcycle escort on select training rides after rising fan and amateur cyclist incidents in Europe’s busiest training zones.

​Tadej Pogačar will now train with a motorcycle escort, as UAE Team Emirates moves to tighten security around its star rider following recent incidents involving fans and amateur cyclists.

Tadej Pogačar (Credit: Thibault Camus / AP)

​Team sports manager Joxean Fernández Matxin confirmed the measure in comments to Spanish outlet AS, explaining that a motorcycle now rides behind Pogačar during certain training sessions.

​The decision follows a series of tense encounters in popular European training zones, where social media content seekers have increasingly ridden alongside professionals.

​In January, Jonas Vingegaard crashed during a training ride while being followed by an amateur cyclist. Days later, Pogačar described an uncomfortable exchange with a fan attempting to capture a selfie mid ride.

​According to Matxin, the team witnessed “very complicated situations” during its winter camp in Alicante, with riders filming in the middle of open roads shared with traffic.

​UAE now trains in smaller groups to allow vehicles to pass safely, but the escort motorcycle is intended to ensure those formations remain controlled and that outside riders do not swell the group.

​It remains unclear whether the same protection applies to Pogačar’s solo rides near his home base on the Côte d’Azur.

Join The Conversation

You Might Also Like

Juan Ayuso Left UAE in a Firestorm. Lidl-Trek Signed Him Anyway. Cycling Is Becoming the NBA.

At 23. A Vuelta podium finisher. A rider with the biggest team in cycling. And a departure that says more about the sport's direction than his own.

52 Years Ago, Merckx Won on This Exact Climb. Cycling Now Comes Back to Finish the Story

The first UCI Road World Championships held outside Europe. Fifty-two years later, the same climb, the same city, and a defending champion from thirty minutes down the road.

Pogacar's C7 Fracture and Broken Collarbone: The Real Recovery Science Says a Worlds Defence in Montreal Is Nearly Impossible

A peer-reviewed study of 111 elite cyclists with isolated clavicle fractures found a mean return-to-competition time of 56.7 days. Pogacar has 27.

"When I Was on the Ground, She Pulled Full Gas": The Rivalry That Broke Open Le Tour Femmes

One corner. Two riders. A 20-year-old caught in the middle. And a five-year rivalry that finally boiled over on the road to Nice.

Demi Vollering Has Won Everything Except This. Montreal Is the Course That Should Suit Her

Eleven wins this season, two Tours de France Femmes, an Ardennes triple. The one jersey she has never worn is the one Montreal was built to hand her.

The Uphill False Flat: Why the 2026 Worlds Finish Will Cook Riders Who Sprint Too Early

It looks flat on TV. It is not. Here is why the final 1.5 kilometres of the Montreal Worlds will decide the race in a physiological zone most riders never train for.