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The youngest and oldest riders at the Tour de France

Twenty-two teams and 176 riders lined up for the 2022 Tour de France. We look at the youngest and oldest riders at the race and their relative place in the history books

It was 1904 when Henri Cornet won the Tour de France aged just 19. Since then, the ages of winners have seemed to converge on a median age of around 28. But, things seem to have been changing...

With young winners like Tadej Pogacar and Egan Bernal, you could be excused for seeing a trend for a newer, younger Tour de France.

Yet, older riders have also been faring well at the Grand Boucle in recent years. So what does the real breakdown of riders by age look like? How young is too young, and how old is too old?

Oldest riders at the 2022 Tour de France

You can never have too much experience, right?

Last year, Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) completed the Tour de France at the age of 41. He very nearly became the race's oldest winner too, finishing second to Sepp Kuss on the mountain stage to Andorra.

-  Tour de France 2022 route: everything you need to know about the 109th edition - Tour de France standings: the latest results from the race - Tour de France favourites: who will win this year's yellow jersey?

The oldest ever Tour de France stage winner was Pino Cerami, who won stage nine of the 1963 Tour de France aged 41 years and 65 days. On stage three last year, Valverde was the exact age that Cerami was when he won in Pau in 1963.

In 2022 though Valverde has chosen to skip the Tour de France in favour of riding the Giro d'Italia and Vuelta a España in his final season before retirement, leaving the door open for another rider to take on the mantle of the Tour's oldest competitor.

Philippe Gilbert is the oldest rider at the 2022 Tour (Image: James Startt)

That man this year is Philippe Gilbert (Lotto-Soudal), who turns 40 on stage four of the race (July 5), and will be hoping to sign off from his 12th and final Tour de France with a stage win. 

Frenchman Cyril Lemoine (B&B Hotels - KTM) is the second oldest rider in 2022 at 39, while Movistar's Imanol Erviti is third at a spritely 38.

• Philippe Gilbert - 39 years and 361 days (when race began) <
• Cyril Lemoine - 39 years and 120 days
• Imanol Erviti - 38 years and 228 days
• Luis León Sánchez - 38 years and 219 days
• Maciej Bodnar - 37 years and 116 days

Youngest riders at the 2022 Tour de France

Last year Britain's Fred Wright took the crown of youngest rider at 22 years and 14 days, but this year that age would only just crack the top-three. 

Quinn Simmons is the youngest rider at the 2022 Tour de France (Getty Images)

The next youngest rider is California's Kevin Vermaerke (Team DSM) at 21 years and 258 days, while another Californian, Matteo Jorgenson (Movistar) is the fifth youngest, celebrating his 23rd birthday on the day of the Grand Départ).

Britain's Tom Pidcock (Ineos Grenadiers) is the third youngest rider, making his Tour debut at the age of 22 years 336 days.

Defending champion Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) has slipped out of the top-10 for the first time in his three Tour appearances, languishing in 12th at the wise old age of 23 years and 283 days.

• Quinn Simmons - 21 years and 54 days (when race began)
• Kevin Vermaerke - 21 years and 258 days
• Tom Pidcock - 22 years and 336 days
• Matis Louvel - 22 years and 347 days
• Matteo Jorgenson - 23 years and zero days

No-one at the Tour this year will have the opportunity to be crowned its youngest ever stage winner however. The youngest ever stage winner at the Tour de France was Fabio Battesini, who was just 19 years and 134 days old when he won a stage at the 1931 edition.

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Tour de France Statistics You Probably Never Heard About (2023 TdF Included)

Tour de France’s rich history goes back to 1903, when its first edition took place. Nowadays, it is the most famous cycling race globally. One day, I asked myself:

What will I discover if I visualize the data collected from over 100 editions?

The result is a unique set of charts and facts about the Tour de France that can provide valuable insights. And maybe, we can also better predict the future winners.

Learn more about the total distance, average stage length, rider’s height, weight, BMI, and other interesting data, and how they developed.

Let’s dive into one of the biggest sets of the Tour de France statistics.

Abbreviations used: GC – General Classification, GT – Grand Tour, TdF – Tour de France, BMI – Body Mass Index

I used publicly available data from wikipedia.org , procyclingstats.com , and the official Tour de France website letour.fr as data sources. Some data is not available (especially the rider’s weights/heights).

Please also keep in mind the following:

• The Tour de France did not take place between 1915-1918 and 1940-1946.
• Lance Armstrong was stripped of all his results and prizes from 1 August 1998; no alternative winners of TdF 1999-2005 have yet been declared.
• The actual rider’s racing weight could vary.

Tour de France 2023 Summary

The overall winner of the 2023 Tour de France is Jonas Vingegaard (DK). He finished 7:29 ahead of Tadej Pogačar . Vingegaard covered the 3,401 km route, averaging 41.43 km/h.

The 2023 Tour de France points classification winner is Jasper Philipsen (BE). He accumulated 377 points and won 4 stages (stage 3, stage 4, stage 7, and stage 11).

The 2023 Tour de France mountain classification winner is Giulio Ciccone (IT). He accumulated 106 points.

The best young rider (under 25 years) for the 2023 Tour de France is Tadej Pogačar (SLO). He finished 7:29 behind Jonas Vingegaard.

Tour de France Total Distance

The Tour de France was the longest Grand Tour for decades. The first 3 editions were relatively short (2,428, 2,428, and 2,994 km). However, that changed with the 4th edition. For the next decades, riders had to cover an overall distance exceeding 5,000 km. Luckily for riders, this distance shortened over time.

The average Tour de France length of all editions is 4,190 km . The average length was 4,139 km between 1960 and 1980, 3,791 km between 1980 and 2000, and “only” 3,491 km between 2000 and 2020. The total length of the 2023 Tour de France is 3401.3 km .

Tour de France Average Speed

The average Tour de France speed of all editions is 34.62 km/h . The average speed was 27.67 km/h between 1919 and 1939, and 40.15 km/h between 1999 and 2019. The average speed of the 2023 Tour de France was 41.43 km/h .

The average speed improved mainly thanks to technological progress, better training methods, and nutrition specialists

Do you think we will ever see a Tour de France ridden with an average speed exceeding 45 km/h?

Number and Length of the Tour de France Stages

The number of Tour de France stages increased from 6-15 stages to more than 20, depending on the edition. For the last few years, it has remained the same (21).

The average Tour de France stage length of all editions is 218 km (time trials included). It went down from a whopping 286 km between 1909-1939 to 197 km between 1949-1979 and 173 km between 1989-2019. The average stage length of the 2023 Tour de France is 162 km .

Historical Extremes of the Tour de France

Can you guess the longest and shortest Tour de France edition ?

The longest Tour de France took place in 1926. Riders had to cover 5,745 km (this is about the same distance as from New York to London).

The shortest Tour de France were the first two editions (1903 and 1904); they had the same length of 2,428 km .

The longest Tour de France stage was the 5th stage of the 1919 edition; it was 482 km long.

The fastest Tour de France took place in 2022. The average speed of the winner was 41.84 km/h.

The slowest Tour de France was the 22nd edition (1924). The winner, Ottavio Bottecchia, reached a winning time of 226h 18′ 21″ on an overall distance of 5,425 km. This results in an average speed of 23.97 km/h .

IMPORTANT NOTE : Many websites (including Wikipedia) list the 1919 Tour de France as the slowest TdF ever (24.06 km/h). This claim is incorrect because the 1924 Tour de France was even slower (23.97 km/h).

Interested in more statistics? I summarized Giro and Vuelta as well.

Tour de France Rider’s Height, Weight, and BMI (Over Time)

How do the Tour de France riders’ height, weight, and BMI develop over time? How do these data differ between riders for the general classification, climbers, and sprinters (all-rounders)? You learn in this section.

NOTE : The heights and weight data are unfortunately not available for all riders.

General Classification

Tour de France winners are getting taller but leaner. ..

A friend once told me I am too tall for cycling (I am 1.85 m). I thought he was right, but he was not. Even tall riders like Bradley Wiggins (1.90 m), Chris Froome (1.86 m), or Miguel Indurain (1.86 m) have won the Tour de France. And it seems that the Tour de France is being won by taller and taller riders (check the chart below).

The average height of a Tour de France winner is 1.77 m .

The tallest Tour de France winner ever was Bradley Wiggins (TdF 2012). He is 1.90 m tall.

The shortest Tour de France winner ever was Romain Maes (TdF 1935). He was 1.60 m tall.

Lower weight = Better Chance to Win Tour de France?

The average weight of a Tour de France winner is 68.1 kg .

The heaviest Tour de France winner was François Faber. He won the 1909 TdF, weighing 88 kg .

The lightest Tour de France winner was Marco Pantani. He won the 1998 TdF, weighing just 57 kg .

Of all the charts in this article, I like the BMI chart the most because it shows an interesting trend. Let’s quickly repeat what BMI means.

BMI uses your height and weight to work out if your weight is healthy. ( Source )

Here is a quick guide on how to interpret these values:

• Below 18.5 – underweight,
• 18.5-24.9 – normal,
• 25.0-29.9 – overweight,
• 30.0 and above – obese.

With this know-how, we get a better understanding of these values.

Tour de France winners have an average BMI of 21.70 .

The Tour de France winner with the highest BMI was François Faber. He won the 1909 Tour de France with a BMI of 27.77 (1.78 m, 88 kg). Yes, the Faber won TdF while being overweight.

The Tour de France winner with the lowest BMI was Chris Froome. He won the TdF in 2013, 2015, 2016, and 2017 with a BMI of 19.08 (1.86 m, 66 kg).

Do you want to know how do you compare with pro riders? Feel free to calculate your BMI using the calculator below.

BMI CALCULATOR

Mountain Classification

The average height of a Tour de France mountain classification winner is 1.75 m .

The tallest Tour de France mountain classification winner ever is Mauricio Soler (TdF 2007). He is 1.90 m tall.

The shortest Tour de France mountain classification winner ever was Julián Berrendero (TdF 1936). He was 1.62 m tall.

The average weight of a Tour de France mountain classification winner is 64.4 kg .

The heaviest Tour de France mountain classification winners were Louison Bobet (TdF 1950) and Santiago Botero (TdF 2000). They won the mountain classification, weighing 75 kg .

The lightest Tour de France mountain classification winner was Luis Herra. He won the 1985 and 1987 TdF mountain classifications, weighing just 57 kg .

Tour de France mountain classification winners have an average BMI of 21.14 .

The Tour de France mountain classification winner with the highest BMI was Sylvère Maes. He won the 1939 Tour de France mountains classification with a BMI of 24.80 (1.68 m, 70 kg).

The Tour de France mountain classification winner with the lowest BMI was Warren Barguil. He won the 2017 Tour de France mountains classification with a BMI of 18.42 (1.82 m, 61 kg). This means he was underweight.

You might also be interested How much does a Tour de France bike cost? How much does a Tour de France bike weigh?

Points Classification

The average height of a Tour de France points classification winner is 1.78 m .

The tallest Tour de France points classification winner s ever were Tom Boonen (TdF 2007) and Wout van Aert (2022). They are 1.90 m tall.

The shortest Tour de France points classification winner ever was Stan Ockers (TdF 1955, 1956). He was 1.65 m tall.

The average weight of a Tour de France points classification winner is 72.5 kg .

The heaviest Tour de France points classification winner was Tom Boonen. He won the 2007 TdF points classification, weighing 82 kg .

The lightest Tour de France points classification winner was Stan Ockers. He won the 1955 and 1956 TdF points classification, weighing just 61 kg .

A Tour de France points classification winner has an average BMI of 22.88 .

The Tour de France points classification winner with the highest BMI was Walter Godefroot (1.71 m, 73 kg). He won the 1970 Tour de France points classification with a BMI of 24.96 .

The Tour de France points classification winner with the lowest BMI was Bernard Hinault (1.74 m, 62 kg). He won the TdF 1979 points classification with a BMI of 20.48 .

TIP : Don’t you have a bike yet? Feel free to browse my selection of the  best bikes on the market.

Overall Victories, Stage Wins, Days in Yellow…

The riders with the most Tour de France GC wins (5) are Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault, Jacques Anquetil, and Miguel Indurain. Chris Froome is the closest active rider to these legends with his 4 TdF wins.

Eddy Merckx also dominated another statistic as he is the rider with the most days spent in the yellow jersey * (Maillot Jaune).

*Including half-stages.

The following table shows the three riders with the most Tour de France stage wins .

Who is the rider with the most Tour de France participation ? Sylvain Chavanel . The 2nd place belongs to George Hincapie, Stuart O’Grady, Jens Voigt, and the 3rd to Joop Zoetemelk and Haimar Zubeldia.

Riders with the Most Mountain & Points Classification Victories

The best climber , according to the number of Mountain Classification victories, was Richard Virenque. He won this classification seven times .

According to the number of Points Classification victories, the best sprinter is the Slovak Peter Sagan , who has won 7 times .

If you are into cycling and numbers, make sure you also read these Incredible Bicycle Statistics .

I hope you enjoyed these Tour de France statistics as I did when putting them together. What is your favorite stat? Let me know in the comments section.

Be sure also to check my Cycling Grand Tours Statistics , where I compare all Grand Tours, or continue reading:

Tour de France Statistics FAQ

Not yet. However, Eddy Merckx was closest to this in 1969. He won the yellow jersey, polka dot jersey, and green jersey. The young rider classification was introduced in 1975. Only riders below 26 years of age are eligible. Eddy Merckx was 24 years old in 1969. This means he would have won all 4 jerseys in the same Tour de France edition.

Eddy Merckx is considered “the greatest” Tour de France rider and “the greatest” cyclist of all time. He won 11 grand tours (5 times Tour de France, 5 times Giro d’Italia, and once Vuelta a España). He won 3 TdF points classifications, 2 mountains classification, and 4 combativity awards. Together with Mark Cavendish, he also holds a record for the most stage wins (34).

This scenario happened only twice (in 1947 and 1968) and will likely not happen again. It is a tradition that riders don’t compete for GC in the final stage.

This scenario happened four times (in 1903, 1924, 1928, and 1935). With the tough competition nowadays, it is likely never to happen again.

wikipedia.org procyclingstats.com letour.fr lequipe.fr The preview picture ©A.S.O./Charly Lopez (cropped)

Browse Other Cycling Statistics

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About The Author

Petr Minarik

4 thoughts on “tour de france statistics you probably never heard about (2023 tdf included)”.

I just like the helpful information you provide in your articles.

Thank you. 🙂 – Petr

Impressive stats! That must have been a lot of work.

It sure was! – Petr

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Am I Too Old to Win the Tour de France?

How old are most Tour de France winners? At 34, could I even be a contender?

Heading out the door? Read this article on the Outside app available now on iOS devices for members! >","name":"in-content-cta","type":"link"}}'>Download the app .

