Less than 100 miles into the 2018 Tour de France, disaster struck American rider Lawson Craddock. TV cameras didn’t capture precisely what happened, but with around 80 kilometers left in Stage 1, Craddock emerged behind the peloton bloodied and bruised after hitting a water bottle and falling during the feed zone. He…
Chris Froome will not win the Tour de France.
French farmers staged a protest during Stage 16 of the Tour de France this morning, reportedly over reduced funding from the European Union. About 29 kilometers into the stage at Carcassonne, in the south of France, they tossed hay bales onto the road and brought the race to a halt for 15 minutes. Police subdued…
Philippe Gilbert was leading the Tour de France breakaway down the descent of the Portet d’Aspet when he played a corner wrong, locked his wheel up, and vaulted headfirst over a little rock ledge. It’s the worst sort of crash, though Gilbert did scrub some speed before eating shit. That may have saved him—he was able…
This weekend’s Tour de France stages were relatively inert, as two Astana riders won from breakaways and the main general classification contenders opted to save their bullets for this week’s ramble through the Pyrenees. Riders have three punishing days in the mountains to look forward to this week, including a 65-km…
Today the Tour de France returned to Alpe d’Huez for the 30th time in race history. Over one million fans packed the slopes of France’s most famous climb to cheer on crowd favorites like Romain Bardet, Tom Dumoulin, and Steven Kruijswijk, but mostly to sing, drink, and wave flags at riders they hate, most notably…
As is custom and as the entire cycling world probably expected, the first meaningful mountain stage of the Tour de France wrapped up this morning with a Team Sky rider in the yellow jersey. However, it was not four-time champion Chris Froome that grabbed a commanding race lead, but rather his right-hand man, Geraint…
The Tour de France peloton was not impressed with Stage 7, which wrapped up this morning with a ho-hum bunch sprint after 231 kilometers of nothing. Peter Sagan said, “It was boring today. We went pretty easy all day and then raced the last 10 kilometers.” Alejandro Valverde added, “It’s too much. A 230-kilometer…
Every one of Tour de France’s race’s three mass-start stages has been shaken up by a late crash. Fernando Gaviria won Stage One from a reduced group, then found himself unable to challenge Peter Sagan for the win the next day after a rider in front of him played a corner wrong and took him out. Stage Two’s crash…
The time has come once again for a few hundred skinny fellows to hop on their bikes and ride unconscionable distances, every day, for three weeks. They’ll yell at each other in various European languages, celebrate famous victories, weep over crushing defeats, crash out in horrifying ways, and generally wring out…
Chris Froome will take the start line when the Tour de France kicks off at Noirmoutier-en-l’Île on Saturday, thus ending the thorniest bureaucratic scuffle cycling has seen in years. The three-time defending champion’s participation in the race has been uncertain for the entire season, but after a dramatic weekend…
It makes sense that Marco Pantani remains Italy’s most beloved cyclist 14 years after his death. Italy is one of cycling’s most vibrant strongholds, and like Brazilian soccer fans, the tifosi demand not just mere victory, but style. Vincenzo Nibali’s snoozer of a 2014 Tour de France win is fine, but his iconic solo…
Lance Armstrong can finally rest easy. Eight years after former teammate Floyd Landis filed a federal False Claims Act lawsuit against Armstrong, one that could have cost the seven-time Tour de France winner up to $97.2 million, Armstrong has reached a $5 million settlement with the federal government. The case has…
Three-time defending Tour de France champion Chris Froome failed a doping test at the Vuelta a España this September and is facing a potential year-long suspension from cycling, as the Guardian first reported today. Froome, the most dominant cyclist of the past decade and the winner of four Tours and one Vuelta,…
Could there have possibly been a better ending for Alberto Contador? Sure.
There hasn’t been genuine last-week intrigue about who would win any Tour de France since 2011, when Cadel Evans took the yellow jersey from Andy Schleck on the penultimate day of the race. Schleck gouged Evans and the rest of the field for minutes on Stage 18's summit finish atop the Col du Galibier, only for Evans…
Phillipe Gilbert has had a resurgent season in 2017, winning a pair of one-day classic this spring. However, he won’t finish the Tour de France. Kiwi climber George Bennett was one of the most pleasant surprises of the race’s jaunt into the Pyrenees, but he too won’t make it to Paris. Star riders Marcel Kittel and…
Following yesterday’s 16th stage of the Tour de France, Bora-Hansgrohe rider Paweł Poljański grammed a photo of his gnarly legs. I put it below the jump because it’s legitimately gross, so consider yourself warned:
Today is a day of many butt cheeks over at the Tour de France:
For the first time in recent memory, Team Sky cracked.
