6 Biggest Lessons Learned from 2025 Tour de France

Well that’s it, three weeks of racing around France is over and with it some takeaways from the Tour de France

Content
00:00 Intro
00:28 Tadej Pogačar Is Still Untouchable
1:59 The Racing was fast and furious
2:50 Aero Bikes Have Taken Over
4:41Boring GC battle, but the Racing Was Electric
5:44 Oscar Onley Is Britain’s Next Big Thing
6:41 The Tour was Great, but there’s room for improvement
7:59 Overall rating

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The 2025 Tour of France may not go down as the most suspenseful GC battle. Tally Pagata was simply on another level, but it will definitely be remembered for its racing. The most exciting race around Paris since the Olympics and a year when aerodynamics matter more than weight when it comes to bike choice and setup. So, these are my six takeaways from this year’s race. Let me know yours by dropping a comment down below. So, let’s dive in. Taliba is still untouchable. What a rider. Yes, the GC battle between him and Yoni Vinegard wasn’t the most exciting ever with a race pretty much sewn up after the uphill time trial and he was less attacking than in the past too. But this is a more measured a more mature rider than we’ve seen in the past when he would attack every opportunity had to win a stage. And the way he took on the race in the final stage around Paris in the rain on a cobble climb were just astonishing. Everything we expect from Tad. It’s hard to see anybody beating him in the next two to four years. And barring injury, illness, or retirement, it’s hard to see Tade not winning between five and seven tours to France. And he’s quickly earning a place in history as the best cyclist we’ve ever seen. The Eddie Merch comparison gets thrown around a lot and given the the decade between the two riders and how much racing has changed, it’s hard to make a real comparison between them. But in the current generation, it’s hard to see anybody beating Tad. And there has been some criticism in the media of his racing being less flamboyant, less attacking than we’ve seen in the past. And that is certainly true. But at a young age of 26, he’s just 26, remember, he’s now riding in a mature way. Now riding in a way that gets him the time gap and then just defending that time gap to Paris. And when you got four minutes, do you need five or six or 7 minutes? No. The racing was full gas. It was fast and rapid from the start in Leil and the fastest ever France at 42.44 44 km per hour, breaking the previous record in 2022. The way the riders all took on the race, each stage race, like a one-day classic or a criterium, was amazing. It made every day a thrilling spectacle and more than made up for the lack of battle in the GC overall. Quite how the riders are able to recover from such explosive racing and then going to break on the next day is just beyond me. It must be more than cherry juice. But the riding, the racing definitely took its toll on the whole PTON because the ride looked exhausted and empty at the finish in Paris. And I doubt Wow Van Art would have dropped a fresh tally on that cobble climb in Paris. Aero bikes have truly taken over. Those lightweight climbing bikes still in a bag of the truck. Every top GC contender rode full aero setups even on the biggest mountain stages. Aerobikes aren’t quite at a UCI weight limit of 6.8 kilos yet, hovering around 7 kilos for the Caron Y1 RS or the Cell S5 that Talipaga and Yinard respectively are riding, but definitely close enough to offset the small weight penalty to a lightweight climbing bike. And it’s clear given the high speed of racing that the riders understand and appreciate the area benefits more than saving a few hundred grand on a bike. I mean, they’re climbing the mountains at speeds faster than many people manage on a flat, just insane speeds. And that’s why aerodynamic bikes and setups, the skin suits, the helmets, the socks, and the shoes have really taken over and really replaced weight as a main focus in the way a bike is set up for the tour of France. And the Caron Y1 RS, which caught so much flack when it first launched back in December, was really my tally for the entire race. And sure, critics will say the pressure from Caron the ride the bike, but UAE doesn’t strike me as a team that falls the sponsored pressure. And in general, the tech at the tour of France was a fascinating sidebar for us tech geeks. The choice of Arero versus lightweight bikes, the use of deep touching wheels in the mountains, more one by usage than ever before, and wide tires becoming the norm, and still loads of space and room for tech developments and gaining an advantage through optimization of equipment. Where’s it go from here? I have no idea, but I can’t wait to see what happens next year. And see some of my coverage of the tech at this year’s race by watching the video linked above. The GC race may have been predictable, but the racing was electric. While Talia Pagasha asserted control early and never truly looked under threat from Yinard, the daily racing was anything but dull. A full gas attack from kilometer zero. Unpredictable