Let’s face it: Age is probably not the only thing standing between you and doting podium girls. But instead of busting your bearings, we’ll approach your question with straight-up statistical analysis, because numbers can’t mock you. (Or can they…)

We dumped data from Le Tour’s official records page into a spreadsheet to help provide insight into the 111-year-old race. (Note: On this records page, Oscar Pereiro’s 2006 stats are entered in place of disgraced cyclist Floyd Landis’s, while Lance Armstrong’s are still there. And the race was not held for a total of 11 years during WWI and WWII.) 

The result: The average age of Tour de France winners in the last 99 events is 28 years, 1 month, and 10 days old. Britain’s Chris Froome , nabbing this year’s yellow jersey, is predictably average, age-wise, stepping onto the Paris podium at 28 years and two months.

Belgian Cyclist Firmin Lambot was the oldest vainqueur so far, winning the 1922 Tour at 36 years old. And at 19, Henri Cornet is the youngest winner, though in true Tour fashion, he nabbed the 1904 title after the top four riders were disqualified for, among other things, alleged motorized assistance, and “stick-wielding” fan attacks against fellow riders, as Velo News recounts . 

At 30 years, six months, the average age of Tour winners in the past 10 years skews slightly older, thanks to Lance Armstrong (32 to 34 when he won in 2003 to 2005), Carlos Sastre (33 in 2008), Cadel Evans (34 in 2011), and Bradley Wiggins (32 in 2012).

THE BOTTOM LINE: The average age of Tour de France winners is 28 years old. But that doesn’t mean that guys in their 30s are destined to domestique-dom. Firmin Lambot became the oldest winner at 36 in a Tour that ranks among the longest courses ever, covering 3,340 miles in just 15 stages in 1922. (In contrast, the 2013 route covers 2,115 miles in 21 stages.)

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Tour de France 2011 – 2020: Riders’ Ages, Nationalities and Stage Types Analysis

The 2020 Tour de France witnessed the second-youngest winner of the event ever, but also the lowest average age of stage winners.

The 2020 edition of La Grande Boucle saw the eventual winner, Tadej Pogacar, win three stages, at the age of 21.

Stage Wins by Age

It is quite an uncommon age for a rider to win a stage, let alone three – as uncommon as a 35 or a 36-year-old winning a stage.

However, the last time a 35 or a 36-year-old won a stage at the Tour was back in 2016 (Steve Cummings) and 2015 (Joaquim Rodriguez).

As the graph shows, the most common ages of stage winners in the last decade is between 25 and 29 – a rider’s prime for stage victories, which is 27.7.

26-year-old riders have taken the majority of stage wins with 36 stages – that happened most often in the 2011 Tour, where Mark Cavendish won five stages, and Jelle Vanendert, Andy Schleck and Tony Martin all chipped in with one stage victory each for the 26-year-olds.

2019 saw four 26-year-olds win stages (two for Simon Yates) and 2020 witnessed five riders win stages (two for the Dane, Soren Kragh Andersen).

2012 was the only edition of the Tour in the last decade that did not see a single 26-year-old win a stage.

This is followed by 25- and 29-year-old riders, each winning 24 stages – with the former age dominating the flat stages, from Marcel Kittel’s four stage wins in 2014, to Caleb Ewan (five stages) and Wout van Aert (three) winning stages in 2019 and 2020.

Four years later, Kittel was at it again, winning another four stages – what does stand out, however, is that in that four-year gap, more riders are winning mountain, medium mountain and hilly stages than their 25-year-old counterparts.

In the last decade, riders at the age of 29 have won 13 stages that have included hills and/or mountains; riders four years younger only won 11, five of which came from French climbers (Warren Barguil won two stages in 2017 and the Polka Dot jersey).

27-year-olds have won 21 stages in the last decade, which together with 28-year-olds is where we see a move away from victories on flat stages to victories in mountain stages.

27-year-olds have won just seven flat stages (three of the for Cavendish) and 11 hilly and mountain stages, where 28-year-olds have won seven flat stages and nine hilly and mountain stages.

Indeed, the average age of mountain stage victories since 2011 is 27.7.

Having mentioned different ages, nationalities, and stages, what types of stages and lengths suite what ages of riders?

Flat Stages

What stands out here is that the average distance of a flat stage in 2015 was just under 170kms – the average age of the winners was also the highest at 31.3 years.

However, last year the average distance of a flat stage was just over 170kms and the average age of the stage winner was 26.4 – almost five years younger than five years previous.

Another point to take note of is that the average age of winners on flat stages has decreased in the last five years.

In 2011 and 2012 the average age was just over 27, that decreased to 26.4 in 2013 and 2014 only for it to go as low as 25.9 in 2019 – helped, of course by victories van Aert and Ewan, where the oldest rider to win a flat stage was Eli Viviani at 30 years of age.

Analysing data of flat stages from the last decade of the Tour de France, the table above shows that the younger riders are most up for the shortest stages (<120), while those with four years more experience target and win stages between 120 and 160kms long.

Flat stages have also been dominated by German and British riders in the last decade – more likely than not, Cavendish, Kittel or Andre Greipel would come away with a win, although the last year that happened was in 2017 (Kittel).

Since his win in Pau, the average age of flat stage winners has been 26 years and has been a battle between Dylan Groenewegen and Fernando Gaviria or van Aert, Ewan and Sam Bennett (the odd one out at 29 years old).

Mountain Stages

Moving on to the mountain stages in the last 10 years, since 2013, the average distance of these stages has decreased slightly.

While the average distance of mountain stages in 2013 was as high as 182kms, that has dropped over the years to as high as 174kms (2014) and as low as 154kms (2018).

Another interesting trend to note is that as these average distance decrease, the age of that year’s Tour de France winner has increased year by year, up until 2018, when Geraint Thomas won at the age of 31.

When the average distance was at its highest (182kms in 2013), the average age was 27, a year under the average excluding 2020 – average age then increases slightly as the average distance decreases.

This is until 2017 when the average distance was 172kms and the average age decreased to 26.6.

As the average distance has decreased over the years, the average age of mountain stage winners has increased again since 2017.

Between 2011 and 2019, the average age of a mountain stage winner was 28, with the youngest being 26.6 (2017), and the oldest being 30.2 (2012).

When taking 2020 into account, the average age of mountain stage winners drops to 27.7, as the average age was just 24.7, with an average distance of 161.5kms.

Have some ages been better than others at certain distances? And if so, what nationalities can you count on to do well?

As noted previously, the average age of mountain stage winners is 27.7 – stages between 120kms and 180kms have seen winners younger than the average, as have winners on stages between 200km and 220kms.

The French have been the most present riders on home turf in the last decade, taking 15 victories in 62 mountain stages in this data set – more than any other nation.

However, they only have two mountain stage wins when the distance is between 160kms and 180kms, and two wins on stages between 200kms and 220kms.

26-year-old riders have a preference for this length of a mountain stage, winning five stages – other winners have included Primoz Roglic in 2018 at the age of 28, and Nairo Quintana at the age of 29 in 2019.

French riders, do, however, have a preference for stages up to 160kms, winning eight stages since 2011.

Together with Chris Froome and S. Yates, the French have also accumulated a number of wins on stages above 180kms – five, although the last victory on a stage of that length was in 2018 thanks to the current world champion, Julian Alaphilippe.

Belgian riders have been most present on stages between 160km and 180kms – Vanendert winning on Plateau de Beille in 2011, Thomas De Gendt in 2016 at Chalet Reynard and finally, Dylan Teuns creeping past Giulio Ciccone in 2019, where the Italian took the yellow jersey and wore it for two days.

Finally, another point of interest is that Nibali is the only Italian rider to have won any mountain stages in the last decade – five.

He won three stages in 2014 at the age of 29, one in 2015 at 30 and the shortened stage in 2019 – the average age of his wins (disregarding the 2019 stage) is 29.25, where the average distance of those stages was 160.6kms.

Medium Mountain Stages

Matteo Trentin and Fabio Aru have won medium mountain stages to bring Italy’s total to eight in the mountains, however, one may have expected more stage wins from a country that has produced climbing talents such as Marco Pantani and Riccardo Riccò.

According to multiple sources, the 2018 and 2019 editions of the Tour de France did not have any medium mountain stages.

For that reason, there is no data for those two years in the graph shown above.

Across the last 10 Tour de Frances, the trend on medium mountain stages is that as distance decreases, so too does the age of the stage winner and vice versa.

This is also true of the age of the Tour de France winner – as distance increases/decreases, so too has the age of the winner, except for last year’s Tour.

The two years this is not true was in 2012, and last year’s Tour; in 2012, on average, the medium mountain stages were 195kms long, and the average age of the winners was 26.5 – last year the average distance was 4.5kms shorter and the average age of winners was half a year younger.

The 2012 edition saw a mix of riders win the medium mountain stages – Sagan, Froome, Thibaut Pinot and David Millar – perhaps only two of those can be considered exceptional climbers.

Sagan is, well, Sagan, and Millar’s biggest strength was his time-trialling – the Scot was also the oldest rider to win a stage that year, while Sagan and Pinot were just 22 years of age.

Although last year only had two stages categorised as a medium mountain, both of them were won by riders adept in ascending the mountain road in Alaphilippe and the young Colombian Daniel Martinez.

When including data from hilly stages for 2018 and 2019, this trend is still true; as distance decreases, so too does the average age of the winner – the exceptions would be the 2019 and 2020 Tours, where the average distance increased, yet the eventual winner was 22 and 21-years-old.

So which nations do best over these medium mountain stage distances which have ranged between 145kms and 226kms in the last decade?

The average age of medium mountain stage winners is higher than both flat stages (26.9) and mountain stages (27.7) at 29.2 years old.

Four stages have been less than 160kms in this data set, won by riders from four different nations – France, Belgium, Australia, and The Netherlands.

The youngest winner was Pinot (22), while the oldest medium mountain stage winner was Simon Gerrans in 2013 at the age of 33.

Britain’s Steve Cummings has won two medium mountain stages in the Tour de France, one in 2015 and one in 2016 at the ages of 34 and 35, respectively.

This distance does seem to suit the older riders, with Thor Hushovd also winning a stage in 2011 at the age of 33 – the youngest rider to win this type of stage was Michael Matthews at 26 years old in 2017.

The French riders have won three stages at the distances between 180kms and 200kms, and it is riders who are about to reach their prime who win stages these distances in the medium mountains.

Although the youngest winner in the last decade was 22 (Sagan in 2012), the oldest winner was Andre Greipel in stage 15 of the 2015 Tour at the age of 33, taking victory in a bunch sprint.

Michael Matthews is also a fan of the medium mountain stages, he won one stage in 2016, and two in 2017 – as he got older, the distance of those stages also became smaller (197kms, 182kms, 165km).

Of the five medium mountain stages that occurred between 200kms and 220kms, it has been Spanish riders who have won two of those stages – Luis Leon Sanchez in 2011, and Ruben Plaza Molina in 2015 at the age of 35.

Greg Van Avermaet was the next oldest winner at the age of 31 in 2016 – in a 216km stage from Limoges to Le Lioran, he broke away from his countryman Thomas De Gendt on Col de Pertus 17.3kms from the finish, going solo, and taking the yellow jersey.

There have only been two medium mountain stages more than 220kms long – Millar winning one in 2012, and Tony Martin winning the other of 223kms in 2015 at the age of 30; both of these riders are, of course, well known for their time-trialling ability.

Of his five stage wins at the Tour, not including a team time trial win, Tony Martin has won three individual time trials; the remaining two were medium mountain stages.

If a team is looking for stage victories, then its best bet is to bring in a French rider who can climb. This is obviously something Quick-Step did when they brought in Alaphilippe, but even before his arrival, Patrick Lefevre’s team didn’t have issues winning stages.

French sprinters have not had much of a say in the last few years – Arnaud Demarre was the last French winner in a bunch sprint in the Tour, in 2017, beating Sagan and Alexander Kristoff to the line, which also saw Cavendish and John Degenkolb hit the ground.

However, cycling, like everything else, is a landscape that changes over time . The average age of stage winners has decreased, where British and German riders used to dominate between 2011 and 2018 (62 stage victories between them in eight years), but in recent years the Tour has seen a re-emergence of Australian, Belgian and Colombian stage winners, as well as some new nations, join the list, such as Slovenia.

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How hard is the Tour de France?

We look at power, calories, recovery data, speed and more to compare a Tour de France rider's efforts to those of an everyday cyclist

Watching the Tour de France from the comfort of your own home, many of us have questioned if it'd be possible to ride the race ourselves. The world's best cyclists at peak fitness can make it look almost too easy at times, which could lead to a skewed perception of how hard the Tour de France actually is. 

Obviously, deep down, we are all aware that the race is light-years away from a Sunday coffee ride with your local cycling club, otherwise, we’d all be lining up at the start. But when you watch the likes of Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) powering up an Alp, it’s hard not to feel inspired. 

It's not a huge logical leap to then wonder how we might compare, and whether we could keep up with the pro peloton. Any cyclist who is familiar with power numbers such as watts per kilo, FTP , etc, will likely have wondered at some point how their numbers would stack up when compared with Wout Van Aert and co. 

The question on all our lips is: exactly how hard is the Tour de France? Spoiler alert: it’s hard. Very hard. Of course it’s hard, it’s the Tour de France, arguably the pinnacle of any pro rider’s career. What we really want to know is 'how hard?' 

Over the course of this article, we will try to quantify just that: how hard the pros work during the three-week race and compare that, roughly speaking, with the efforts we mere mortals are capable of.

To provide you with meaningful answers, we dived into race road books from the last few editions of the race, dug through the power files of some of the riders to try and fathom their efforts, along with taking a look at their recovery files to gauge the relative strain that their bodies endure. Then, we gathered data from the general public – ‘normal’ cyclists such as you and I – in an attempt to gain some perspective on the difference. 

 The terrain 

At its close, the riders in the 2021 Tour de France covered 3,414 kilometres (2,121 miles) – not including the riding they did on the two rest days. The 2022 edition of the race was actually ever so slightly shorter with a total of 3,328km (2067 miles) of racing. 

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Put plainly, if you were to get in a car in New York and head west, that'd get you as far as Salt Lake City. If you were to get onto a plane in London, you could get to Paris and back again five times. If you were in Australia you'd make it from Melbourne right over to Perth on the western coast.

Throughout this distance, riders face a whole host of climbs, from small hills to enormous mountain passes. For the 2023 edition this year, riders will cover 3,404km (2,115 miles) including ascents of the Puy de Dôme and the Grand Colombier in the Pyrenees.

According to data published to Strava by Tour debutant Tom Pidcock (Ineos Grenadiers), in the 17 stages leading up to his impressive Stage 18 victory atop Alpe D'Huez last year, he had ascended a total of 43,110m. That's almost five times the height of Mount Everest. 

In addition, while it's easy and obvious to focus on the difficulty of going uphill, there's a level of difficulty involved in coming down the other side too. 

