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.
Team Sky are, as usual, controlling the Tour de France peloton and exerting complete dominance over the race. However, they’ve at least occasionally made asses out of themselves, like a few days ago when a domestique whipped out his dick on live TV, or today, when another forgot to to turn and rode straight into…
Professional cyclists often have to confront the reality of needing to pee or crap during a race, and so it’s not uncommon for a rider to whip it out and whiz all over the road while on his bike. It is far less common for a rider to be caught doing that on live TV.
When Tour de France organizers set up a course that featured fewer traditional opportunities for set piece racing and fewer direct chances to take time from one’s rivals on mountaintop finishes and time trials, they did so to intentionally stoke aggressive, exciting racing. They never could have dreamed for something…
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Flat stages are usually not the most exciting Tour de France stages, but they have been completely bonkers this year. There was Peter Sagan maybe pushing Mark Cavendish into the barriers and eliminating both riders from contention. Today, Marcel Kittel was awarded his third stage of the Tour, but it’s not clear…
Stage six of the Tour de France is currently taking place, but there was nearly a mishap when a runaway umbrella—or a parasol, if you want to be technical about it since it was a sunny day—flew onto the course. It was blown right through the peloton. Several riders had to swerve to avoid it. Fortunately, it didn’t…
If you took them at their word, Astana’s Tour de France plan was to let Jakob Fuglsang and Fabio Aru serve as co-leaders, helping each other out until someone differentiated himself. Fuglsang just won the Tour’s traditional tune-up race (the Criterium du Dauphine) and Astana had to at least pay lip service to his…
This morning in Vittel, French champion Arnaud Demare won Stage 4 of the Tour de France from a bunch sprint. It’s the first time a French rider has won a bunch sprint at the Tour since 2006, but Demare’s historic victory was overshadowed by a wild crash that took place right behind him, in which world champion Peter…
Jan Bakelants, most famous for winning the first stage of the 2013 Tour de France and wearing the yellow jersey for a spell, is going to this year’s Tour for AG2R La Mondiale, and he wants everyone to know he’s really horny.
For the 104th time in history, a horde of bird-shaped dudes will climb onto their bikes, ride circles around France, and finish in Paris even more bird-shaped than when they started. Yes, the Tour de France starts this weekend in Germany (we’ll get to that) and will track a 3,540-kilometer course south from Düsseldorf…
The 2016 Tour de France ended similarly to the last four Tours: the eventual champion grabbed the yellow jersey early and smashed the field for the rest of the race, with the help of their dominant team. The yellow jersey hasn’t changed hands in the last week of the race since 2011, and—save Vincenzo Nibali’s odd,…