breakaway winds, brutal crosswind battles, and tactical chaos made nearly every stage unmissable. This tour proved that even without a nailbiting GT fight, a grand tour can still be thrilling from start to finish. And that final stage around Paris just wow, what a race that was. Truly nailbiting. I was on the edge of my sofa for the whole stage. So yes, the ASA got the route just about right, ensuring the racing were thrilling and exciting and dramatic from start to finish and left the the boring processions we’ve had in the past. But it would be nice to see a cause engineered in a way that kept the GT battle alive into the final week and preferably the final stage around Paris. Oscar Onley is Britain’s next big thing. The young Scottish rider delivered a breakout performance riding with a GC contenders in the mountains and being able to hang with the Tally and Yonas show even when they attacked each other for the stage glory. He was right there until the end until the very last mountain climb when he popped. To finish fourth and be riding in such company in his first tour of France is incredible and beyond even his wildest dreams. The challenge now though is whether the team can build a roster arise around him to support a podium finish or better next year and also how he handled the weight of expectation and pressure that will surely come. And seeing Oscar only battle with Florian Lipwitz for the third place podium position was exciting and tense and the potential of the two young riders in future editions of the tour is certainly very exciting indeed. Maybe even one of them could challenge Tad in a future race. So, Tour of France was very exciting, but could it be improved? Well, the sprinters aren’t happy, are they? While the race clearly delivers some exciting racing, it’s not all good news. The course and especially new finish around Paris does not favor sprinters at all. And the number of opportunities for sprinters and the fast men of the race is more limited than ever before. It’s clear that ASO is leaning towards stages that are unpredictable and provide breakaways and unexpected GC battles over the typically long double processions that used to precede a sprint finish. And devising a route that takes a GC battle into the final week has to be a goal, but I don’t know how you do that. Any thoughts or suggestions, drop them down below. And also, the jerseys make no sense. Tad won the yellow, but he could have won all the jerseys just about. So the way the points are awarded for the green jersey, the polka dot jersey need revising to open up these individual challenges as races within the race because while the race with yellow might be sewn up in the future editions of the tour of France, the individual race for the polka dot jersey and the green jersey needs to be considered and really altered to make sure those races they battles are as thrilling as a battle for the overall yellow jersey. Overall then, the 2025 Tour of France was an exciting addition of the race. Perhaps not a classic, not the most exciting ever, but definitely a thrilling race. And while the GC battle may not have had the fireworks we were hoping for, Tally Pagata clearly operating on another level. And hopefully we might see some more riders like Oscar Hley and Floren Liowitz and others potentially come up to this level to make the GC battle more exciting in the future. or whether the ASO can keep tweaking the course to keep the yellow jersey battle open into the third and final week of the race. But overall, the race was exciting. It was dramatic. It was edge of seat stuff. And even the transition stages, which are normally boring, were exciting as well with breakaways and just dramatic racing all over the place and super fast, full gas from start to finish. And the new finish around Paris, a copy of the Olympics last year, was a success and it made the final day of the Tour of France perhaps one of the most exciting days of racing this year. Not just in the tour of France, but of the entire year so far. The weather helped, the rain made it tense and exciting, but that finishing circuit and that copper climb and the slippery corners made the racing real edge of the seat stuff. And to see the yellow jersey, to see Talip Picatcha in the race for the finish in Paris was just amazing and really honoring the jersey and showing that he is a true racer. And Talip Picatcha isn’t just riding around France to win the race in the easiest possible way. He’s there to win every opportunity he gets. Even at final stage in Paris when the smart thing to do would be to sit in the bunch and wait for the finish come up to him. He was there taking the race by a scruff’s neck, battling Wanard on that slippery cover climb in the pouring rain and just giving us all something exciting to watch and showing and reminding us all that he is a pure racer in the best possible sense. What a rider, what a race. Let me know your your takeaways and your highlights from this year’s race by dropping a comment down below. And if you see some other tech coverage from this year’s race, then watch the video right up here.