For us average Janes and Joes, coming downhill might seem like the easy part – you can often stop pedalling and simply let gravity do the work – but let's not forget these riders are in a race so will be sprinting out of corners and pushing the limits of physics to go as quickly as possible, which in itself takes an enormous amount of mental energy and focus. 

As an example of this, according to that same data from Pidock, the maximum speed he hit during Stage 18 of last year's Tour was 62.7mph (100.91km/h). Stage 18 will long be remembered in particular for the jaw-dropping descent of the Col Du Galibier that Pidcock executed on the way to a solo win atop Alpe D'Huez. Although he actually clocked his maximum speed later on in the stage on the descent of the Croix de Fer / Glandon. He also hit a huge maximum cadence of 200rpm during the stage. Descending like this takes a large amount of skill and concentration, it is hard to begin to imagine the amount of focus this requires and the cognitive load it creates. 

The training

The Tour de France is ridden by the world's best road cyclists, all of whom are full-time professionals that ride for around 20 to 30 hours per week. But wait, before you quit your nine-to-five job and start cycling all day, know that these riders aren't just riding their bike for fun, they are completing highly tailored structured training programs designed by some of the best physiologists and coaches in the world. 

Sadly, even if we did have that expertise at our disposal, most of us still couldn't quit the day job, because professional cyclists are also blessed with the right mix of genetic potential that enables them to respond to such a high training stimulus and recover quickly enough to go again the next day, day after day, week after week. 

To try and quantify this, we reached out to TrainerRoad – a popular training-based indoor cycling app turned all-around training platform that boasts a dataset of over a million users – to get a sense of the amount of structured training that the 'average' cyclist tackles. 

According to TrainerRoad's data, an average 'beginner cyclist' performs 3.53 hours of structured training per week, split at 3.61 hours for men and 3.06 hours for women. While 'experienced cyclists' perform 6.43 hours per week (6.5 hours for men, 5.46 for women). 

What this means is that your average beginner is performing just 10% of the training hours of a Tour de France cyclist. 

The time cut

To complete the Tour de France, you cannot simply commit to finishing the route, you'll need to do so within the constraints of a time cut on each stage. 

According to rule 2.6.032 of the UCI rulebook, exactly what that time cut will be is defined as follows: 

"The finishing deadline shall be set in the specific regulations for each race in according with the characteristics of the stage.

“In exceptional cases only, unpredictable and of force majeure [unforeseeable circumstances], the commissaires panel may extend the finishing time limits after consultation with the organisers."

So in layman's terms, the organisers will decide the time cut based on the difficulty of the stage. We won't go into the details of how they then calculate it, but depending on the difficulty of the stage and the pace of the fastest rider, it will usually be the winner's time plus anything between 4% and 18%.

To turn that into an example, if a stage took the winner exactly four hours to complete, the time cut would be anywhere between 9m36s and 43m12s later. 

It was a hotly discussed topic last year, with sprinter Fabio Jakobsen fighting on every mountain stage, and in particular on Stage 17, where he pushed himself to the very limit to make the time cut by a mere 15 seconds. 

This essentially means that to complete the Tour de France, you need to not only finish the route, you need to be able to do so within a percentage of the winner's time, which leads us nicely onto speed. 

In trying to work out how hard the Tour de France actually is, you will need to know what speed you'll need to be able to ride in order to keep up. The 2022 edition of the Tour was the fastest in the race's history. The average speed of winner Jonas Vingegaard for the 21-stage race set a new record at 42.03km/h (26.12mph)

Combining every edition of the Tour since 2007, the average pace of the winner has been 40.07km/h (24.89mph). Anyone who has ridden a local time trial will know that it's difficult to maintain this pace for 10 miles, let alone the 2000-plus miles covered in the Tour. 

However, of course, anyone who's ridden in a group will also know that there's an enormous benefit from being in the draft. That is, of course, until the road points up and gravity does its best to slow you down. 

After Ben O'Connor's victory into Tignes on stage 9 of the 2021 Tour, we analysed his performance and saw just how strong the AG2R Citroën rider had to be to win a stage of the Tour de France. The final climb on this stage was Montée de Tignes, which is 31.1km long with an average gradient of 4.1%. This climb took O'Connor 1 hour and 12 minutes, during which he rode at an average speed of 26kph (16.15mph), naturally taking the Strava KOM along the way.

But even if you're not vying for a win, and you're simply trying to make it to the finish line within the time cut, you'll still need to maintain a very high pace. In 2020, Roger Kluge finished at the very bottom of the GC standings, at 6:07:02 behind Tadej Pogačar's winning time of 87:20:13. With that, Kluge still maintained an average speed of 39.09km/h (24.29mph).

A commonly used and widely understood assessment of a rider's ability is FTP, or Functional Threshold Power, which is said to be the maximum amount of power that a rider can sustain for an hour. It is often tested with a sustained 20-minute effort, with the average power from this effort multiplied by 0.95.

Measured in watts, this can be quoted in an absolute figure, or in 'watts per kilogram' where the absolute figure is divided by the rider's weight. So for example, a 75kg rider with an absolute FTP of 300 watts would have a weight-adjusted FTP of 4w/kg. 

In our analysis of O'Connor's data, we calculated his absolute FTP to be 395 watts, and according to ProCyclingStats, his weight is 67kg, meaning he boasts an FTP of 5.89w/kg.

Similarly, during the 2020 Tour, we analysed the power file of Tadej Pogačar after his record-breaking ascent of the Col de Peyresourde and calculated his FTP to be 410 watts, or 6.2w/kg. 

To compare this to an average cyclist, we went back to TrainerRoad, who supplied the average FTP of its entire database.

• Male beginners, the average FTP sits at 214 watts (2.81w/kg)
• Experienced male cyclists, the average jumps to 271 watts (3.75w/kg)
• Female beginners, the average FTP sits at 146 watts (2.45w/kg)
• Experienced female cyclists, the average jumps to 189 watts (3.25w/kg)
• All beginner cyclists combined, the average FTP sits at 204 watts (2.75w/kg)
• All experienced cyclists combined, the average FTP sits at 266 watts (3.72w/kg)

That means Pogacar's 410w FTP is more than 50% better than the average experienced cyclist (266w), and more than double that of the average beginner cyclist (204w). Of course, beyond this simple metric, there are a lot of other factors at play too. Not least fatigue resistance, which is the ability to output the same high power numbers at the end of a long day or at the end of three weeks of back-to-back racing. 

For his ascent of Montée de Tignes in 2021, O'Connor needed to put out an average of 345 watts (5.1w/kg) for the 1h12 duration, on a day where, in total, he averaged 311 watts (4.6w/kg) for over 4.5 hours. 

And for Pogačar's ascent of the Col de Peyresourde in 2020, which came on stage 8, he averaged 429 watts (6.7w/kg) for 24h08 at the end of a four-hour stage that included three mountains. 

For a reference of just how good this is, anyone who's spent time racing on Zwift may be familiar with the five Zwift Power categories (A+, A, B, C and D). A+ is the highest here, and to get yourself into this category, you'll need an FTP of 4.6 W/kg.  

To maintain all this effort, a rider needs to eat. A lot. 

Going back to Tom Pidcock and adding up his calorie expenditure up to stage 18 during last year's race, the Brit had burnt a total of 59,609 calories. That's the equivalent of about 232 McDonald's Big Macs. 

So how hard is it for the professional riders?

By now we have a pretty good idea of just how hard the Tour de France is, but these are professional athletes, they're the best road racing cyclists in the world and this is their job. So while it might be an impossible task for us mere mortals to even consider getting round, surely it's just another day at the office for them. Not exactly. 

To quantify this, we reached out to Whoop , sponsor to EF Education-EasyPost , and makers of a wearable wrist strap that uses an optical heart rate sensor to continuously monitor heart rate and heart rate variability to quantify various metrics. 

For those interested in how this works, Dr Stephanie Shell, a Senior Physiologist specialising in recovery at the Australian Institute of Sport explained the science a little more as part of our Whoop 3.0 review but put simply, it uses these metrics to allocate a 'strain' and 'recovery' score. Both are calculated using proprietary Whoop algorithms, and strain is scored out of 21, while recovery is scored as a percentage out of 100. 

Whoop duly shared data for a number of its riders on various stages in the 2021 race. The most complete of these datasets is for time trialling specialist Stefan Bissegger. 

Looking at his data, we're able to see how these algorithms rate the difficulty of Bissegger's days in comparison to his own baseline, thus quantifying how hard the days must be for Bissegger himself. 

The data here is threefold, covering strain, recovery, and sleep performance data. 

Across the nine stages for which we have data, Bissegger didn't have a day with a strain score below 17.4, with all of stages 9 to 13 scoring above 20 out of 21. This suggests that even for him, racing the Tour de France put his body through extreme strain. 

Alongside this, his recovery ranged widely. His lowest score was 30%, with his highest being 81%. 

All in all, it's safe to conclude that the Tour de France is truly brutal in its difficulty. It's well in excess of the capabilities of the general public and still beyond the reach of experienced, trained cyclists. Even for many of the professional athletes who start the Tour de France, actually finishing it is an altogether different proposal, and each year, dozens of riders miss the time cut. 

For those who do make it to Paris, it's still right at the upper limits of their capability and that's what makes it such a thrilling sport for us viewers to consume. 

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Josh is Associate Editor of Cyclingnews – leading our content on the best bikes, kit and the latest breaking tech stories from the pro peloton. He has been with us since the summer of 2019 and throughout that time he's covered everything from buyer's guides and deals to the latest tech news and reviews. 

On the bike, Josh has been riding and racing for over 15 years. He started out racing cross country in his teens back when 26-inch wheels and triple chainsets were still mainstream, but he found favour in road racing in his early 20s, racing at a local and national level for Somerset-based Team Tor 2000. These days he rides indoors for convenience and fitness, and outdoors for fun on road, gravel, 'cross and cross-country bikes, the latter usually with his two dogs in tow.

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How Did Bodies of the Tour de France Riders Change Over Time

Have you ever thought about the hypothetical chance to win the Tour de France if you really tried? Let us skip contemplations about training, financial support and a bit of luck as we want to focus entirely on the potential hidden within the human body. Robert J. Wood from Topendsports.com examined the body sizes and ages of TdF winners of the past and this is what he found out. Would you fit into his findings?

Slimmer, despite keeping the same height

As you might have noted, professional cyclists tend to be outstandingly lean and easy to distinguish by skinny arms and considerably long thighs. Proportionally longer femurs give them extra leverage while pushing the pedals. Moreover, climbers are usually smaller and lighter than sprinters and time trialists in the peloton. Since climb stages are decisive in the overall standings of the Tour, auspicious riders should have proportions somewhere in the middle between a climber and a sprinter. Have the bodies of the Tour participants changed throughout history? Let us make a brief trip into the past of the race.

Losing body fat

Despite limited resources, the basic measurements of the Tour de France cyclists, such as height and weight, are available for the winners all the way back to the 1940s. Using these two figures, Robert J. Wood calculated their average BMI measurement and analysed their body size. The average height of the participants has stayed almost the same yet their weight dwindled substantially. According to the calculated Body Mass Index, successful riders are getting leaner than they have ever been. According to available data, there has been a 5-kg drop in riders’ weight since 1990 with no remarkable impact on their average height.

Sometimes, the weight itself is not indicative of the chances for winning the title as we can demonstrate on flyweight rider Luis Ocaña who dominated the race in 1973 with as few as 52 kg or five-time serial winner Miguel Indurain with fair 80 kg. The average data from the roster of winners, however, show that the overall weight is decreasing while height remains almost the same. That means that riders have less and less fat on their body in contrast with the past.

Does optimal height exist?

If your height is under 180 cm, we have bad news for you. Despite exemptions, the average TdF participant’s height has been between 180 and 182 cm since 1990. The giant of the peloton was Marcel Sieberg with his phenomenal 198 cm who took part in the 2007 and 2008 Tour, while the shortest rider was Samuel Dumoulin at 159 cm who raced the Tour de France 12 times between 2003 and 2016. The data collected since 1947 show that riders’ height is increasing – with several title winners remarkably taller in the recent decade – except for Columbian Egan Bernal who is only 175 cm. Legendary winners like Chris Froome, Andy Schleck or Miguel Induráin, though, could overlook the peloton with their height of 186 cm.

Riders are getting older – by a few years

The youngest winner was Henri Cornet winning in 1904 at mere 20 years of age while the oldest was Firmin Lambot aged 36 and winning in 1922. Even though we saw Tadej Pogačar winning the last Tour at the age of barely 22, the average age of a title-holder in the last decade has been established at 28 years. The age of the winners is in direct relation with the average age of the participants, which slowly increased from 28 to the current 30 years. The increase can be taken on account of advances in medicine and nutrition as well as more and more satisfactory rewards that motivate cyclists to keep competing at a higher age. The average age of winners is growing slightly, declaring that more experienced riders are more likely to succeed though there are striking exemptions like Egan Bernal who became the youngest winner of the Tour de France since World War II.

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Youngest and oldest riders at the 2024 Tour de France - 20 and 39 years of age

The Tour de France is the single most important cycling race in the world and features most of the best riders in the world. This includes riders from a wide spectrum of ages; we take a look into the youngest and oldest riders in this year's race.

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Youngest 10 riders at the 2024 Tour de France:

The youngest rider at the start this year is Uno-X Mobility's Johannes Kulset at a young 20 years of age, only turned in April of this year. The Norwegian suffered harsh facial injuries in a crash suffered in a training camp back in late May but has nevertheless made it to the start. Lenny Martínez, who wasn't initially scheduled to race the Tour, is the only other 20-year old present in the race. The likes of Juan Ayuso, Arnaud De Lie and Kévin Vauquelin are among the other youngest riders in the race.

Oldest 10 riders at the 2024 Tour de France:

When it comes to the oldest riders in the race, we actually have a very close battle. Jakob Fuglsang of Israel - Premier Tech is 39 years and 99 days old on this day, 39 days older than compatriot Michael Morkov and 60 older than the Manx Missile himself Mark Cavendish. Geraint Thomas, Rui Costa and Alexander Kristoff - former stage winners and certain contenders this year - are also among the most veteran.

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Tour de France - statistics & facts

Recordbreakers, the yellow jersey, 2021 edition, key insights.

