Tour De France Rules You Probably Didn’t Know
The world’s biggest bike race has a comprehensive set of rules – here are some regulations that may not be commonly known
The Tour de France is cyclings most prestigious race, but even so there are probably some rules and regulations governing the running of the event and the conduct of the riders, teams and staff which you probably havent heard of.
From glass containers to race numbers, here are a selection of rules you may not know:
1. Glass containers
Under article 6b of the regulations, carrying using glass containers is strictly prohibited.
2. Waterproofs
Article 5 states that the wearing of leader waterproofs other than those provided by the race organisers is forbidden.
3. TVs in team cars
Teams have to ensure no accredited vehicle belonging to them has a television in front of their vehicle, under article 9.
4. Assault
Competitors who commit assault, utter insults, threaten or wilfully cause delays or demonstrations will be penalised – Article 9.
5. Level crossings
If a group of riders gets split into two as the result of a level crossing closing, the first part of the group will be slowed down or stopped to allow the riders that have been delayed to regain their place in said group – Article 19.
6. Glasses at official proceedings
Official proceedings at the start and finish of races dictates that, out of respect for the public, the wearing of glasses – other than prescription ones – simply isnt allowed.
7. Ties
8. Race numbers
9. Spraying from team car
Tubeless Wheels And Tyres In The Ascendant
Tubeless wheelsets and tyres are gradually taking over in the pro peloton doubtless a relief to the team mechanics, who wont be spending their evenings glueing tubular tyres to rims ahead of the next stage.
Team Bahrain-Merida, for example, has now switched entirely to tubeless and Rovals latest generation two Rapide and Alpinist CLX wheels, used by the three Specialized-sponsored teams, are now tubeless-compatible too, after its previous generation was designed to be run with inner tubes.
Tubeless tyres are generally viewed as rolling faster than either tubulars or clinchers with tubes, so expect to see them much in evidence on Stage One time trial bikes Ineos was running Continental GP5000S TR tyres on the aforementioned Princeton CarbonWorks wheels at the Tour de Suisse, for example.
Trek Segafredo: Trek Emonda Slr Disc
Richie Porte and his Trek-Segafredo teammates have their choice of Treks new Emonda SLR climbing bike or the Madone aero bike outfitted with SRAMs Red eTap AXS wireless electronic group. Tires come from Vittoria, Garmin GPS units track the riders power, and most of the other parts come from Treks Bontrager division. Treks bikes are one of the few available off-the-shelf in almost exactly the same build as the team races.
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Caleb Ewans Ridley Noah Fast Disc 780kg
George Scott / Our Media
Caleb Ewan arrived at the 2022 Tour de France hoping to add to his haul of five stage wins from 2019 and 2020.
But, in a race with few chances for sprinters, the Australian hasnt had Lady Lucky on his side after a series of crashes.
This is Ewans Ridley Noah Fast, a bike first launched with whacky, integrated rim brakes in 2011.
George Scott / Our MediaGeorge Scott / Our Media
Now, more than a decade later, its sporting road disc brakes like every other machine in the pro peloton.
At 5ft 5in tall, Ewan rides an XS bike, which roughly equates to a 52cm frame.
Still, his Noah Fast, with Shimano Dura-Ace Di2, 62mm-deep DT Swiss ARC 1100 wheels and Vittoria Corsa tubeless tyres, is in the same ballpark as the rest of our bikes at 7.80kg.
Tour De France 2022 Tech Trends: Who Won With What
Which bikes, wheels, and components won the most stages on the biggest stage?
Have you caught your breath yet? It felt like an unusually frantic Tour de France this year, with outright favourite Tadej Pogaar in seemingly unbeatable form in the early stages of the race before being dethroned in the high mountains by a dominant team performance by Jumbo-Visma and the eventual winner Jonas Vingegaard.
As always the racing provides the main headlines, but in the background, there are trends, winners and losers aside from the crop of riders. Disc brakes finally put rim brakes to the sword, and tubeless tyres made big in-roads too against their established rivals.
