The strongest and most influential riders in the men's road race have expressed serious concerns about the course of Sunday's Glasgow World Championships.

Most of them did a reconnaissance run on Friday and watched the junior men's and junior women's races on Saturday to get an idea of the key points on the 14.3 km circuit.

Fortunately, the weather forecast has improved over the past 24 hours and rain is no longer forecast for Sunday.

Italian team leader Matteo Trentin joked that all the twisty corners were giving him a headache, and in private the riders were more concerned about some of the off-camber corners, the dirt on the surface from sandbag leaks, and the lack of protection in potential crashes. They had more serious concerns about the lack of protection in places.

"The track was even more technical than in 2018, and I didn't think that was possible," Trentin, who won the European championship on a similar track in 2018, told La Gazzetta dello Sport.

"The route map doesn't show the actual difficulty. You are constantly going in and out of corners. It gives you a headache and it's like a cyclocross race on the road, with no chance to stop for a piss. If you get a flat tire or worse, crash, you need a lap to get back up."

"The course reminds me of a city criterium," said Belgian Jasper Philipsen.

He ran five criteriums after the Tour de France, but joked that he should have prepared more for the Glasgow circuit.

The 271.1 km elite men's road race starts in Edinburgh and runs 120 km through the Scottish countryside before arriving in Glasgow. The elite men's race will then consist of 10 laps of a 14.3 km circuit, climbing a total of 3,570 meters.

The city-centered circuit will wind up and down a winding road to Kelvingrove Park to the west, and a short but steep climb up Montrose Street (200 m, 8.5%), just 11.5 km from the finish, will bring the riders back into the city center.

The circuit has so many corners that no one can agree on the exact number; some teams say 44, 45, or even 48. Whatever the true number, the racers will face nearly 500 corners in the last 150 km.

"After two laps of the recon ride, I had no idea where the climb was," Julien Alaphilippe admitted to L'Equipe.

"I had no idea where the climb was," Julien Alaphilippe admitted to L'Equipe.

Benoit Cosnefrois seems to have a love-hate relationship with the course.

"I have a problem with whoever designed this course. They were probably drunk and nobody told them they were going too far with the craziness," he suggested, but changed his mind after his own reconnaissance run.

"I love this course. It suits my style of racing and is great for punchers."

Florian Seneschal was not so amused.

"It's dangerous for the World Championships. I thought they were more serious about safety. I like technical racing, but in terms of respect for the riders it's not so good."

Valentin Maduas suggested that the best riders would have to make 80 big efforts of 15 to 20 seconds on Glasgow's 10 circuits. On the final Montrose Street climb, someone would have to attack for a solo win.

"It's very, very hard, harder than I thought it would be, harder than Leuven in 2021," Maduas said.

Mathieu Van Der Pol impressed TV crews and got social media buzzing when he tested his legs with a long acceleration on a crucial climb on Friday.

Like Wout van Aert, this cyclocross world champion definitely has the bike skills and acceleration to turn heads on the Glasgow course.

"Bodies are falling out of the closet," he said, emphasizing the Dutch word that the course reveals who is really in shape.

"It's a criterium over a world-class distance that you don't experience very often," he said.