Detailed statistics

Tour de France entrants and finishers 1903-2023

Tour de France 2021: general riders ranking, by times

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Tour de France total French TV audience 2022-2023

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• Premium Statistic Tour de France winners 1903-2021, by podium position
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Tour de France winners 1903-2021, by podium position

Tour de France winners from 1903 to 2021, by podium position

Number of entrants and finishers in the Tour de France from 1903 to 2023

Most Tour de France wins 1903-2022, by country

Countries with the most Tour de France titles as of 2022

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General riders ranking of the Tour de France in 2021, by times (in minutes)

General teams ranking of the Tour de France in 2021, by times (in minutes)

Tour de France 2021: best sprinters, by number of points

Ranking of the Tour de France sprinters in 2021, by number of points

Tour de France 2021: Best climbers, by number of points

Ranking of the Tour de France climbers in 2021, by number of points

Salaries of the highest-paid Tour de France riders 2021

Highest-paid Tour de France cyclists in 2021 (in million euros)

Tour de France teams with the biggest budgets in 2023 (in million U.S. dollars)

Tour de France performance bonuses 2021

Value of the Tour de France individual general classification bonuses in 2021 (in euros)

• Basic Statistic Tour de France riders with the most victories 1903-2022
• Basic Statistic Riders with the most Tour de France yellow jerseys 1903-2023
• Basic Statistic Tour de France riders with the most stage wins 1903-2023
• Premium Statistic Riders with the most Tour de France entries 1903-2023
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Tour de France riders with the most victories 1903-2022

Cyclists with the most Tour de France victories as of 2022

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Cyclists that have spent the most days in the yellow jersey at the Tour de France as of 2023

Tour de France riders with the most stage wins 1903-2023

Cyclists with the most Tour de France stage wins as of 2023

Riders with the most Tour de France entries 1903-2023

Cyclists with the most starts in the Tour de France as of 2023

Tour de France best-performing countries 1903-2021, by podium position

Countries with the most Tour de France victories from 1903 to 2021, by podium position

TV audience and sponsorship

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Number of TV viewers of the Tour de France in France in 2022 and 2023 (in millions)

TV channels broadcasting Tour de France 2021

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Why the tour de france should be more american.

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USA Cycling National Champion Quinn Simmons (Photo by Tim de Waele/Getty Images)

The Tour de France, the most elite bike race in the world, begins this Saturday. While the event enjoys widespread popularity and prestige, professional cycling and the Tour have been operating in perpetually instability, limiting the sport’s opportunities for growth. The byzantine structure of professional cycling leaves the sports most visible stakeholders — the elite riders and their teams — on the outside looking in. But cycling could improve if it operated more like an American sports league, where teams and their athletes are as central to the structure as they are the competition. Cycling could learn a lot from baseball, basketball, football, and hockey.

The Structure Of Professional Cycling

As explained more fully in an article earlier this week , there are numerous actors and entities involved in professional cycling.

The Tour is put on by the Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO), a French sports marketing and event management organization that organizes various cycling races.

The sport of cycling is otherwise regulated by the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI), a non-governmental, non-profit association, based in Switzerland, which is recognized by the International Olympic Committee as the governing body for cycling. The UCI sanctions the WorldTour, the elite professional men’s road cycling tour.

Importantly, the UCI does not operate most of the events on WorldTour calendar . Instead, races are managed by various private operators. The ASO organizes nine of the 35 events on the schedule.

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Then, of course, there are the teams and the riders, with 18 teams participating on the WorldTour. The bottom two performing teams are subject to being relegated to the lower level ProTour. The teams employ 30 riders on budgets ranging from about $ 10 to $40 million . Those budgets are almost entirely dependent on sponsors , for whom the teams are named. And in turn, those sponsorship agreements are almost entirely dependent on the team’s results and short in duration (typically one to two years ).

The teams, through their Association Internationale des Groupes Cyclistes Professionnels (AIGCP), and the riders, through their Cyclistes Professionnels Associés (CPA), negotiate “ Joint Agreements ” setting forth some minimum terms and conditions of employment. Specifically, the 2024 minimum salary for a WorldTeam rider is € 68,957 (about $74,300) for veterans and € 55,793 ($60,100) for rookies. Two-time Tour de France winner Tadej Pogačar earns a reported € 6 million ($6.47 million) from his team, UAE Team Emirates.

Yet, neither the AIGCP or CPA has any formal role in the operation of the Tour de France or any other WorldTour race.

The American Sports Structure

The major American professional sports leagues – the NFL, MLB, NBA, and NHL – are all organized in the same way. The teams are individual legal entities that come together to operate a joint venture – the league. The specifics of that joint venture are set forth in a central document, called a Constitution or Constitution and Bylaws (see, for example, the NFL and NBA ).

These Constitutions govern important league matters, such as ownership, franchise relocation, stadium or arena requirements, team territories, team and league finances, playing rules, the role of the Commissioner, dispute resolution, and more.

From a business perspective, leagues and teams are constantly seeking to expand and maximize their revenue streams. Nevertheless, one revenue stream remains by the far most important – broadcast rights.

The leagues’ annual revenue from selling the broadcast rights to their games range from a low of $1.3 billion for the NHL to $12.39 billion for the NFL . These broadcast agreements make up nearly two-thirds of the NFL’s estimated $20 billion in annual revenue and about a fifth of the NHL’s estimated $ 6.8 billion in annual revenues.

The NFL is unique among the major American leagues in that the teams collectively sell the broadcast rights to all regular and postseason games. By comparison, each of MLB, the NBA, and the NHL sell a portion of their teams’ games to national broadcasters, leaving the remainder to be sold by teams to local broadcasters. Local broadcast revenues are most important in MLB, a function of teams’ 162 game schedules, collectively compromising more than $2.5 billion . For example, the New York Yankees receive a reported $143 million annually for their local rights from the YES Network.

Aside from broadcast rights, the leagues and their teams collectively make billions of dollars annually from ticket sales, suite sales, sponsorships, and other stadium-related revenue streams (e.g., concessions, parking, events).

The principal expense for the teams is of course the players. Through their unions, the players negotiate collective bargaining agreements with the teams that cover a wide range of issues important to them and the league, including but not limited to salaries, player contract terms, salary caps, free agency, drafts, benefits, discipline, health and safety, schedules, and roster sizes. Those agreements generally provide the players with between 40% and 50% of the league’s revenues.

While the collective bargaining process can be challenging and even litigious, the end result is certainty through long term agreements and a partnership between the teams and players to grow the revenue pie. Indeed, all of the leagues have generally settled into a productive ( almost boring ) cadence with their respective union counterparts.

La Différence

All of the above-described revenues for American sports leagues and teams – expect sponsorships – are made possible by the fact that the teams themselves are the organizers of the games in which they play. They sell tickets, hot dogs, and T-shirts. More importantly, they own the intellectual property that is the television broadcast of their games.

The American sports model is thus markedly different from that of professional cycling, in which teams play no role in the organizing of the events and hold none of the related intellectual property. In other words, they have no right to any of the broadcasting revenues. Instead, the teams are mere applicants to the Tour, generally willing to abide by whatever terms the ASO imposes. Indeed, the team that wins the Tour de France (calculated from each team’s three best riders), receives only €50,000 ($53,700), among other smaller prizes (though the individual winner receives €500,000 or $537,000).

Without the consistent and predictable revenue streams from operating events, the teams are subject to the financial whims of sponsors. And if sponsors only agree to fund a team for a year or two, the team cannot agree to pay its riders any longer than that. The result is the absence of long-term stability for both the teams and riders. For example, the American cycling team Cannondale-Drapac was in dire straits in 2017 before reaching an agreement with new sponsor EF Education First.

Does It Have To Be This Way?

The ASO or its predecessor entities has been running the Tour de France since its inception in 1903 and certainly would never willingly give up control of the event to the teams.

The teams’ plight recalls the NHL’s difficulties in 2005. After the collective bargaining agreement expired following the 2004-05 season, the league imposed a lockout, seeking to negotiate a harder salary cap with the players. The NHL claimed at the time that most of its clubs were losing millions of dollars a year. Bain Capital, a powerful private equity firm, offered to buy the entire league and all 30 of its teams for $4 billion. The team owners declined but had they accepted, Bain would have been in a position to cut costs and try to turn around the business’ fortunes, a staple of Bain’s business model .

Private equity investment in American sports teams is a recent and rapidly developing trend . MLB, the NBA, the NHL, MLS, and the NWSL have all amended their ownership rules in recent years to permit varying degrees of ownership by private equity firms. The NFL is exploring the issue and is expected to soon open its doors as well. These specialized funds are able to offer large infusions of cash to fund the teams’ increasingly expensive operations and endeavors.

Cycling teams suffer from essentially no centralized decision-making or revenue generation. The collective value of the ProTour teams is probably under a billion dollars. They thus could theoretically be an attractive and palatable opportunity for a private equity fund to take over in their entirety or near entirety and be more assertive, efficient, and opportunistic (though there might be issues under antitrust/competition law).

Additionally, the teams do not have any kind of meaningful relationship with their athletes through which they can collectively and predictably move the sport forward. Consider, for example, the Joint Agreements between the AIGCP and the CPA is 17 pages. By comparison, the NBA-NBPA collective bargaining agreement is 676 pages.

Recently, European soccer seems to be learning from decades of legal developments in American sports. It seems about time that cycling did the same .

ASO representatives declined to comment on the issues discussed in this article.

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What Is the Average Speed of a Tour de France Rider? Plus More FAQs

Even if you are tuning in for the first time, these facts will make you look like a seasoned viewer of the TdF.

As you get ready to watch the 2023 Tour de France, you might have some questions. This information will transform you—quickly—into a Tour expert. First, the basics: The 110th Tour de France will take place from July 1 - July 23. It’s good to know that the route changes every year. And in 2023, the Grand Départ is in the Basque Country of Spain, with the typical finish in Paris after 21 stages.

How fast do riders go?

We have looked into this ! A Tour pro’s ability to produce more power for longer means that they can really hammer over different types of races and terrains.

Average Time Trial Speed Average Rider: 19 to 20 mph | Tour Pro: 29 to 31 mph Average Speed on Flat Terrain Average Rider: 17 to 18 mph | Tour Pro: 25 to 28 mph Maximum Sprint Power

Average Rider: 600 to 800 watts | Tour Pro: 1,200 to 1,400 watts

Why do so few Americans compete in the Tour de France?

In 2022, there were seven Americans in the Tour. As of the middle of June, start lists aren’t finalized, but viewers will most likely see Neilson Powless (EF Education-EasyPost), Sepp Kuss (Jumbo-Visma), and Matteo Jorgenson (Movistar).

Christopher Thompson, author of The Tour de France: A Cultural History , believes fewer Americans race professionally because the U.S. has historically seen cycling as more of a pastime than a competitive endeavor. In Europe, it is more common for children to be trained in competitive racing, and it’s hard for American racers to compete with that training

Also, the cost of competing for an American is higher: Racers need to go where the big races are, and that almost always means moving to Europe.

How much prize money does the Tour de France winner get?

According to the Tour de France website, a total of around 2.3 million Euros will be awarded to the teams and riders, including 500,000 Euros to the winner of the final individual general classification (who usually shares his money with his team). That is equal to roughly $537,000 (USD). Second place GC is awarded 200,000 Euros, third place GC walks away with 100,000 Euros, and so on. Other top prizes go to stage winners, who get 11,000 Euros, and the winners of the points classification and mountains classification, both of whom receive 25,000 Euros. Riders can also win money during intermediate sprints and certain climbs. There’s even prizes for the five best teams and the four best young riders.

Who has won the most Tour de France titles?

That depends whether you’re counting titles that have been taken away ( cough — Lance — cough ). If not, the answer is a four-way tie between Jacques Anquetil, Miguel Indurain, Eddy Merckx, and Bernard Hinault, says Thompson.

Has the Tour ever been cancelled?

Only the two World Wars caused the race to be put on hold, says Thompson. All in all, battles cost the world 11 editions of the Tour: WWI broke out a few days after the 1914 Tour, he says, and didn’t run again until 1919. It went on hiatus again during WWII from 1940 to 1946, running again in 1947—two years after the end of the war.

“WWI was a war of attrition and the French were fighting the whole time. There were several Tour winners who were killed in the trenches,” he says. “But in WWII, France was defeated and occupied quite early, and that was different. There was a government that went along with the Nazis, so there was some racing to prove that things were normal under the occupation, but the Tour wasn’t held. After, France was so devastated by WWII that it took a while to get restarted.”

The Tour was postponed in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but eventually held in August of that year.

​Why is the leader’s jersey yellow?

Simple, says Thompson: L’Auto , the newspaper that first started and sponsored the race, was printed on yellow paper, so it was essentially an advertising strategy. (That’s also why the Giro d’Italia leader’s jersey is pink —the newspaper that created the Giro was printed on pink paper.) By the way, yellow in French is jaune and the jersey is called maillot jaune .

How do they make the jerseys so quickly?

There are four jerseys awarded during the course of the Tour de France each year and because who wears them gets decided during the race, they have to made on the spot and in a moment.

Has anyone ever died in the Tour?

Sadly, yes. Four riders have passed away over the course of the race’s history. In 1910, Adolphe Heliére drowned on a rest day; in 1934, Francisco Cepeda crashed into a ravine on a descent; in 1967, Tom Simpson passed away after a heart attack ; and in 1995, Fabio Casartelli was killed after crashing and hitting his head.

Unfortunately, there have also been a number of horrific crashes. To see how grueling the race is, even for those who don’t fall or crash, watch Unchained on Netflix.

​What do Tour riders do on rest days?

They ride! At least, they go for short rides to keep their legs from cramping up. Max Testa , M.D., former team doctor for a variety of Tour teams including Team BMC, 7-Eleven, and Motorola, says that the short rides (which can be up to three hours!) help keep inflammation at bay and keep muscles ready for another hard day in the saddle.

Is there a women’s Tour de France?

After a number of iterations over the years, the 2023 Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift will be held from Sunday, July 23 to Sunday, July 30. The course is 594 miles and includes a mountain stage, four flat stages, two hilly stages, and the time trial. They will not race at all in Paris.

Who were the oldest and youngest Tour cyclists?

Both distinctions occurred in 1904: Henri Paret was the oldest competitor at age 50 when he competed in 1904, while 20-year-old Henri Cornet was the youngest. Cornet was also the youngest winner. The oldest winner was in 1922, when 36-year-old Belgian Firmin Lambot took the yellow jersey.

Do racers make their stage data public?

Sometimes—but don’t count on them spending their evenings uploading their numbers . Still, you can keep an eye on some top pros’ Strava accounts.

How much do Tour de France bikes weigh?

In the 1900s, a Tour de France cyclist pedaled up and down mountains on a bike that weighed a whopping 40 pounds. In fact, Fiets, a Dutch cycling magazine, showcased a bike from the 1903 race weighing 39.7 pounds with a fixed gear. Today, bikes weigh just under 15 pounds—but not any lower, since the UCI’s minimum bike weight is 6.8kg, which translates to 14.99 pounds.

What tire pressures do the cyclists run?

Every racer and mechanic has a specific (top-secret) tire pressure that they considers to be optimal, but there are some guidelines.

“In general, with all of those variables [like weather and riders’ personal preference], that tire pressure is 8 to 8.5 bar for the road stages, and then 9.5 to 10 bar for the time-trial stages. Around 115 psi in the front and 125 psi in the back for the road stages and 130-135 psi for time-trial stages. And we drop that by 10 or 15 for rainy days,” Geoff Brown, veteran mechanic for Garmin-Sharp and EF Education First teams tells Bicycling .