As well as the nerdy tech trends there was the standard menu of new bikes, strange tech, and special edition kit and paint jobs to gawp at as you imagine yourself as part of the peloton for three weeks.
| Stage | |
|---|---|
| Shimano | Disc |
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Alberto Bettiols Cannondale Systemsix Hi
Simon von Bromley / Our Media
You may have already spotted Alberto Bettiols Cannondale SystemSix Hi-Mod on BikeRadar.
With the latest Rapha x Palace design, its a bike we had to take a closer look at.
George Scott / Our Media
With both the SystemSix and lighter SuperSix at his disposal, this is Bettiols bike for fast, flat stages, and thats reflected in the build weve pictured.
Deep tubes, deep wheels and a generous coat of paint add to a complete bike weight of 8.16kg.
George Scott / Our Media
Ag2r La Mondiale: Eddy Merckx Stockeu69
Romain Bardet and his teammates race aboard bikes from new sponsor Eddy Merckx. You can see riders on the Merckx 525named after Eddys unparalleled 525 victoriesand the Stockeu69 , which owes its name to a notable climb along the Liege-Bastogne-Liege route. The use of small-diameter round tubes means the Stockeu69 is designed to be as light as possible with a high stiffness-to-weight ratioin other words, its a climbers bike. Though the team has no official drivetrain sponsor, most of Ag2rs bikes have Shimano bits dressed up with parts from sponsors Rotor , and Ceramic Speeds OSPW pulley system and UFO treated chains. Other sponsors include Vredestein tires Deda Elementi bars, stems, and seatposts Mavic wheels Fizik saddles and Lezyne GPS units.
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All The New Bikes We Expect To See At The Tour De France
A new Canyon Ultimate, Giant Propel, and countless other bikes to break cover in the coming weeks.
Whether the result of two years of covid delayed development or simply an exciting coincidence, 2022 is shaping up to be a fruitful year for new bike launches. Several brands have jumped the Tour de France start gun, making for a busy spring for new bike spotters the world over.
As more and more brands opt to have pro teams or the UCI frame list accidentally intentionally leak new bike news, the appearance, and equally the non-appearance, of new bikes often creates much speculation. Speculation on design merits, speculation on aero properties, good old speculation on how much it will weigh. We love to hypothesise what said bikes will offer if/when their existence is ever confirmed.
Ef Education First: Cannondale Supersix Evo
EF is another team that has a couple of frames to choose from: Cannondales aero SystemSix or the lighter SuperSix EVO . Either way, the team uses Shimano drivetrains Shimano isnt an official partner, so Cannondale is free to use its SiSL2 crankset with Power2Max power meter . Handlebars, stems, and chainrings come from FSA, with Vision providing wheels . Prologo supplies the saddles and bar tape, Garmin GPS units keep track of power, and Vittoria serves up its lovely tires.
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Tour De France: Can Riders Change Bikes During The Stages
The Tour is one of the most important competitions in cycling.
The Tour de France is one of the most demanding competitions in existence. Along the way there are mountain climbs, downhills, time trials, sprints. For all this you can’t use just one bike, the cyclists have a lot of equipment at their disposal.
The cyclist chooses the bike that best suits him/her according to the moment he/she is in and the stage of the competition.
Generally, the TT bike will be faster in most conditions, which shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise given the focus on aerodynamics, both in terms of body position and the bike itself.
But in a stage where there is climbing, where there is also flat terrain and curves, the TT can be a very heavy bike and aerodynamics would not help much.
What Do Jersey Colors Represent
Cyclists from the same team wear the same colored jersey, but a select few wear special jerseys.
A yellow jersey is worn by the races leader. A green jersey is worn by the top sprinter. A white jersey is worn by the most impressive rider, 25 and under. A red and white polka-dot jersey is worn by the best climber.
The current national road champions get to wear their teams jersey that also features their countrys colors, and the reigning World Champion gets to wear their team colors on a jersey with horizontal stripes throughout the race.
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Another Year Of Sky Dominance With Chris Froome
2013 saw the rise of Bradley Wiggins’ trusted lieutenant from 2012: Chris Froome. Froome had threatened to drop Wiggins in the mountains during the 2012 edition, and the more mountainous route for 2013 signified he would be team leader.
