The Big Tour de France Preview

A bit for the novices and some for the seasoned fans

We are a day from the start of the Tour de France. Below is a quick overview of everything necessary to both watch and understand what you are watching when you do.

STAGES

Each day of the Tour de France is a stage of the race. And each stage is its own individual race that is among the most important races of the year. There are 21 stages over varied terrain, some flat, some hilly and some mountainous. Enough that many different types of riders get a chance to win a stage, or a few stages. The overall is decided by adding up the time of each rider on all the stages put together. Check below for the five most important stages to watch on tv.

COMPETITIONS

General Classification - This is the overall standings. Leader wears the Yellow Jersey.

Points Classification - Each day the stage finish and a sprint point in the middle of the stage bestow points to this competition. It is nominally for sprinters as the point hauls are larger on flat sprinting days than they are in the mountains. Leader wears the Green Jersey.

King of the Mountains - Every climb in the Tour de France is categorized from Category 4 at the easiest to HC (translated to Beyond Category) at the most difficult. There is a point system for crossing climbs first or among the first though this competition has been won by a GC rider more often than not recently. Leader wears the Polka Dot Jersey.

Best Young Rider - Same as General Classification except only available to those age 25 or younger. Leader wears the White Jersey.

RIDERS

Riders make the race after all. Here are 10 you should be keeping an eye for various reasons (team name in parenthesis)

• Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) - 3-time champion and race favorite. Also most likely to be on the attack on big mountain finishes.

• Jonas Vingegaard (Visma | Lease a Bike) - 2-time champion and twice runner up in the last four year. If Pogacar doesn’t win, it is highly likely that Vingegaard does.

• Remco Evenpoel (Soudal-QuickStep) - Olympic Champion and best time trialist in the world. In a race with two time trials, that makes him a threat to be at the top of the standings. Also was on the podium last year

  

  Remco Evenepoel celebrates his Olympic victory in Paris last year

• Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin - Deceunick) - Sprinter who has won nine stages over the last three Tours. He is the favorite in the sprints until shown otherwise.

• Primoz Roglic (Red Bull - Bora - Hansgrohe) - The presumed winner in 2020 until it was snatched in the final time trial by Pogacar. Roglic has won four Vueltas and a Giro but has also crashed out of his last three Tours and this year’s Giro.

• Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull - Bora - Hansgrohe) - The revelation of the recent Dauphine beating Evenepoel for the third spot on the podium. He’s also only 23. The question is if he or Roglic is ultimately the team leader.

• Jonathan Milan (Lidl - Trek) - A giant Italian, he dominated the Giro sprints in 2024 and now arrives to the Tour with the sprints in mind.

• Biniam Girmay (Intermarche - Wanty) - Winner of the Green Jersey as best sprinter last year, Girmay has had a quiet season so far.

• Joao Almeida (UAE Team Emirates) and Matteo Jorgenson (Visma | Lease a Bike) - Both are together for this final spot as both are in the same roles: final teammate for their team leader while also being the backup in case of crash. Notably Vingegaard finishing second overall in 2021 before winning in 2022 was setup with him in this role before Roglic crashed out.

TEAMS

Each team comes with eight riders, each witha different role. Most of the team has the job of blocking wind for their team leaders or being the designated rider who drops back to the team car for water bottles if necessary. I wrote about each team and their goals on Wednesday.

ROUTE

21 stages over 23 days. Every year it changes and this year the first 11 days are largely days where outside of winning a stage, the only things that can happen to a rider are bad. There’s no major climbs to take time and mass crashes at high speed are a possibility especially on the early flat stages. From stage 12 until the end, the race is largely about climbing or transition stages between climbing regions until the return to Paris and the Champs-Elysses for the final stage after a year away because of the Olympics.

WHERE TO WATCH

In the United States, Peacock or a VPN are requirements for most days. NBC will have a few days of coverage, but otherwise every stage from start to finish is on Peacock. For those who do not like the Peacock/US centric coverage (or the constant ads), using a VPN to reach SBS in Australia is the recommended strategy since it is free and the commentary is top notch. Other English language options to VPN to are the TNT Sports/Eurosport feed for most of Europe and then pay for that subscription, or if you pay for FloBikes (holder of some major rights during the season), a VPN to Canada will get you access to the world feed and Anthony McCrossan on commentary.

PICKS

Pogacar in the yellow jersey

GC - It’s tough to see anyone beating Pogacar. Unless Vingegaard’s condition has improved immensely since the Dauphine last month, this is Pogacar’s to lose.

Points - If Jonathan Milan makes it all the way to Paris, he’ll win enough stages to win the green jersey. But this might come down to the final day and sprint on the Champs Elysses.

King of the Mountains - Pogacar. It’s going to the winner on GC.

Best Young Rider - Lipowitz. I think he’s a better climber than Evenepoel and there aren’t quite enough time trial kms for Evenepoel to win this outright.