They run about 10 psi lower in the front for more control, as well, and with tubular tires , they tend to run slightly lower pressures. Clinchers need to be kept around 110 to 120 psi in order to avoid pinch-flatting.

How do the competitors go to the bathroom?

It’s a long, hot ride so the pros are hydrating a lot. In the first five to 10 minutes of a race, when the pace is more leisurely, “riders pull to the side of the road, pull their shorts down just like you would underwear—you know, pull front down, do your business,” says retired pro cyclist Ted King, who’s ridden the Tour de France several times.

During this neutral roll out, King says, there’s plenty of time to catch back on to the peloton before the race starts in earnest. Fortunately, nature calls for all riders. “It’s a lot easier to wait for a lull in the race when a big fraction of the peloton pulls to the side of the road rather than doing it solo, because that solo chase is tough!” King says.

Of course, riders also pee off the bike while riding, although it requires having their teammates pedal while they go. “If peeing to the right, your right leg is in a 6 o’clock position, left at 12. Left hand on the handlebars, right hand holds the shorts down, and coast while relieving yourself,” King advises.

.css-1t6om3g:before{width:1.75rem;height:1.75rem;margin:0 0.625rem -0.125rem 0;content:'';display:inline-block;-webkit-background-size:1.25rem;background-size:1.25rem;background-color:#F8D811;color:#000;background-repeat:no-repeat;-webkit-background-position:center;background-position:center;}.loaded .css-1t6om3g:before{background-image:url(/_assets/design-tokens/bicycling/static/images/chevron-design-element.c42d609.svg);} Beginner Cycling

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TOUR DE FRANCE 2024 – PREVIEW INFO WITH ONE DAY TO GO

• The scene is set for the first ever Grand Départ in Italy. The peloton will meet at the start in the centre of Florence at 12 midday on Saturday for a 206 km first stage, the finish of which will take place on the shores of the Adriatic in the seaside resort of Rimini • The 2020 and 2021 Tour de France winner Tadej Pogacar arrives at the Tour on top form after his Giro triumph, but he has recently recovered from Covid. Pogacar’s rival Vingegaard has battled back from the injuries he sustained in the heavy crash at Itzulia Basque Country in April and the defending champion says he will have to feel his way into the race • Likewise Primoz Roglic has overcome his injuries from the Itzulia Basque Country crash and he is ready to ride at the Tour for the first since joining Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, having recently won the Criterium du Dauphine • There are a number of interesting statistical curiosities ahead of the 111th Tour de France, including the fact that the 45 debutants on the start list will raise the all-time Tour entrants’ number to exactly 5400 riders in total since the first edition in 1903

TADEJ POGACAR: “YOU NEVER KNOW IF YOU’RE READY FOR A THREE-WEEK RACE” The big challenge for Tadej Pogacar at the 2024 Tour is clear, with the UAE Team Emirates star striving to win a Giro-Tour de France double, which has not been achieved since Marco Pantani did it 1998. The winner of the 2020 and 2021 Tours de France was dominant at the Giro in May and whilst he is generally positive about his preparations and his form, he yesterday announced two pieces of news which shed a slightly different light on his progress over the last few weeks, He stated, “Everything happened very quickly, and I had to interrupt my training to return to Slovenia because my grandfather died. When I got back I contracted Covid. I only had one “K-O” day, then I quickly resumed training on the home trainer and got back on the bike as soon as I was no longer contagious.” Following this admission, Pogacar reassured his fans about his condition, although he remains cautious about overstating his chances of victory: “Physically I feel ready to win, though you never know if you're totally ready for a three-week race,” he said. “You also have to manage your mind and be lucky. The double is a big challenge, it’s already difficult to win a Grand Tour. But I like taking on challenges.” Among the other unknowns ahead of the Tour, ‘Pogi’ also spoke about the prospect of another chapter in his rivalry with Jonas Vingegaard, commenting, “This relationship with Jonas is extraordinary. We only see each other once a year… in July! I think he will be back to his best level, he wouldn’t be here if he wasn’t ready.” Let battle commence. JONAS VINGEGAARD: “BEING AT THE START IS ALREADY A VICTORY” Double Tour de France winner Jonas Vingegaard comes into his fourth Grande Boucle having gone through a period of major physical recuperation, following his heavy crash at the Tour of the Basque Country in April. The Dane understandably expressed measured ambitions during his pre-race press conference, commenting: “I’m very happy to be at the start, it is already a victory. It was a real challenge to regain the level I have now. I experienced the hardest moment of my career, so I really fought to come back.” Another difficulty for the Visma-Lease a Bike leader to deal with has been the withdrawal of American rider Sepp Kuss due to a recent bout of Covid. Kuss participated in the team's previous victorious campaigns and will be missed by Vingegaard and his colleagues. All things considered, Vingegaard believes he will need to wait somewhat to judge his potential this year. He noted, “It is likely that I will gain power throughout the race. If, for example, I have to fight to stay at the front in the first days, I will then be able to get back into the rhythm with the best. I don't know if I can win, I don't feel in bad shape but the crash was really terrible. I have hope, that’s for sure, but we’ll see.” PRIMOZ ROGLIC: “IT’S GOING TO BE CRAZY” Fans of the Tour de France were first treated to a glimpse of Primoz Roglic’s awesome prowess in 2017, when he won his first stage in Serre-Chevalier. Seven years on and Roglic is ready to compete in his first Tour de France with his new team, Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe. He is regarded as a serious candidate for the Yellow Jersey, even at the age of 34 and following the four years of the remarkable Pogacar and Vingegaard success story. Ahead of his sixth Tour de France Roglic says, “I feel young and I'm happy to be here, my aim is to seize every opportunity. I don’t know if this is my last Tour or if I will do ten more, but in any case I intend to play my cards to win.” When asked about possible scenarios, the winner of the recent Criterium du Dauphine described the twists and turns that could very quickly unfold in the race. “Of course, the Tour lasts three weeks and it is only at the end of the 21st stage that we know who is the best rider,” he commented. “But you have to be there from day one, stay focused and do your best. This year we go into the mountains very early with the Galibier from the fourth stage, then hit the gravel at the end of the first week… it’s going to be crazy.” With potential opportunities arriving quickly, Roglic has singled out the San Luca climb, towards the finale of the second stage, which has previously served as a springboard for his three victories in the Giro dell'Emilia (2019, ’21 and ‘23). He explained, “It’s a very short and steep hill, I like it. But nothing is ever the same on the Tour de France.” At the 2023 Giro dell'Emilia Roglic beat his compatriot Tadej Pogacar to the finish line by a second. The story continues… RIDER STATISTICS: KEY DATA ON THIS YEAR’S START LIST · 27 countries are represented at the 111th edition of the Tour de France, which is the same as last year. France has the highest number of riders in the race at 32 (again, same as last year), followed by Belgium at 28, the largest number for the country since 1989 (36). · The oldest rider at the start is Jakob Fuglsang at 39 years and 99 days. The youngest rider is Johannes Kulset at 20 years and 76 days. · The rider with most participations is Mark Cavendish, at his 15th Tour, whilst the all-time record is held by Sylvain Chavanel with 18. When Cavendish rode in his first Tour in 2007 this year’s youngest rider Kulset was just three years old. · There are 39 riders contesting the White Jersey this year, the oldest of whom is Javier Romo of Movistar at 25 years and 175 days of age. · There are 45 debutants on the startlist, taking the total of Tour entrants throughout history to exactly 5400 riders. This year’s debutants list includes the likes of Pascal Ackermann, Joao Almeida, Juan Ayuso, Remco Evenepoel, Derek Gee and Ben Healy. · Behind 34-time Tour stage winner Cavendish in terms of riders with most stage wins at this year’s Tour are Tadej Pogacar (11 wins), Wout van Aert (9), Jasper Philipsen (6) and Dylan Groenewegen (5). · There are nine national road race champions in this year’s race and eight national time trial champions on the startlist, including South Africa’s Ryan Gibbons who holds the national titles in both disciplines. 2024 TOUR DE FRANCE TEAMS IN NUMBERS · The race will feature exactly the same teams as the 2023 Tour de France. So there are no newcomers from a team perspective, but there will be three ‘veteran’ teams: The Movistar Team are ready for their 42nd consecutive participation (previously participating as Reynolds, Banesto, Illes Balears and Caisse d 'Epargne); Visma-Lease a Bike, with 41 consecutive appearances (Kwantum, Superconfex, Buckler, Wordperfect, Novell, Rabobank, Belkin, LottoNL and Jumbo); and Lotto-dstny, with 35 non-consecutive participations (there were two years between their first three participations and the subsequent 32). · Lotto-dstny are also the team whose 2024 rider line-up has the lowest average age: at only 26 years and 124 days, the youngest member of their team curiously being their leader Arnaud de Lie, who will be 22 years and 105 days old when the Grand Départ takes place this Saturday in Florence. At the other end of the scale are Jayco-AlUla, whose riders’ are aged 32 years and 309 days on average. · Seven of the eight men who participated in 2023 for Jayco-AlUla are with the team again this year: with the only change being Michael Matthews coming in to replace Lawson Craddock. It’s the same story at Bahrain Victorious, where Santiago Buitrago comes in for Mikel Landa. Soudal-Quick Step, on the other hand, have made big changes, with the only rider to stay on the team from last year being Yves Lampaert. · Five teams in the peloton have previously secured Tour de France GC wins: Movistar Team and Ineos Grenadiers, with seven victories each; plus UAE Team Emirates, Visma-Lease a Bike and Astana Qazaqstan with two wins each. Meanwhile, there are 11 teams that have not put a rider on the final podium; among them, Primoz Roglic's Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe; the Soudal-Quick Step team of Remco Evenepoel; and Simon Yates' Jayco-AlUla. · On the stage victory count, Visma-Lease a Bike are the leaders with 71 stage wins, whilst it’s 51 for Soudal-Quick Step and 40 for Lotto-dstny. In contrast, still looking for their first Tour bouquet are Uno-X, who debuted in 2023; Intermarche-Wanty, who are preparing for their seventh Tour participation and Arkea-B&B Hotels, who are starting their 11th consecutive Tour. · The five French teams are in the majority, namely Decathlon-AG2R La Mondiale, Groupama-FDJ, Cofidis, Arkea-B&B Hotels and TotalEnergies, followed by four from Belgium (Soudal-Quick Step, Lotto-dstny, Alpecin-Deceuninck and Intermarche-Wanty). Lotto-dstny (with seven Belgians and one Australian) and TotalEnergies (with seven Frenchmen and one Belgian) are the teams with the least diversity of nationality in their line-ups. Quite the opposite is the case at Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe: with all eight of their riders being of different nationalities.

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Home > Sports > List > Cycling > Testing > Anthropometry > Tour de France > Tables

Body Size Tables of Tour de France Participants

See the discussion about the body size of professional cyclists using the data from the tables below.

Table of Tour de France Cyclists Average Stats

The table below lists average age, heights and weights of Tour de France participants (data from https://www.procyclingstats.com/), plus the calculated average BMI measurement . There was no average data from before 1990, and from the earlier years on this list it is probably not a complete sample of all the participants (the database did not indicate how many sample points). See the graphs on the discussion page for a better indication of the trends.

source: the data was originally taken from https://www.procyclingstats.com/, and has been addded to over time

Table of Tour de France Winner's Body Size

The table below lists all known heights and weights of Tour de France champions. There is a lot of missing data from prior to the 1940s. Weight values are to the nearest kg or lb. Body mass index has been calculated from the height and weight data.

The data is being used to get a general view of the riders' body size and changes over time. They may not be accurate, the measurements were taken at different times, under different conditions and using unknown methods. Most of the height and weight values in the table are taken from the Wikipedia page for each rider, and though they are believed to be somewhat accurate, they may not reflect the true racing weight of the cyclists during the tour.

The anthropometric data of Lance Armstrong has been included even though he is now not the winner (there is no official winner for those years).

source: most of the height and weight values in the table are taken from the Wikipedia page for each rider .

Check These

different data from sport-reference:

• Froome 6-0.5 (185 cm)
• Miguel Indurain Height: 6-2 (188 cm) Weight: 174 lbs (79 kg)
• Wiggins Weight: 181 lbs (82 kg)

Related Pages

• Discussion about the Body Size of Tour de France Participants
• fitness testing for cycling
• anthropometry for cycling
• Olympic Games Anthropometry for other sports in 2012
• Athlete Body Size Changes Over Time
• All about fitness testing , including anthropometry testing
• Poll about the fitness components for cycling
• How to measure Height and Weight , and calculate BMI measurement

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Tour de France

The power numbers at this year’s tour de france are the highest in the modern era of cycling, in this column, we dive into the power numbers of the world’s best riders at the tour de france..

Heading out the door? Read this article on the new Outside+ app available now on iOS devices for members! >","name":"in-content-cta","type":"link"}}'>Download the app .

We are only nine stages into the Tour de France, and five mountainous stages have already blown the GC to shreds. After countless attacks, breakaways, satellite riders, bonus seconds, and mountain top finishes, only 17 seconds separate Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogačar in the fight for the yellow jersey.

Read also: Power Analysis: Tour de France – Pogačar, Vingegaard, and Victor Lafay

Two of those stages flipped the original script, which saw 2022 Tour de France winner Vingegaard take over a minute on Pogačar on stage 5 to Laruns. We are in for a show in the next two weeks of racing, which includes the Grand Colombier, Col de Joux Plane, and Col de la Loze.

The power numbers from this year’s Tour de France are the highest in the modern era of cycling. 7w/kg for 20 minutes is the new standard for GC contenders, and many of these performances come after 3500 kJs of work, at 1000-2000 meters above sea level, and in 30+°C (86+°F) temperatures.

Unlike 2022, Vingegaard didn’t wait long to play his cards and attack Pogačar. Stage 5 from Pau to Laruns included the Col du Soudet (15.2km at 7%), Col d’Ichere (4.2km at 6.2%), and the Col de Marie Blanque (7.8km at 8.4%) whose final 4.8km average 10.5%.

A massive breakaway stayed away for the stage win while Jumbo-Visma laid the battleground for Vingegaard. When the Dane launched off Sepp Kuss’ wheel, Pogačar didn’t even respond. Vingegaard did one of the best climbing performances of his career on the steepest slopes of the Col de Marie Blanque, pushing nearly 7w/kg for over 20 minutes. The reigning Tour Champion continued pushing over the top of the climb to the finish line in Laruns where he took one minute and four seconds on Pogačar.

While we don’t have Vingegaard’s power data, we can make an educated guess based on other riders’ power data and times on the Col de Marie Blanque. In 2020, a 21-year-old Pogačar climbed the Col de Marie Blanque over a minute and a half slower than Vingegaard’s 2023 time, but still won stage 9 of the 2020 Tour ahead of Primož Roglič and Marc Hirschi.