Froome won the 2013 Tour de France in a way that would have pleased the purists- He won it on the attack in the mountains whilst also time trialing well. His attacks were electric, and his riding meant that he didn’t need to rely on what appeared to be an at times struggling Sky team.
Tour De France 2013 Winning Bicycle: Pinarello Dogma
Bicycle Frame Nationality: Italian
Groupset: Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 Electronic groupset
Wheels: Mainly Shimano Dura-Ace Carbon Fibre wheelsets.
Alberto Contador Rode his Astana Team Trek bicycle to Tour De France Victory in 2009 to take the first ever victory for Sram.
CyclingFitness
The Year Of Swiss Engineering Genius And Cadel Evans
In 2010 Cadel Evans became the first antipodean to win the Tour De France. The Australian was successful riding two rather unique looking bicycles from the Swiss BMC brand of Andy Rihs.
Evans used two road bicycles
The BMC Team Machine SLR01 was one of the first road racing frames to incorporate Nanolight technologies to further improve the performance characteristics of carbon fibre
Evans’BMC Impec was at the forefront of cutting edge carbon technology. Entirely machine built when traditionally carbon fibre framesets were made in frame moulds. BMC claims that their technology of ‘Load Specific Weave’ creates completely flawless carbon fibre tubes while their ‘Shell Node Concept’ creates a high density bonded shell to hold tubes in place and maintain structural integrity.
Tour De France 2011 Winning Bicycle: BMC Team Machine and BMC Impec
Bicycle Nationality: Swiss
Groupset: Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 Electronic groupset
Wheels: Easton
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Tour De France 2022 Bike Brands
The 2022 Tour de France peloton is made up of 22 teams. The 18 WorldTour squads receive an automatic invitation to compete, while four second-tier Pro Continental teams get a wildcard invitation. Between them, 17 bike brands are represented, with two brands each having three teams lining up on their bikes at this years Tour: Specialized and Canyon.
Theres the usual assortment of prestigious, top-drawer bike brands in the 2022 line-up, although a couple have disappeared, most notably Bianchi, which had its first race win back in 1899 and whose bikes were ridden by Fausto Coppi, Felice Gimondi and Marco Pantani, as well as a whos who of other top-drawer racers.
- BMC
Read on for more details of each teams bikes, wheels and other kit.
Stage : Bob Jungels Ag2r Citroen Bmc Team Machine Slr
Team Jumbo-Visma cycling
Unbelievably, Jonas Vingegaard put almost three minutes into Tadej Pogacar on the Col du Granon aboard his Cervelo R5, setting the race for the yellow jersey alight.
Cervelo unveiled the fourth iteration of its R5 road bike last year. The new frame is said to be 16% lighter than previously with the bike as a whole slightly more aerodynamically efficient and more comfortable, particularly at the front end, Cervelo admitting that the previous model could feel harsh over longer distances.
Vingegaard’s bike is built up with a Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 groupset and Shimano wheels. We think he was using tubular tyres, the team having preferred tubs to tubeless on most stages up until now.
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Bikes Of The Tour De France 2021
Tadej Pogacar’s Colnago V3Rs
Image 2 of 163
Get yellow, wear yellow, ride yellow. The best thing about wearing the Tour’s maillot jaune is the fact you get a special yellow bike to ride to celebrate your superioity.
UAE Team Emirates’s Tadej Pogacar has embraced that with his special Colnago V3Rs bike that he earned after taking yellow following his imperious performance on Stage 8 to Le Grand-Bornand.
Rather than a full sunshine look, the good people at Colnago have decided a subtle approach is best with a yellow rear triangle, top tube, fork and decals complimenting the black frame.
We like it, if we’re honest, especially as the bike is finished with 12-speed Campagnolo Super Record EPS and Campagnolo Bora Ultra WTO wheels, the right choice for this Italian masterpiece.
