David Stanley
2026 Tour de France Preview
David Stanley is an experienced cycling writer. His work has appeared in Velo, Velo-news.com, Road, Peloton, and the late, lamented Bicycle Guide (my favorite all-time cycling magazine). Here's his Facebook page. He is also a highly regarded voice artist with many audiobooks to his credit, including McGann Publishing's The Story of the Tour de France and Cycling Heroes.
David L. Stanley
David L. Stanley's masterful telling of his bout with skin cancer Melanoma: It Started with a Freckle is available in print, Kindle eBook and audiobook versions, just click on the Amazon link on the right.
David L. Stanley writes:
Beauty is truth, truth beauty, that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
Tadej is Pogačar, Pogačar Tadej, that is all
Ye know in cycling, and all ye need to know.
I am certain Keats was unaware that the Tour de France would take flight 84 years after he wrote those lines about an urn in 1819, yet here we are. We will see a battle for the ages, a battle to the pain, as Westley so aptly says to Prince Humperdinck, yet in the end, it will be the 27 year old Lord Tadej of Pogačar who will stand on the top step with his third consecutive maillot jaune, his fifth in total, as the 2026 Tour de France finishes with the classic Champs-Élysées sprint in Paris, France on July 26th.
Who will stand with him? Of course, Jonas Vingegaard (TVL) will be on the second step. And on the third, it will be Florian Lipowitz (RBH).
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Five Quick Takes:
(These came to me when I was on my bike on the Saturday before Father’s Day.)
1) The Stage 1 Team Time Trial puts Remco in yellow. Of course, that assumes that The Moronic Blazers of the Belgian Cycling Federation don’t enforce the 9 day suspension with which they’ve threatened Remco if he doesn’t participate in their National Championships. And the suspension is mandatory, they say. No appeal. (The Moronic Blazers… sounds like a punk band from 1981.)
2) Visma-LAB needs Wout the man at least as much as Wout the rider. WvA is, of course, an incredible talent, and he will be missed. And yet, it sometimes seems Wout’s best asset is his mental strength, that he is a rider that JV views as a peer and an advisor. Maybe it’d be good if V-LAB asked Wout to be a part of the Tour team for the 3 weeks in a non-riding advisory role?
Wout van Aert winning stage 5 of the 2026 Tour Auvergne-Rhone-Alps. Sirotti photo
3) TEAMS. We all love to do the head-to-head match-up thing, right? But that often doesn’t express the true strength of the team in total. This year, it'll be which team is the better support in total; not which team seems stronger in a head to head comparison. Much like the algae that now inhabits the Lincoln Reflecting pool in Washington, DC, teams are multi-cellular organisms, greater than the sum of their parts.
4) With the brutal summer forecast, it is time to start stages at a realistic and safer time for the riders. I suggest the decent hour of 10:30 am.
5) Moronic Blazer Pt. 2. I'm not sure which absurdity the UCI will come up with, but I am certain it will outdo their MvdP “no shirt, no prize money” penalty.
6 Hot Takes from the Internet.
(These are actual takes I’ve seen bandied about the socials. They’re all lame.)
1) Pogačar is too heavy. He gained weight for the Classics season. Losing weight for the remainder of the season is hard on a cyclist and leaves them too weak to perform at their best. I suspect this is “fitness theory” from the métier days of cycling’s past. These gems include “no bread” because it expands to fill your stomach which precludes the absorption of true nutrition. Equally absurd was the “eat clear soup right after a race and dinner several hours later” because your body is too exhausted to deal with food immediately after a hard effort.
Tadej Pogacar after stage four of the 2026 Tour de Suisse. Sirotti photo
Yes, TP gained a few kilos of muscle mass for the Spring races as was obvious in his delts and back muscles. It looks like those muscles are still in place, and if you watched him detonate the field at will on the mountains of the Tour de Suisse, it might start a new trend: non-skeletal climbers for the biggest of stage races.
2) Pogačar can’t be beaten. Of course he can. To read some fans and pundits, this Tour’s result is already etched into the gold plate of the Tour trophy. Nonsense. JV is an incredible talent, unbeaten this season, and backed by an exceptional team. Same with the two-headed monster of RedBull-Bora-Hansgrohe. Is TP the favorite? Sure. Have 13 different riders defended their Tour titles 21 times in Tour history? Yep. If TP wins, will this 5th victory this be his toughest Tour victory of all? Damned straight Skippy.
3) Too many leaders at UAE. Yes, this is an actual hot take. The idea that Isaac del Toro and his ambition will lie in wait to pounce and try to usurp Tadej’s race leadership is absurd. First, by all accounts, everyone on the team loves and respects Pogačar for his skills, generosity, and genuine realness with the team. Second, not even a rider as skilled as del Toro, in only his first TdF appearance, would have the cojones to upend the hierarchy of a professional squad with a mutiny that he could not possibly win. Now, if TP is injured, that changes everything, but that’s an issue of chain of command, not the moves of a Fletcher Christian.
Isaac del Toro winning stage eight of the 2026 Tour Auvergne-Rhone-Alps. Sirotti photo
4) Combines. Another hypothesis that will be disproved in July; that Red Bull–BORA–hansgrohe, led by Lipowitz and Remco Evenepoel will join forces with Visma-Lease a Bike to take down the UAE Team Emirates XRG squad. In bygone days, you’d see this, more often in a 1 day race; two or three squads working together to try and unseat another team’s star. It doesn’t happen these days. It’s illegal, the money is too huge, the glare of the TV cameras and YouTube race breakdown commentators and the written media – the scrutiny is so close, a conspiracy will not take place. In addition, the team managements are unlikely to take part. The stakes, if caught, are far too great.