Pogačar – Col de Marie Blanque in the 2020 Tour de France Time: 24:28 Average Power: 428w (6.4w/kg) Final 2.5km: 9:23 at 458w (6.9w/kg)

Vingegaard (2023): 22’ 56” at ~6.9w/kg

Many wrote off the 2023 Tour after Vingegaard’s stage 5 performance, citing Pogačar’s ongoing wrist recovery as the reason for his subpar performance. But the Slovenian struck back less than 24 hours later on the Cauterets-Cambasque (final 5.3km at 7.5%).

Before Pogačar’s winning attack, Jumbo-Visma had blown the race apart 40km earlier on the Col du Tourmalet (17km at 7.4%). Long, high-altitude climbs are typically Pogačar’s weakness, and Jumbo-Visma thought they might be able to crack the Slovenian for the second day in a row.

Vingegaard launched off of Kuss’ wheel again with 4.7km to the top of the Tourmalet, but Pogačar stayed glued to his wheel. Both riders did ~6.8w/kg for over 13 minutes, but neither rider cracked on the legendary climb. The final 4.8km of the Tourmalet climbs from 1700m to 2100m, so these power numbers are even more impressive when you consider the high altitude.

The closest rider to Vingegaard and Pogačar with power data was Steff Cras, who pushed nearly 6w/kg for 15 minutes but still lost two minutes to the leading pair.

Pogačar – Final 4.7km of the Tourmalet Time: 13:19 Estimated Average Power: ~449w (6.8w/kg)

Steff Cras: 15’ 19” at 360w (5.6w/kg)

After a long descent and rolling uphill, the final slopes of the Cote de Cauterets began. Vingegaard attacked on the 10% section of the climb and continued to pace with Pogačar in his wheel. But to almost everyone’s surprise, Pogačar attacked and dropped Vingegaard, soaring to the stage win and taking 28 seconds back on the defending Tour champion.

This result was shocking because Vingegaard clearly wasn’t at his best when you look at the power data. Pogačar did roughly 6.7w/kg for 13 minutes on the Cote de Cauterets, while Vingegaard only managed 6.6w/kg.

Michał Kwiatkowski had been caught from the breakaway, and he was the only rider who could stay in the wheels of Vingegaard and Pogačar for the first part of the Cote de Cauterets. The former world champion was pushing 6.5w/kg in the draft before finally succumbing to the ferocious pace.

Kwiatkowski – Cote de Cauterets Time: 16:22 Average Power: 342w (5.2w/kg) First 1.3km with Vingegaard and Pogačar: 4’ at 430w (6.5w/kg)

Pogačar : 13:00 at ~6.7w/kg Vingegaard: 13:24 at ~6.6w/kg

Just 24 hours previous, Vingegaard pushed ~6.9w/kg for nearly 23 minutes on the Col de Marie Blanque. Thus, the Cote de Cauterets was a disappointing performance. This could be a sign of Vingegaard’s inconsistency. Or perhaps he peaked too early in this year’s Tour de France. The next 12 stages will reveal the answer.

The last test before the Tour’s first rest day was the Puy du Dôme (final 4.5km at 11.5%), a ridiculously steep climb to the top of a dormant volcano outside Clermont-Ferrand. Mike Woods won the stage from the breakaway after overcoming a 2-minute deficit to Matteo Jorgenson in the final 4km. The Canadian pushed nearly 6w/kg for 15 minutes after more than 3800 kJs of work in the break.

14 minutes later, the GC group hit the steepest slopes of the Puy du Dôme, and Jumbo-Visma lined it out for the yellow jersey wearer, Vingegaard. However, neither Vingegaard nor Pogačar seemed confident in their legs when the pace slowed after Sepp Kuss’ final pull. Pogačar waited until 1.3km to go to launch his attack, going out of the saddle for nearly 30 seconds and gapping Vingegaard.

The Dane stayed strong, and Pogačar’s gap didn’t waver until the final 200 meters. Vingegaard only ceded eight seconds to Pogačar by the line, which meant that he took a 17-second GC lead into the Tour’s first rest day.

Woods was two minutes and five seconds slower than Pogačar in the final 4.5km of the Puy du Dôme, despite pushing nearly 6w/kg.

Woods – Puy du Dôme (final 4.3km) Time: 16:51 Average Power: 369w (5.9w/kg)

Pogačar: 14:46 at ~6.9w/kg Vingegaard : 14:54 at ~6.8w/kg

After the first nine stages of the Tour, a handful of bonus seconds and meters separates Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogačar. Most of the mountain stages have been won and lost in 15-20 minute performances, and Vingegaard’s effort up the Col de Marie Blanque remains the biggest outlier (22’ 56” at ~6.9w/kg).

We know that Vingegaard and Pogačar can do 6.9w/kg for 15 minutes at the end of a five-hour Tour de France stage. But can they do it stage after stage, week after week, for 12 more days? Heat and high altitude have a history of causing cracks in Pogačar, whereas Vingegaard has already shown a bit of inconsistency on consecutive mountain stages. The 2023 Tour de France Champion is anyone’s guess.

*** Power Analysis data courtesy of Strava

Strava sauce extension

Tadej Pogačar 

Michał Kwiatkowski

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The Tour de France returns in all of its glory on Saturday, June 29, with no shortage of major storylines going into cycling’s most prestigious race. Can Jonas Vingegaard, winner in back-to-back years, become history’s ninth cyclist to win at least three Tour de France races? His primary competition, Tadej Pogačar, aims for the same feat and the yellow jersey after finishing second in 2022 and 2023. Elsewhere, Primož Roglič seeks the elusive Tour de France victory that has eluded him.

Before cyclists embark on their massive trek, get up to speed with everything you need to know for the 111th Tour de France, which is streaming on Peacock on NBC.

How does the 2024 Tour de France work?

This year’s Tour de France is unique for several reasons. It will begin in Florence, Italy, for the first time in the event’s history. This starting point honors the 100-year mark since an Italian won the Tour de France, achieved by Ottavio Bottecchia in 1924. With the Paris Olympics starting in late July, 2024 features the first-ever Tour de France that won’t conclude in France’s capital city. Instead, it will finish in Nice, France. Riders will complete 21 stages across three weeks, starting in Florence, Italy on Saturday, June 29, and ending on Sunday, July 21. The entire Tour De France will cover a total distance of 3,492 km (2,170 miles), with riders competing in one stage per day and receiving one rest day at the end of each week.

How to watch every stage of the 2024 Tour de France: Stages, schedule, start times, live stream info

Who is riding in the Tour de France 2024?

The favorite to win the 2024 Tour de France is Tadej Pogačar , a member of the UAE Team Emirates . At 25 years old, he already has two Tour de France wins (2020, 2021) and one Giro d’Italia victory (2024). After dominating the Giro d’Italia in May, the phenom aims to become the first cyclist since 1998 (Marco Pantani) to win both the Giro and the Tour de France in the same year. Already considered one of the greatest talents cycling has ever seen, the Slovenian has won four out of five events he’s raced in this year, finishing third in his only non-victory. He’s finished second place in the last two editions of the Tour de France.

Pogačar will look to defeat two-time defending Tour de France champion Jonas Vingegaard of Team Visma-Lease a Bike, another popular pick to win this year. The 27-year-old has bested Pogačar the last two years, but the Tour de France will mark his return to racing since a severe crash at the Tour of the Basque Country in April, where he broke his collarbone and ribs, suffering a collapsed lung in the process.

Another intriguing challenger is Tour veteran Primož Roglič of Team Bora-hansgrohe, who seeks his first Tour de France victory in what will be his sixth appearance. At 34 years old and well into his illustrious career, it remains the major title he has yet to win, having already secured victories across the Giro d’Italia, Vuelta a España, Monuments, and Olympic Games.

How many teams are in the Tour de France?

The Tour de France is made up of 22 pro cycling teams with eight riders each, amounting to 176 total competitors.

How do teams work in the Tour de France?

Each team has one rider who is their main contender, commonly referred to as the team’s leader. Teams may have several leaders throughout the race, determined by each group’s individual race strategy. Other members of the team are known as domestiques . These key figures support their team’s leader in the race by shielding them from wind and other cyclists, bringing them water, and even offering to switch bikes in the event of mechanical failure. Team members typically take turns acting in these support roles.

RELATED: 2024 Tour de France cyclists to watch: Jonas Vingegaard, Tadej Pogacar lead the pack

Who are recent Tour de France winners?

2023: Jonas Vingegaard (Denmark) 2022: Jonas Vingegaard (Denmark) 2021: Tadej Pogačar (Slovenia) 2020: Tadej Pogačar (Slovenia) 2019: Egan Bernal (Colombia) 2018: Geraint Thomas (United Kingdom, Wales) 2017: Chris Froome (United Kingdom) 2016: Chris Froome (United Kingdom) 2015: Chris Froome (United Kingdom) 2014: Vincenzo Nibali (Italy) 2013: Chris Froome (United Kingdom) 2012: Bradley Wiggins (United Kingdom) 2011: Cadel Evans (Australia) 2010: Andy Schleck (Luxembourg) Alberto Contador was initial winner, but was stripped of victory in 2012 after he was found guilty of doping

How many points do you get for winning a stage in the Tour de France?

Points are awarded throughout and at the end of each stage, differing based on the type of stage. Here’s the point distribution for first-place finishers across stages (Individual time trial and intermediate sprint winners are also awarded 20 points each):

Flat stage finishes: 50 points Hilly and medium mountain stage finishes: 30 points High mountain finishes: 20 points

How do they determine the winner of the Tour de France?

The rider with the shortest overall combined time from every stage is declared the winner. This year’s race will feature an individual time trial from Monaco to Nice as the final stage. Though there is only one overall winner, there are three other individual awards granted to cyclists for various accomplishments. Throughout the race, the leaders in each category wear specific jerseys to differentiate them from the rest.

The coveted yellow jersey is for the rider with the fastest overall time at the end of each stage; the race leader. A green jersey, also known as the points jersey, is awarded to the fastest sprinter. Riders collect points for finishing stages quickly, winning sprint sections, and performing well in mountain sections. A white jersey with red polka dots, also known as the “King of the Mountains,” is awarded to the best climber. Mountain points are distributed based on the difficulty of individual climbing sections throughout various mountain stages. Lastly, a white jersey is awarded to the best young rider, the highest-ranked cyclist under the age of 26. Winning just one Tour de France stage is considered a huge victory for most cyclists.

How much money do you get for winning the Tour de France?

The overall winner of the Tour de France will receive €500,000, equivalent to $533,915. Second place earns €200,000 ($213,566), with third place getting $100,000 ($107,062). Each stage win is worth €11,000, equivalent to $11,746. The rider with the most sprint points at the race’s conclusion walks away with €25,000 ($26,765) as the green jersey winner.

Is there a team prize in the Tour de France?

Yes, there is a team prize in the Tour de France. The top five teams at the end of the race receive cash prizes, which are then calculated by adding the cumulative times of each team’s three fastest finishers from the stage. The winning team receives €2,800 in prize money ($3,001). Team earnings are often split among the team instead of just one rider.

How is the Tour de France time cut calculated?

The Tour de France’s time cut is a Grand Tours ruling that ensures riders don’t reduce their workloads in certain stages to conserve energy for later stages. Time cuts in stages are determined by two factors, primarily the stage’s difficulty and the winning rider’s average speed. Every stage in the Tour de France is given a difficulty coefficient, numbered one to six. For example, a stage where minimal climbing is involved may be granted a one or a two, but a stage with high climbs through mountains may be granted a higher difficulty coefficient, like five or six. If the stage maintains a fast pace, time cuts will be more forgiving. If races produce a slower pace, the time cut will be harsher.

What is the name of the British team in the Tour de France?

The INEOS Grenadiers are Great Britain’s professional cycling team that competes at the UCI World team level. The team is based out of Manchester, England with a base in Deinze, Belgium. Previously known as Team Sky, the name changed to Team INEOS and then the INEOS Grenadiers in 2019, when INEOS and Sir Jim Ratcliffe became sole owners. This year’s 11 British riders throughout the field are the most ever in Tour de France history.

What are the stages of the Tour de France 2024?

Saturday, June 29: Stage 1 , Florence - Rimini (206 km) Sunday, June 30: Stage 2 , Cesenatico - Bologne (199.2 km) Monday, July 1: Stage 3 , Plaisance - Turin (230.8 km) Tuesday, July 2: Stage 4 , Pinerolo - Valloire (139.6 km) Wednesday, July 3: Stage 5 , Sant-Jean-de-Maurienne - Saint-Vulbas (177.4 km) Thursday, July 4: Stage 6 , Mâcon - Dijon (163.5 km) Friday, July 5: Stage 7 , Nuits-Saint-Georges - Gevrey-Chambertin (25.3 km, individual time trial) Saturday, July 6: Stage 8 , Semur-En-Auxois > Colombey-les-Deux-Églises (183.4 km) Sunday, July 7: Stage 9 , Troyes - Troyes (199 km) Monday, July 8: Rest Day Tuesday, July 9: Stage 10 , Orléans - Saint-Amand-Montrond (187.3 km) Wednesday, July 10: Stage 11 , Évaus-les-Bains - Le Lioran (211 km) Thursday, July 11: Stage 12 , Aurillac - Villeneuve-sur-Lot (203.6 km) Friday, July 12: Stage 13 , Agen - Pau (165.3 km) Saturday, July 13: Stage 14 , Pau - Saint-Lary-Soulan Pla d’Adet (151.9 km) Sunday, July 14: Stage 15 , Loudenvielle - Plateau de Beille (198 km) Monday, July 15: Rest Day Tuesday, July 16: Stage 16 , Gruissan - Nîmes (188.6 km) Wednesday, July 17: Stage 17 , Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux - Superdévoluy (177.8 km) Thursday, July 18: Stage 18 , Gap - Barcelonnette (179.5 km) Friday, July 19: Stage 19 , Embrun - Isola 2000 (144.6 km) Saturday, July 20: Stage 20 , Nice - Col de la Couillole (132.8 km) Sunday, July 21: Stage 21 , Monaco - Nice (33.7 km, individual time trial)

Who is the only American to win the Tour de France?

The legendary Greg LeMond is the only American man to win the Tour de France, capturing victories in 1986, 1989, and 1990. In the process, he became the first non-European professional cyclist to win the historic race.

What happens if you have to go to the bathroom during the Tour de France?

Cyclists can stop on the side of the road if they must use the bathroom during the Tour de France. However, they must be out of view of spectators to avoid getting fined. Riders often will take collective breaks as a group to individually go to the bathroom.

Do riders sleep during the Tour de France?

Yes! Tour de France competitors do indeed get rest. The race is three weeks long and athletes are exercising intensely, so sleep is necessary. Cyclists typically sleep in hotel rooms that vary in accommodations and location.

What are the Tour de France rules?