Geraint Thomas’s Pinarello Dogma F
Image 15 of 163
The Welsh 2018 Tour winner has suffered misfortune at this year’s race having crashed and popped a shoulder on Stage 3. He has battled on but lost significant time as the injuries took their toll, ruling him out of contention for the overall victory.
Still, at least he gets to race the brand new Pinarello Dogma F around France for another two weeks. An update on the Dogma F14, the F is lighter, more aero and benefits from more refined handling.
This is the bike Thomas has been racing throughout the Tour save for the Lightweight wheels that are swapped in for the race’s mountain stages.
Image 96 of 163
Stage : Tadej Pogacar Uae Team Emirates Colnago Prototipo
Pic © Zac Williams/SWpix.com
Two-time Tour de France winner Tadej Pogacar has been riding the Tour de France on a Colnago prototype frame so far just called the Prototipo, although thatll be changed over time rather than the V3Rs.
The Prototipo comes with some aero tube shapes, fully internal cable routing, a slightly sunken bottle cage mount area on the down tube, and a slimmed-down head tube.
Colnago says that this bike will need to be as versatile as possible, suited to the needs of sprinters, rouleurs and climbers alike, and to be at the top in the different phases of a race.
UAE Team Emirates use Campagnolo Super Record EPS groupsets and the wheels are from Campag too.
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Team Total Direct Energie/wilier
The glossy admiral blue Wilier Zero SLR ridden by Total Direct Energie was runner-up in last year’s ranking and slipped a few spots this time around. It’s a fast bike with aero features, but perhaps not everyone will dig the multicolored Ursus wheels. The team couldn’t manage a stage win or a high finish in Paris, but it got a lot of TV time thanks to ‘s solo adventures.
Saying Thank You Feels Inadequate
The value you will receive in meals, lodging, equipment, support wagons, events, organization, world class service provided by world class guides will be more than twice what you will spend and will be hard to match anywhere. I am so grateful to all of you at Trek Travel for the privilege of going on this dream trip with the dream team guides that saying thank you feels inadequate.
Clayton
Minor Classifications And Prizes
The prix de la combativité goes to the rider who most animates the day, usually by trying to break clear of the field. The most combative rider wears a number printed white-on-red instead of black-on-white next day. An award goes to the most aggressive rider throughout the Tour. Already in 1908 a sort of combativity award was offered, when Sports Populaires and L’Education Physique created Le Prix du Courage, 100 francs and a silver gilt medal for “the rider having finished the course, even if unplaced, who is particularly distinguished for the energy he has used.” The modern competition started in 1958. In 1959, a Super Combativity award for the most combative cyclist of the Tour was awarded. It was initially not awarded every year, but since 1981 it has been given annually. Eddy Merckx has the most wins for the overall award.
The team classification is assessed by adding the time of each team’s best three riders each day. The competition does not have its own jersey but since 2006 the leading team has worn numbers printed black-on-yellow. Until 1990, the leading team would wear yellow caps. As of 2012, the riders of the leading team wear yellow helmets. During the era of national teams, France and Belgium won 10 times each. From 1973 up to 1988, there was also a team classification based on points members of the leading team would wear green caps.
What Are Some Of The Terms Used
Grand Départ The first stage of Tour de France.Peloton French for group. Peloton is the main group of cyclists who ride together for coherence.Breakaway A rider or group of riders who have broken away to lead the race.Slipstreaming Riding close behind another rider in order to benefit from almost no air resistance.Bonking Also known as hit the wall. This when a rider has completely run out of energy.Domestique Every team has a leader, and the remaining riders support the leader in whatever way they can in order for them to win stages, accumulate points and hopefully win the tour.Directeur Sportif Each team has a director, known as directeur sportif, that follows riders during the race and gives them instructions, water, helps with mechanical issues and replaces damaged bikes.Flamme Rouge French for red flag this is used to indicate the last kilometer of the race.Lanterne Rouge French for red light this is the last rider in the general classification/the tour. This is not a dishonorable term.Musket Bag A shoulder bag containing food and water that is handed to riders at feeding stations.SAG Wagon A vehicle that follows cyclists and picks them up when they can no longer ride due to injury, fatigue, biking failure, and also carries gear.