When Jonas Vingegaard took the first yellow jersey of the 2026 Tour de France yesterday, he swore he would cherish every moment in it. But on stage two's uphill finish to Montjuic, as Tadej Pogaar and Isaac Del Toro unleashed a double-fronted charge to the line, prising open a small gap to the maillot jaune as they did so, it was hard to wonder if this was it. Was the Dane's tenure in cycling's most revered garment already at an end?But Vingegaard held the gap to less than a second and, despite the UAE Team Emirates-XRG pair taking a one-two that seemed to delight Pogaar as much as it did his young teammate, the jersey remained the property of Visma-Lease a Bike for another day. With bonus seconds factored in though, Vingegaard's 12 second lead to Pogaar was cut to six.Speaking after the race, Vingegaard reiterated the pledge he made yesterday one made in mind of the apparent epiphany that followed his serious crash at Itzulia Basque Country two years ago."It ended up being a GC stage, a hard stage, and it's not my favourite kind of climb, so to keep the yellow jersey is something that I'm actually happy with," he said. "So, yeah, I get another day in the jersey, and it's something that I can definitely be happy with. "As I said yesterday, I'll enjoy every day, because you never know what happens in life as I said, it's not a given."When asked whether he expected to be able to follow Pogaar more closely, he defended his performance, saying: "I followed him on the climb, and on the last sprint. It's very anaerobic, and that's not my strength, so, to be honest, I can be happy with how it played out."Visma-Lease a Bike sports director Marc Reef echoed those particular remarks, insisting that Pogaar outsprinting Vingegaard was not unexpected."It was just a sprint from the corner, and everybody was on the limit, I think," he said. "It was just a small gap in the sprint. [Vingegaard] is less explosive than the others are, so yeah, there's not much more than that."With Pogaar gathering a six-second time bonus courtesy of his second place, he cut his deficit to the Dane to a scant six a tenuous advantage that was acknowledged by Vingegaard: "It's not a big lead, it's still more or less the same, so I don't think it changes our approach much," he said.Reef expanded on that "approach", saying there was no plan to hang on too tightly to yellow, at least for the moment."It's just getting Jonas through the stages in a good way," he said. "Also, tomorrow it's a finish of 1.5 kilometres where it is also around 7%. I think that is also something where we'll see contenders battle, and we will see if [he keeps it] or not, but that's actually not really the goal. It's just important to stay in contention, and that is something that we did today."

Adam Yates says UAE Team Emirates XRG always knew they had more than one way to win on stage 2 of the 2026 Tour de France, after Tadej Pogacar and Isaac del Toro delivered a dominant one-two finish in Barcelona. Del Toro took the stage victory on Montjuic after launching the final acceleration in...