There are many rules within the Tour de France, among them include:

• All riders must wear their team’s official outfit: shorts, jersey, socks, shoes, gloves, and a helmet to begin the race (aside from special jerseys).
• Other classifications can be identified by a rider’s uniform or race number, including colored or special numbers for the highest-ranked individual rider on each team, the most aggressive rider as determined by a jury, and stage winners.
• If a cyclist wins a stage or is one of the first three finishers, seconds are subtracted from their overall time as a bonus. First place subtracts ten seconds, then six and four for second and third. At various critical points like passes and summits, the first three riders can also receive time premiums of eight, five, and two seconds.
• There is a time cut calculated depending on the type of stage using the time of the winner. In most cases, riders will be eliminated from the race if they do not finish under the time cut. There are cases where a rider will finish after the time cut and still be allowed to start the next day, but they lose all of the points they had accumulated to that point.
• Various cyclists are drug tested at every stage, with over 180 drug tests distributed throughout the race.

Other specific rules for the Tour de France include:

• No littering
• Cyclists cannot push off cars, motorcycles or other riders
• Team cars called caravans may follow riders, but must maintain a distance of at least 25 meters.
• Spraying liquid, like water used for cooling purposes, from team cars is prohibited.
• Teams cannot help eachother.
• Riders may only eat in designated areas.
• No indecent behavior towards spectators.

• Entertainment

8 Youngest Tour De France Winner

The Tour De France is the longest multi-stage male cycle competition held annually in France. The contestants in this 21-stage cycling competition cycle for over 2,200 miles through nearby countries.

The first Tour De France race was held in 1903, sponsored by the newspaper L’Auto . Maurice Garin, an Italian-French bicycler, holds the Guinness World Record for the first-ever Tour De France trophy winner.

The average age of Tour De France winners is 28, which means the age of most winners ranges between 23 and 33. However, the eight Tour De France winners we’re discussing today earned the trophy before even celebrating their 23 rd birthday!

8. Laurent Fignon

Born: 1960 Nationality: French Age When He Won the Trophy: 22 years and 346 days Current Age: Deceased

Laurent Fignon is one of the most enigmatic French road cyclists to ever race in the Tour de France competition. He won the 1984 and 1983 Tour de France, as well as the 1989 Giro d’Italia. Fignon nearly won the Tour De France trophy in 1989, but was edged by Greg LeMond by a close margin of 8 seconds.

Fignon won multiple classic races , including 1988 and 1989 Milan-San Remo, 1985 La Flèche Wallonne, and 1987 Paris-Nice. He died of cancer in Paris in 2010, aged 50.

Did You Know?

Laurent Fignon had already retired from active cycling by the time he died in 2010. In fact, he claims to have retired from professional cycling in 1993, after a decade of being heavily involved in the sport. However, things weren’t always all business for Fignon; in his book, We Were Young and Carefree , Fignon revealed that he was a proponent of doping products.

7. Philippe Thys

Born: 1889 Nationality: Belgian Age When He Won the Trophy: 22 years and 292 days Current Age: Deceased

Philippe Thys was a Belgian professional cyclist who competed internationally in road cycling competitions. He had dozens of trophies under his name, including three Tour de France trophies and circuit François Peugeot.

Thys participated in and won Belgium’s national cyclo-cross 1910 competition, aged 20 years. Two years later, Philippe Thys won the 1913 Tour de France trophy aged 22 years and 292 days.

Thys won the Paris–Tours and the Giro di Lombardia in 1917. He also won the second and final Tours–Paris in 1918. Finally, the cyclist won the Tour for the third and last time in 1920, following World War I. He maintained the record of the pro cyclist with most Tour de France trophies until 1963, when Jacques Anquetil won his fourth trophy.

Although Philippe Thys was born in Anderlecht, he died in the Brussels metropolitan area, aged 81 . That was on January 16 th, 1971, 8 years after Jacques Anquetil had broken his three-time tour de France record.

6. Felice Gimondi

Born: 1942 Nationality: Italian Age When He Won the Trophy: 22 years and 289 days Current Age: Deceased

Popularly nicknamed “The Phoenix,” Felice Gimondi was an award-winning Italian racing cyclist . He was the son of a postmistress and a transport manager, which kickstarted his cycling career – he used to ride his mom’s post-bicycle to school, and eventually assisted delivering mail on it.  

Gimondi competed in the road race at the 1964 Olympic Games, finishing in 33rd position. Two years later in 1965, Gimondi – just 22 years old and in his first year as a competitive athlete – won the Tour de France, a major achievement.

In 1967, 1969, and 1976, Gimondi went on to win the Giro d’Italia, and the Spanish Vuelta in 1968.

Before he died on August 16, 2019, Felice Gimondi was featured in two major movies . He was first featured in the film, Il Pirata – Marco Pantani in 2007 , aged 65. His second film is called For a Yellow Jersey (1965).

5. Octave Lapize

Born: 1887 Nationality: French Age When He Won the Trophy: 22 years and 280 days Current Age: Deceased

Octave Lapize was a renowned French pro-road-racing and track cyclist . He is best-known for his Tour de France win in 1910, as well as winning a bronze medal in the men’s 100 kilometers at the 1908 Summer Olympics. He also won the Paris–Roubaix and Paris–Brussels one-day classics three times.

Lapize dropped out of his initial Tour de France in 1909 due to wintery weather in July; however, he still finished second on Stage 2 behind Tour victor, Francois Faber. Altogether, between 1909 and 1914, Lapize made six Tour de France starts, but only one resulted in a win.

On June 28, 1917, Lapize was shot down by a German aircraft but survived. He was shot down again two weeks later, this time more seriously injured, and died in the hospital as a result of his injuries.

Octave Lapize was laid to rest the day he died at the military hospital; however, his body was exhumed and taken to Villiers-sur-Marne, where a stage of the Tour de France was dedicated to him.

4. Egan Bernal

Born: 1997 Nationality: Colombian Age When He Won the Trophy: 22 years and 196 days Current Age: 25

Egan Bernal is a Colombian cyclist who is currently riding for UCI World-Team INEOS Grenadiers . Bernal won the 2019 Tour de France, aged 22 years and 196 days. This feat qualified him as the first-ever Latin American trophy winner, and the youngest since 1909.

Bernal began his career as a junior road cycle racer, and won the Sognando Il Giro delle Fiandre and Clasica Juventudes Cajica, aged 18. He has many cycling trophies under his name , including two Grand Tours, two individual stages, one Paris-Nice, one Tour of California, one Gran Piemonte, and one National Time Trial Championships.

Bernal’s parents, Flor Gómez and Germán Bernal, confused their pregnancy with Egan for a medical condition in the first eight months. One month before she was taken to the labor ward , Flor Gomez suffered from constant stomach pain, dizziness, and vomiting, which forced them to speak to their doctor. He confirmed the pregnancy.

3. François Faber

Born: 1887 Nationality: Luxembourgian Age When He Won the Trophy: 22 years and 187 days Current Age: Deceased

Born in 1887, François Faber was the first Luxembourgian racing cyclist to compete in the coveted Tour de France. He holds a remarkable record of winning five consecutive Tour de France stages.

Faber professionally cycle-raced for eight years, and achieved a record of 27 race wins. Before winning the 1909 tour de France, Faber had participated in the 1906 competition , but didn’t finish. He also participated in the 1908 competition, where he came in second, winning four stages.

Despite the bad 1909 weather coupled with deeply rutted and impassable stretches, Faber led the Tour de France that year for 200 kilometers before crossing the finish line.

At the onset of the First World War, Faber joined the French Foreign Legion. He received word from his wife that she had given birth to a daughter on May 9, 1915, the first day of the Battle of Artois at Carency near Arras. According to one story, he jumped out of the trench while cheering and was shot by a German bullet. 

2. Tadej Pogacar

Born: 1998 Nationality: Slovenian Age When He Won the Trophy: 21years and 365 days Current Age: 23

Tadej Pogačar is the youngest Tour de France winner currently alive. Pogačar, who was born in 1998, has won two Tours de France, two one-day Monuments (Giro di Lombardia and Liège–Bastogne–Liège), and an Olympic bronze medal in Tokyo.

He is the youngest Slovenian professional racing cyclist to win Grand Tour 3 rd stage at the UCI World Tour Race. In addition, Pogača is the youngest cyclist from Slovenia to win Tour de France , aged 21 years and 365 days. He won the trophy a day before he celebrated his 23 rd birthday. Pogačar is the first-ever professional cyclist to break the UCI World Ranking barrier of 6,000 points.

Tadej Pogačar’s love for professional cycling started at a very young age. He started watching Tour de France in 2009, aged ten years . He was an avid follower of Andy Schleck and Alberto Contador, and his love for the sport and admiration for these pros motivated him to want to participate in the Tour de France.

1. Henri Cornet

Born: 1884 Nationality: French Age When He Won the Trophy: 19 years and 352 days Current Age: Deceased

Henri Cornet is the youngest Tour de France winner of all time .

Cornet’s Tour de France win was associated with great controversy because of the many cheating allegations proposed against several other lead cyclists in the race. Although Cornet reached the finish line in fifth position and with two flat tires, he was declared the winner due to the unprofessional conduct of the other competitors.

Today, there are cycling trophies named after the famous  Henri Cornet, including a one-day Paris Roubaix and one individual stage trophy .

Henri Cornet retired from  active professional cycling in 1912  after finishing 28th in the competition. He had complained of several health issues before that time, and finally decided it was time to give up the sport on a professional level.

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The Tour de France is the pinnacle when it comes to cycling competitions. It is one of the most watched sporting events in the world and showcases some of the fittest athletes on the planet. 

The pure athleticism that is on display during this 21-day, 2,200-mile race is inspiring and enlivening, and these cyclists seem somewhat superhuman. 

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You might be asking yourself, “So how fast are they even going?” Or, “How do I compare to these athletes?” 

Luckily for you, with today’s technology, various metrics can be tracked during these cycling competitions, so everyone can compare their statistics to those of the pros. 

As with any metric, the speeds at which the Tour de France pros cycle will vary, but there are averages that have been tracked for decades now. 

Here are a few of the average speeds for the professional cyclists that race in the Tour de France:

Average Speed On Flat Ground: 25-28 MPH

The average speed for professional cyclists while traversing on flat terrain is 25-28 mph. 

The average amateur cyclist travels about 17-18 mph while on flat ground. 

For many pro athletes racing in the Tour de France, being able to maintain a fast speed on flat terrain allows them to simply stay competitive with the other athletes. It is in the climbing portions of the Tour de France that the best gain separation from the peloton. 

Average Cobblestone Speed: 22-24 MPH

In every Tour de France, there is at least one section of cobblestone the cyclists must ride through -- sometimes, though, this is replaced with a stretch of gravel pavement. 

The small grooves in the road and uneven terrain can be difficult to tread, but these athletes still average an impressive 22-24 mph.

Average Speed Climbing: 12.8 MPH

In the 2019 Tour de France, the athletes averaged 12.8 mph while trudging through the infamous climbs of the race. These athletes are literally cycling up and through the Pyrenees and Alps during this phase of the Tour de France, making for some of the most memorable moments of the Tour.

Fastest Recorded Speed: 63.1 MPH

The fastest recorded speed of the Tour de France came from German Nils Politt while descending Col de Vars during Stage 18 of the race. This was the second of four climbs in the stage, and Politt was the first rider in history to break the 100 km/h barrier by traveling at a speed of 101.5 km/h on this descent. 

Jonas Vingegaard Tour de France 2022 | Average Speed: 26.11 MPH

Jonas Vingegaard won his first Tour de France in 2022, his second time participating in the tour. 

He spent the majority of the race trading leads back and forth with fan-favorite, Tadej Podacar.

Vangegaard pushed through Stage 19 and crossed the finish line 2 minutes, 43 seconds ahead of Podačar. 

After a total of 79 hours, 33 minutes, 20 seconds on the bike, Jonas Vangegaard became the first Danish Tour de France champion since 1996.

Tadej Pogačar Tour de France 2021 | Average Speed: 25.5 MPH

Tadej Podačar was only 22 years old when he earned his second consecutive win at the Tour de France. 

Podačar made the victory look easy when he also earned a polka-dot jersey for top climber and white jersey for best young cyclist. 

His quick rise to first place had people consider him one of the most exceptional young cyclists the Tour de France had seen in years. He finished the race in 82 hours, 56 minutes, 36 seconds. 

Tadej Pogačar Tour de France 2020 | Average Speed: 24.77 MPH

Tadej Podačar for UAE Team Emirates shocked fans at his 2020 Tour de France debut. 

At 21 years old, he managed to break all expectations and snatch a victory from Primoz Roglic, who was expected to cruise to a first-place finish. 

In the final stage of the tour, Podačar sped through a 57-second deficit and earned his first yellow jersey, becoming the youngest Tour de France Winner in 111 years. 

Egan Bernal Tour de France 2019 | Average Speed: 25.2 MPH

The 2019 Tour de France winner, Egan Bernal of Colombia, averaged 25.2 mph. 

He is the first Latin American to win the Tour de France. 

At age 22, he also was the youngest Tour de France winner in modern racing history. He finished the 2,091.4 mile race in exactly 82 hours, 57 minutes.

While not every cyclist has aspirations of racing in the Tour de France, having these metrics is a fun way for everyday cyclists to compare themselves to the superhuman riders who conquer the most famous cycling race in the world.

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FAQs of the Tour de France: How lean? How much power? How do they pee mid-stage? All that and more explained

Ever wondered why riders have such veiny legs? Do riders share rooms? How does a 60km ride count as a rest day? We take a look at the burning questions and those you never thought to ask

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The 2024 edition of the Tour de France is not far away - and if you’ve watched previous editions, there’s probably quite a fair few points that might have piqued your curiosity. That is to be fully expected - a lot is left going on behind the scenes that the cameras aren’t capturing.

Google's autocorrect can provide us with a wealth of information around the general public's deepest thoughts about the pros. For instance, it seems there are enough people desperately searching for ‘how do cyclists pee whilst racing the Tour de France?’ that the search engine is serving up this suggestion for everyone. 

Naturally, we couldn’t leave them hanging, and our answer to how exactly cyclists do pee during top level races can be found here. There’s an almost dizzying array of other questions, too, which we'll get fully stuck into here.

We will take a look at Tour de France performance trends and, continuing past the finish line, we’ll also reveal what the riders get up to in their team buses and talk more about how the pros deal with the hotel-to-hotel life that makes up the three weeks of a Grand Tour.

Why are Tour de France cyclist’s legs so veiny?

We’ve all got veins in our legs quite near to the skin surface, but they are hidden by a layer of fat just under the skin. 

Tour de France cyclist's legs appear to be uber-veiny for two main reasons: firstly, they have much less body fat than ‘ordinary’ people, and secondly, their veins and arteries have adapted to carry more blood around their bodies. The cardiovascular adaptations are numerous, but a large increase in vein and artery diameter is one of them. You can read more about the science behind why Tour de France rider’s legs are so veiny here.

A post shared by Tomasz Marczyński 🅻🅾🅲🅾 (@tmarczynski) A photo posted by on

What do Tour de France riders do on their rest days?

They ride, and not just a little amble around the streets. Most will be on their bikes for two hours and some even more. 

