Velo

From the Basque Country to the Champs-Élysées, every stage of this year’s Tour de France has a story. Get the inside line with the official Tour de France Race Guide from Velo, loaded with stage-by-stage insights for every summit finish, sprint, and can’t-miss moment. Read up on the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, and enjoy plenty of history, culture, and unexpected stories you will only find in the pages of the 122 page Official Tour De France Race Guide from VELO. Allez! Allez! Allez!

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COMMENT

Henri Pélissier: The Tragic Champion

Art in the Basque Country

The Mercantour • A climber’s paradise

Monster Menus • Inside a Tour rider’s gut-busting diet

Return to the Sleeping Giant

Hungry for a third Tour

THE TOUR IS ALWAYS MADE FOR CLIMBERS

MORE OXYGEN FOR 2023 ÉTAPE DU TOUR

“I sometimes WONDER if I really won the TOUR.”

50 YEARS AGO Ocaña hit the heights

WVA & MVDP • When you’ve spent more than half your lives doing battlewith each other on grass, mud and sand in cyclocross races in the depths of winter or on the glistening cobbles of the spring classics, you inevitably share certain values. Rivals since their teenage years, Belgian Wout van Aert and Dutchman Mathieu van der Poel appear to have applied to the road the principles they learned in’cross, their first discipline, in which the hour-long effort is so intense that there’s no time to ease up. On the road, they’re both capable of blowing a race apart 100 kilometers from the finish or successfully winning a bunch sprint. But when summer comes along, these two kings of the classics look a little less like twins.

POGAČAR Hungry for a third Tour • Barely off the podium on the Champs-Élysées last July, after placing second overall, Tadej Pogačar said, “I’m going to come back hungry.” Yes, he already appeared to be sharpening his teeth to feed his voracious appetite for success. Beaten for the first time at the Tour de France, the 24-year-old Slovenian isn’t bitter when he talks about being runner-up to Jonas Vingegaard. That result only fed his competitive instinct. “In my eyes, my last Tour wasn’t a defeat,” said the winner of the 2020 and ’21 editions. “I still won three stages and the best young rider classification [smiles]. You can’t be disappointed with a result like that. I’ve never been driven by anger but rather by a huge feeling of desire. I’m even more motivated by the idea of winning a third Tour. Like every race I enter, I want to win. That’s what keeps me going.”

ALAPHILIPPE: RETURN OF THE FRENCH HERO

PINOT & LE TOUR: A THWARTED LOVE • As one of France’s best hopes of overall victory, Thibaut Pinot has been thrilling Tour de France audiences for the past decade. Now, as the 33-year-old Frenchman prepares to hang up his wheels at the end of 2023, we reflect on his good times—and bad—at Le Tour.

FOCUS ON THE FAVORITES • THE TOUR’S PAST TWO CHAMPIONS, Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogačar, are the clear favorites to win the yellow jersey. But what if the 2023 Tour doesn’t turn out to be a carbon copy of their duel last year? Here is a look at the strengths and weaknesses of the top two favorites along with 10 of their chief competitors.

JERSEYS, AWARDS, BONUSES & THE GRAND MAP

ANALYSIS OF EVERY STAGE BY THIERRY GOUVENOU AND JOHN WILCOCKSON

AG2R CITROËN TEAM [FRANCE]

ALPECIN - DECEUNINCK [BELGIUM]

ARKÉA - SAMSIC [FRANCE]

ASTANA QAZAQSTAN TEAM [KAZAKHSTAN]

BAHRAIN VICTORIOUS [BAHRAIN]

BORA - HANSGROHE [GERMANY]

COFIDIS [FRANCE]

DSM - FIRMENICH [NETHERLANDS]

EF EDUCATION - EASYPOST [UNITED STATES]

GROUPAMA - FDJ...