Prior to the time trial stage of the UAE Tour earlier this year, Ineos's Josh Tarling admitted that, on the whole, hed have quite liked it if Remco Evenepoel had been somewhere else for the day. He said it somewhat tongue in cheek, but still, I liked the honesty.There are unwritten rules of bike racing. Among them is the idea that you, as an athlete, always want to measure yourself against the best. Every day of your racing career, you want that opportunity to stand with the biggest stars, race mano-a-mano, and see your place in the firmament.But I think I speak on behalf of athletes everywhere when I say that there are only so many times you need to measure yourself against the very best before youve learned everything about taking a thrashing that you are ever going to.Eventually your thoughts turn to more parochial matters like the chance to go home waving a medal and give yourself a fighting chance of convincing your nearest and dearest that youre not wasting your time at this cycling thing.I was privileged to spend quite a lot of my career with Sir Bradley Wiggins as my perspective-provider. And it was always an honour to have him crush me under his wheels. But there were also days when I would definitely have preferred it if hed stayed in Tenerife and enjoyed the sunshine and the altitude training. I would not have admitted to this thought, obviously.Occasionally you get your wish. I once won the British Individual Pursuit championships. This unexpected turn of events came about because it was a Commonwealth Games year, which prompted most of the UKs best pursuit riders to skip the championships. And let me tell you, its a lot more fun being self-deprecating about the championship jersey you won because all the countrys best pursuiters from Bradley Wiggins to Steve Cummings (inclusive) werent there, than it is telling people for the fourth year running that fifth place was pretty good considering.I was always a little flattered that my friend Bernard never wanted to race against me. It acknowledged what he wouldnt want to admit directly, which is that in any race that ran without incident, I would beat him.But it was curious to me that any time I went to race at a major event, Bernard was keen that I get beaten by as much as possible. On the one occasion I raced Tony Martin, Bernard had a viewing party, bought popcorn, and had a sweep on how much the reigning World Champion would beat me by. He optimistically picked eight minutes. (It was a 50 km time trial, since you ask.)It wasnt quite that much it was about five. Bernard was still happy-ish. He didnt like that Id won the sweep, but said he could still see the bigger picture.But Bernie, I pointed out, The bigger picture is that by the transitive property of people beating each other, him beating me by five minutes means hed beat you by about ten.Thats all right. I mind the idea of the World Champion beating me by ten minutes a lot less than I mind the idea of being beaten by five by some bloke from the next village who borrowed my hedge clippers and cut through the cable.I suppose the truth of the matter is that even at second hand, what Bernard was doing was the same as any of us do when racing star riders in person getting a simple thrill from a direct handle on how good some of the big riders are.The difference for him being that the novelty of measuring-against-the-best would never have worn off:Its just a shame that Tony Martin is too busy to do that to you every week, he said wistfully.Acts of Cycling StupidityI was at a book festival recently, and signed a book for someone who said, My son is a professional cyclist.I asked who it was. He said, Oh, you wont have heard of him. He was watching the Tour when he was ten and just thought hed like to be a pro cyclist, and asked me if Id pay him to ride his bike. So I agreed to pay him 2 a week.Thats cute, I said. Maybe hell be a real pro one day.I doubt it, he said. Hes 22 now, and Im still paying him 2 a week.Great Inventions of Cycling: Shorts (1886. Then again in 1919 and again in 1946.)In the beginning, bicyclists wore breeches and knee-high leather boots. This was to provide protection from the front wheel of a bone-shaker or penny-farthing, which would pass between their legs like a giant meat slicer.Shorts only appeared after the safety bicycle. Even then, they were only worn by racers gentleman leisure cyclists wore breeches or plus-fours and stockings, lady cyclist wore skirts or (if they tended toward the scandalous) some variety of baggy trousers.This continued until after the First World War, when women (and only women) started to wear shorts. Men stuck to their plus-fours, unless they were racing, in which case they wore black woollen tights that could absorb several times their own weight in water and rubbed most of the skin off a riders knees on any ride longer than a couple of hours.Shorts were in fact prohibited by the racing rules in Britain when the hour was first beaten for a 25-mile time trial, it was in Ireland, a liberal paradise where shorts were permitted. Every time triallist in Great Britain scoffed that anyone could go that fast if they were allowed to wear shorts.After the next war, everyone was finally allowed to wear shorts for racing. These shorts were still made of wool, like cut-off versions of the tights, and were generally very short because if they werent they rucked up around a riders inner thighs and abraded the skin off those instead. Finally, in the 1970s, stretchy synthetic shorts arrived, and everyone breathed a huge sigh of relief and put away their E45 cream. Theyve remained more or less unchanged since.

The Tour de France is often shaped as much by survival as by strength. Across three weeks of racing from the Grand Dpart in Barcelona on 4 July to the final stage in Paris on 26 July, crashes, illness, heat, fatigue and withdrawals can quickly reshape the peloton, from nervous sprint stages and exp...

After Team Visma | Lease a Bike won the opening team time trial and Jonas Vingegaard claimed the first yellow jersey, the Tour de France's first road stage offered an early test for the general classification contenders. The finale in Barcelona featured three ascents of the Cte du Chateau de Montju...

The 2026 Tour de France will take place from the 4th to the 26th of July. Throughout the21 stages, the peloton will be racing through the mountains, sprint stages, cobblestones, individual and team time trials, and even. We take a look at all stages, their official profiles, and preview the days -...