Bike racing is awesome. We think stage 16 of this year’s Tour will be an awesome bike race. As part of our ‘Why you should care about…’ series, La Velocita’s Tom McQuillan explains why you should watch it.
For the Tour de France teams, there's no hiding from Tom McQuillan as he reviews their performance at the Tour de France over the first nine days of racing.
Tom McQuillan tracks the progress of all the Australian riders after the first eight stages at the 2015 Tour de France – in a very Aussie fashion.
A stage win, preferably for the squad’s big star Cancellara. A top 10 finish for Mollema or Zubeldia (or both) would also not go astray.
Alberto Contador is the best Tour de France rider of his generation, and when he’s at his best there isn’t a rider alive who can match him.
The squad is extremely professional in its approach to the sport and its scientific approach to the sport – their approach to it has ushered in changes that have affected the entire sport.
They’re proudly Australian, and have a handy knack for successfully targeting the races they know they can win. They’re a bit less serious during their downtime than a lot of other teams – they released a parody of Call Me Maybe during the 2012 Vuelta
They’re a bit like… The Jamaican bobsledders from Cool Runnings – they’ll be everyone’s sentimental favourite. The main difference is that no one in cycling is making fun of them.
The experienced head on the Movistar team is Alejandro Valverde. The new Spanish road race champion was fourth overall last year, but has promised to devote himself to Quintana’s success this year
Team objective: At least one stage win for Greipel, preferably more. Lotto-Soudal often ride very aggressively and opportunistically, and would love to pick up a stage win from a breakaway or canny late attack
They’re a bit like… The lottery balls on their jerseys. They’re likely to come out of the bunch at random, you’ll need a bit of luck if you want to end up winning and claiming that you have a lucky number won’t really help.
They’re the only Italian-owned team left at the Tour, a stark contrast from the turn of the century when there’d be five or six teams from.
Sprinter Alexander Kristoff (above) has been going from strength to strength since he won the bronze medal in the road race at the London Olympics. He took out Milan-Sanremo and two stage wins at the Tour last year...
They’re a bit like… A Swiss bank. They’re always there, and they’re reliably going about their business, but they mainly work in the background and it’s hard to get a big dividend out of them.
Tom Dumoulin is a strong time trialist, who finished third in the world TT championships last year. He’s the best chance for a Dutch rider to take the first yellow jersey of the Tour in front of their home fans.
Thibaut Pinot was third overall at last year’s Tour and won the white jersey for best young rider along the way. He’ll face stiffer competition for the podium this year...
Voeckler wouldn’t have spent ten days in the yellow jersey in 2011 without the hard work of Pierre Rolland. That year the lanky climber put in a power of work for his team leader, and won the prestigious stage to Alpe d’Huez and the white jersey for his trouble...
Mark Cavendish is one of the greatest sprinters ever, and is one of the few professional cyclists to be widely known by sports fans, especially in the UK. In recent years he’s had his sprinting thunder consistently stolen by Marcel Kittel...
Cofidis are one of the longest-running sponsors of a pro cycling team, stretching back to 1997 and signing names like Toni Rominger, Stuart O’Grady, David Millar and Bradley Wiggins. They were going to sign Lance Armstrong at one point...
Nathan Haas is an Aussie who has been a part of the Slipstream sports setup since 2012, having plied his trade in the Australian National Road Series (NRS) beforehand. After two attempts at the Giro and one at the Vuelta, in 2015 he gets his first crack at the Tour.
They’re a bit like… Pepe Le Pew. They wear mostly black, they’re constantly pursuing something they don’t have much chance of actually getting, and they’re very, very French.
They don’t ride at the WorldTour level as most of the other teams of the Tour de France do - they hold a second-tier UCI ProContinental license instead. This year will be the team’s second outing at the Tour de France, after they competed under the name NetApp-Endura at the 2014 race
It’s unlikely that van Garderen will set the race on fire with a stinging attack – he’s a rider who places highly as a result of his consistency more than anything else.
Nibali is a seriously classy rider, and watching him pull away from other pros on a descent is something to behold. His team were also dominant in this year’s Giro d’Italia (Tour of Italy), winning five stages and finishing second and third overall.
AG2R La Mondiale is a French insurance and savings company. Their website emphasises plans for healthcare and retirees while also explaining their cycling kit – brown and blue are the company colours.
The 2015 Tour de France is over, and all the classification winners were presented with their prizes on the Champs-Élysées.
La Velocita reviews the five big winners from this year’s Tour de France.