In the early days of Team Sky, Russell Downing found out why after the first rest day of his Grand Tour debut in the 2011 Giro d’Italia: “It was a hard race, the weather was bad and by the first rest day I was really tired. The others asked if I was going with them, but it was cold and raining and I said I’d go on the turbo in the hotel basement instead. I did that for about 45 minutes, just very easy, then went back upstairs to lie down. Next day I was nailed for the whole stage, just hanging on. I was okay the day after, but I’d learnt my lesson and rode with the boys on the next rest day. If you don’t ride reasonably hard on the rest day , your body thinks you’ve stopped and switches off ready for deep recovery. You’ve got to keep it firing for the whole three weeks.” 

What is a soigneur in cycling and what are their duties during the Tour de France?

Soigneur is the French word for ‘carer’, and basically soigneurs care for riders. They prepare them for each stage, looking after them at the finish and back the hotel, with massage and rehab therapies. And they care in other ways too. 

Dirk Nachtergaele, a Belgian pro team soigneur for over 40 years says: “A soigneur is also like a priest. We are the one who riders can confide in, confident that anything they tell us goes no further. They can complain about another rider, the sports director even; they can talk about problems at home – anything. They know we will not tell anyone what they said. That role as confidante is as necessary in a team as being a skilled therapist.”   

How light and lean are the Tour de France climbers?

Double Tour de France stage winner, and now retired Irish pro rider Dan Martin was a climbing specialist. His racing weight was 62kg, which is light for his 5ft 9in height, but some shorter climbers weigh under 60kg. However, being super-light is no longer the preserve of the pure climbing specialists. Defending Tour champion Pogacar is the same height as Martin and only slightly heavier at around 66kg, while 2019 winner Egan Bernal , also 5ft 9in, is a true featherweight at just 60kg. 

The riders mentioned start the Tour de France with body fat percentages well below 10 per cent, but nutritionists are careful not to allow ‘cutting’ to go too far. 

In fact, it can be better to offload a little muscle, as Dr Rob Child, a performance biochemist who worked with several World Tour teams, explains: “It’s sometimes worth losing a bit of muscle to reduce weight because very low body fat has health implications. Tour de France performance is governed by the cardiovascular system, not by the maximum force applied to the pedals. Pro riders don’t need huge amounts of muscle to pedal at 400 watts for 20 or 30 minutes, and that’s often the key to performing well overall in the Tour. They need a highly developed cardiovascular system, not big muscles.” 

Why do Tour de France riders drink Coca-Cola?

Most team nutritionists would rather the riders didn’t drink coca cola, and some teams even forbid it.

That said, there’s also always one small can of coke in the musettes Trek-Segafredo gives its riders. Drinking a regular fizzy drink such as a cold can of coke after a stage is good for morale – and preserving positivity in a brutal three-week race is vital.

Of course, the most important nutritional consideration for riders is getting enough calories to meet the extreme demands of the race. If you’re wondering how they achieve that, here we look into what exactly goes into fuelling the riders of the Tour de France .

What do Tour de France riders do to recover between stages?

The standard of hotels used by the Tour has improved a lot in recent years, so that helps with sleep and recovery . Even so, teams provide further ‘home comforts’ by carrying all their own bedding, including mattresses and pillows. They also have their own washing machines in the team buses and equipment trucks. Everything is done to promote good sleeping habits and hygiene. 

Riders generally do room-share, partly through tradition but also because it’s good to have company. Pairings are decided diplomatically, though.

Why and how do riders warm up before each stage?

The ‘why’ is explained by double Tour stage winner Steve Cummings: “There are two races in every stage: the first is to get a breakaway established, and the second is to win the stage. If I saw a stage that suited me, one where a break might stay away and give me a chance to win, I’d focus on the first hour to 90 minutes, nothing else. Typically it was attack after attack right from the start, then a huge effort to get the break established. You had to be fully warmed up for that.” 

As to the ‘how’, a Tour warm-up is usually done on a turbo trainer, allowing the whole team to warm-up in one compact space, everyone controlling their effort. Ineos-Grenadiers’s deputy team principal Rod Ellingworth says: “The idea is to prepare the rider’s energy systems for a fast start. They ride steady but progressively harder for at least 20 minutes, then do five minutes of capacity work to open everything up. After that they pedal easily and try to stay loose.”

How much do riders have to eat to meet energy demands?

Riders can burn twice or even three times their usual calorie requirement during a hard day at the Tour. Nigel Mitchell, a nutritional consultant who worked extensively with WorldTour cycling teams, says: “At a Grand Tour, riders can burn more than 5,000kcal on a single stage, depending on the terrain, and that means consuming a huge amount, both off the bike at meal times and on it during the race, in the form of energy drinks, bars and gels.” To put 5,000kcal into perspective, it is roughly equivalent to four large McDonald’s BigMac meals. 

What do the riders eat after each stage?

 Does each rider have their own bespoke meals? Who does the cooking?  

Three questions, but they are related and so are the answers, which come from a former Tour de France rider, UAE Team Emirates former sports director and current race analyst Allan Peiper. The man who oversaw Tadej Pogačar’s first Tour de France win in 2020 told us: “Each rider has a bespoke meal plan based on any needs flagged up by team doctors and physiologists, and on any personal physiological quirks such as intolerances or allergies. The medics talk with nutritionists, and the nutritionists tailor meals to meet specific needs. Each team also has its own chef who works with the nutritionist to prepare tailor-made meals.” 

How heavy are the heaviest riders in the race, and how do they get over the mountains inside the time cut?

There are very few riders of over 80kg in the Tour de France nowadays. The limiter when climbing mountains is power-to-weight ratio, and if a rider is too bulky they cannot overcome the disadvantage, no matter how mighty their power output. The heaviest Tour de France rider since 2000 was the Swede Magnus Backstedt, who says: “I had to be the lightest I could be for the Tour, which was around 90kg, and as fit as I could be. But at my weight, every hill is steep, and the mountains were a real challenge. On mountain stages, I’d hang on to the peloton for as long as possible, then look for a good grupetto – that’s what we call the groups of non-climbers who ride together to get inside the time limits. Once in a grupetto with experienced riders, it was just a case of digging deep, sometimes very deep, and hanging on.” 

Grit and stubbornness get heavier riders up the mountains, but they have an advantage to deploy on the other side, going down. Tour stage winner Sean Yates was a tall, well-built rider, and he says: “You have to get good at descending if you are bigger. You can’t regain all the time you lost going up, but you can get some of it back by really going for it on the descents.”

What’s the relationship between rider age and Tour de France performance?

It used to be that riders developed into Tour contenders gradually over many years. Those youngsters who did take part would be expected to help the team and gain experience, and possibly even drop out after the first week. That’s all changed. Tadej Pogačar was just 21 when he first won in 2020, and Egan Bernal was 22 when he won in 2019. Pogačar’s coach Inigo San Millan has this to say about his rider’s prodigious ability: “He has extraordinary physiological characteristics, and the correct mental attributes, so he was already good enough to win at 21.” 

Until Bernal’s win four years ago, it was thought that riders reached their peak in terms of physiology, psychology and skill at around 26 or 27. According to Allan Peiper: “This may still be true, we just don’t know what the young winners we have now will be like when they are 27 or 28. Will they still be winning, or will the next generation have surpassed them?” At the other end of the scale, the oldest Tour winner of modern times was Cadel Evans in 2011, at the age of 34.  

What do the riders’ musettes contain?

Nothing very surprising, just a re-supply of the gels, drinks and energy bars. Musettes were more interesting in times gone by, when they contained cakes and tarts for energy, small ham and cheese baguettes for protein, and all manner of delights. The food was individually wrapped and packed by the soigneurs. The first female soigneur Shelley Verses, who worked for US team 7-Eleven in the 1980s, used to wrap her riders’ food in pages from Playboy magazine. “It was good for their morale,” she commented. 

Do Tour de France riders drink alcohol during the three weeks?

Yes, but not much. Stage wins might be celebrated with a glass of champagne, and sometimes a small glass of red wine is taken with the evening meal, but that’s as far as it goes. Teams have tried total bans on alcohol, but most allow small amounts to protect morale. 

All rather sensible – not like Tour riders from previous eras. In the early days of the race, riders drank wine and beer during stages because it was less of a threat to health than the contents of some of the primitive water supplies. Right up to the 1960s, some riders enjoyed a mid-Tour tipple or two. One of the most notorious stories is about the 1964 Andorran rest day when race leader Jacques Anquetil went to a party and indulged to such an extent he was hungover the next day and almost lost the race. 

How do Tour de France riders stay hydrated through sweltering long stages?

Nigel Mitchell tells us: “I get riders to start drinking as soon as they wake. I mix water with a little fruit juice in a big bottle, because that makes it more interesting than plain water, and I ask them to finish it before breakfast. They drink fruit juice with breakfast for the electrolytes, and another bottle of diluted fruit juice travelling to the stage start.

“During the stage, they drink from two bottles on the bike, one plain water and one energy drink, and they keep getting fresh bottles from the team car or support motorbikes. They get more fluid in a protein shake after the stage, and an electrolyte drink if it’s been hot. I also provide rice cakes, which contain quite a lot of moisture from the water absorbed by the rice during cooking. 

“Even then, we still check on hydration by checking the rider’s weight each morning. If they are well hydrated, they will stay at pretty much the same weight throughout the Tour.” 

What’s the role of the bottle-carrying domestiques in the Tour de France?

The cycling community uses a lot of French words, with domestiques being one of them. Transporting bottles from the team car to team-mates in the peloton is just one of many duties carried out by domestiques. 

This supply chain is overseen by the sports directors, as Allan Peiper explains: “The sports directors have real-time information in the team cars on each rider’s performance metrics. They can tell if anyone is having a bad day, and they won’t ask that rider to drop back to the team car and pick up bottles, because it could just push them further into the red.” 

Each team has several domestiques and their role, although complicated in execution, is straightforward in mission. It’s to put the team’s leader (or leaders) in the best position to challenge for victory.

That could involve riding at the front to control the peloton’s pace, leading riders who’ve punctured back to the action, chasing when a breakaway needs to be brought back, leading out sprinters at the end of stages, setting the pace in the mountains, and many other jobs. They even perform a very unglamorous function in comfort stops.

Find definitions of the French cycling terms you hear during the Tour de France , such as domestiques, over here.

In terms of FTP and watts per kilo, what does it take to be a GC contender at the Tour de France?

In 2020 the power meter supplier to Team UAE Emirates, Stages, released the following information on Tour de France winner Tadej Pogačar’s performance metrics from Stage Nine, a mountainous stage in the Pyrenees: 

Time: 3:58:16 

Average power: 301W (4.5W/kg) 

Normalised power: 351W (5.4W/kg) 

Peak 5min power: 473W (7.2W/kg) 

Peak 20min power: 429W (6.5W/kg) 

To put these figures in context, good amateur racers (i.e. cat two) are capable of five-minute power in the region of 4-5W/kg and 20-minute power of 3.5-4.1W/kg. Even for committed amateurs who train hard, a huge gulf in performance separates them from the likes of Pogačar. 

Do Tour de France riders use dietary supplements. If so, which ones?

They need lots of protein to help recover, so they drink recovery drinks and eat protein bars to augment the protein they get from food. They sometimes consume vitamin and mineral supplements too. Dr Rob Child says: “I try to meet a rider’s needs through well-cooked, nutritious foods, but I always know what their nutritional state is in detail. We take regular blood tests, and I can use supplements to make good any deficiencies.”  

Do riders pee during the Tour de France?

If the race pace isn’t too high, riders can stop by the side of the road, having picked a place where nobody can see – which can be difficult. Peeing on the move is a skill Tour de France pros must have in their toolbox. It’s tricky, as it’s impossible to pedal while peeing, so it’s up to the poor domestique to ride alongside and with a hand on the back to maintain forward momentum. 

And here’s how difficult peeing can be…In 1965 British pro Vin Denson rode the 1965 Bordeaux-Paris, a 365-mile single day race, in support of the race winner Jacques Anquetil. As he approached Paris late in the afternoon, Denson realised he hadn’t peed since the start at 2.30am, and he was bursting. He stopped at the side of the road, but found he couldn’t pee at all, even though his bladder was full. Desperate, he shouted to the stationary team car and his soigneur got out, poured a flask of hot coffee down the front of Denson’s shorts, and Denson recalled: “I went like a fountain – it was glorious!”

This full version of this article was published in the print edition of Cycling Weekly.  Subscribe online  and get the magazine delivered direct to your door every week. 

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Chris has written thousands of articles for magazines, newspapers and websites throughout the world. He’s written 25 books about all aspects of cycling in multiple editions and translations into at least 25

different languages. He’s currently building his own publishing business with Cycling Legends Books, Cycling Legends Events, cyclinglegends.co.uk , and the Cycling Legends Podcast 

American outdoor sporting goods company REI is recalling several of its Co-Op Cycles branded children's bikes due to a fall and injury hazard.

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Tour de France 2024: Yellow jersey guide and predictions - Can Jonas Vingegaard stop Tadej Pogacar doing the double?

Updated 27/06/2024 at 11:49 GMT

Defending champion Jonas Vingegaard and the current Giro d’Italia champion Tadej Pogacar go head-to-head in a bid to become the first to notch a third Tour de France title this July. With Primoz Roglic and Remco Evenepoel also lurking, and Ineos Grenadiers with a wealth of options and experience, fans can expect a thrilling battle for the yellow jersey. Felix Lowe takes a closer look...

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Tadej Pogacar und Jonas Vingegaard bei der Tour de France 2023

Image credit: Getty Images

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Jonas Vingegaard

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Forgotten forces: Egan Bernal, Jack Haig, Richard Carapaz

Tom Pidcock, Egan Bernal, Carlos Rodriguez and Michal Kwiatkowski

The outsiders: Mikel Landa, Matteo Jorgenson, Felix Gall, Tom Pidcock

‘Big result for a big guy!’ - Jorgenson breezes to victory at Dwars door Vlaanderen

The climbers: David Gaudu, Giulio Ciccone, Santiago Buitrago, Guillaume Martin

The golden oldies: geraint thomas, wout poels, romain bardet, jakob fuglsang.

Team Ineos' British rider Geraint Thomas prepares to take the start of the 18th stage of the 107th Giro d'Italia cycling race, 178km between Fiera di Primiero and Padua on May 23, 2024.

The dark horses: Alexey Lutsenko, Derek Gee

Glee for Gee as he sprints to Criterium du Dauphine stage 3 success

Tour de France 2024 rider ratings

Predicted top 10, 'everything from now a bonus' - vingegaard tempers expectations ahead of defending crown.

Yesterday at 21:40

'Bounced back really fast' – Pogacar ‘ready’ for Tour de France after Covid-19 recovery

Yesterday at 19:54

Evenepoel: 'Best rider in the world' Pogacar is the one man who can complete Giro-Tour double

02/06/2024 at 07:44