5) Paul Seixas. Yes, he is the real deal. Yes, he is French. Yes, he has been blessed by the ghost of Louis XIV as the next Sun King. Yes, for a one week race, he is perhaps near the level of an off-form Jonas Vingegaard. Yes, he is a superb climber and a killing machine in the time trials. Word on the street is that he will lie in wait for Jonas and Tadej to burn each other off and then explode the lead group on a major climb to take the yellow jersey. But he is 19. This is a Grand Tour. He’s still in bandages from his Dauphiné crash. And even with the support of an exceptional squad with Felix Gall and Daan Hoole and Tiesj Benoot and Matthew Riccitello et al, at Decathlon-CMA-CGM, Paul is not ready to take the top step. He may even podium, but the top two steps are already taken. Will he win this race in the next few years? Yes, but the next two years are already spoken for.
6) Dan Bigham & Remco. This might have some credibility. Remco is a phenomenally gifted rider with an exceptional palmares. Yet, in the Tours, he always seems to have un jour sans. That one day of weakness can sink 4 weeks of preparation and 2 weeks of solid racing is both the beauty and cruelty of the Grand Tours. History has shown us that wherever Dan Bigham goes, groundbreaking success follows. Bigham is the Head of Engineering at RedBull-Bora-Hansgrohe. We have no way of knowing what Team Bigham-Remco has planned out for Tour26 except I feel confident that if there is someone other than Jonas or Tadej on the top step, here’s the (slightly) dark horse. I know, earlier I put Lipowitz (also a RBBH) rider on the podium, but here’s the (not-so-secret) secret. Remco is the finest GC threat TT rider in a 3 week event in the world. This year’s TdF features a 19.6 km team time trial in Barcelona and a 26 km individual time trial. On the flattish bits of a TT, no one in cycling history has ever been more aerodynamic and able to generate more power in the aero stance than Remco Evenepoel.
Remco Evenepoel winning the 2026 Amstel Gold Race. Sirotti photo
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Why Not Jonas Vingegaard?
Fair question; why won’t Jonas win? He might. Allow me to backtrack, because I am not a great fool. Let me quote Vizzini: "But it's so simple. All I have to do is divine from what I know of you: are you the sort of man who would put the poison into his own goblet or his enemy's? Now, a clever man would put the poison into his own goblet, because he would know that only a great fool would reach for what he was given. I am not a great fool, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of you. But you must have known I was not a great fool, you would have counted on it, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of me."
Jonas Vingegaard after winning the 2026 Giro d'Italia. Sirotti photo
Got it? No? I am not a great fool. Still no? I’ll try again. Tadej and Jonas are beyond reach this season. They go into the Tour as the winningest riders of the 2026 campaign. Pogačar stands one victory ahead thanks to his three stage wins and overall title at the Tour de Suisse. Yet, it is Jonas who completely and totally demolished the peloton with his Giro d’Italia victory to complete the Trilogy. Let’s review the Honor Roll of which he is now a part.
Jacques Anquetil (France). Felice Gimondi (Italy). Eddy Merckx (Belgium). Bernard Hinault (France). Alberto Contador (Spain). Vincenzo Nibali (Italy). Chris Froome (Great Britain). And now, Jonas Vingegaard (Denmark). That’s a good group of strong men, yes?
I can hear you in Flint from wherever you are. “Well, Tadej coulda won the Vuelta if he wanted!” or “Tadej woulda won this year’s Giro if he raced!” Yeah, that’s not how this works. You show up. You race who is there. You win. You become an immortal. When Tadej wins the Vuelta, he’s also won the Trilogy. And as of this writing, his participation in the Vuelta 26 is still undecided. And let’s be fair, Tadej winning a 5th Tour is far more noteworthy than a first Vuelta win.
Another reason why Jonas will win: there is no better prep for a Grand Tour than winning a Grand Tour 34 days before the start of the next Grand Tour. Sports science has gotten very good at rest and recovery. I’ll venture that Jonas hits the start with his team in Barcelona on July 4th for the team time trial with a peak timed to NASA Mars shot perfection.
JV also has a squad ready to bleed for him: Matteo Jorgenson, Sepp Kuss, Campenaerts, Armirail, Affini. Don’t forget, Kuss has won a Vuelta. No one besides Tadej on UAE has a Grand Tour. Jorgenson has 2 Paris-Nice wins, and 2nd places in Tirreno, Dauphine, and Romandie. Jonas will not be without serious weaponry of his own against UAE.
The odds clearly favor Tadej. As of 22 June, TP is listed as a (-)335 moneyline favorite in the sports books. That’s around a 77% win probability. Sports books, remember, are in the business of getting money in from both sides of a wager. They are not in the business of “predicting the winner.” The general public see Tadej’s 13 wins in 16 starts as clear data that he is the overwhelming favorite. They have forgotten that Jonas, in 2026, is unbeaten. Paris-Nice. Catalunya. Giro. 12 wins overall – the 3 stage races and 9 stages within those races.
Jonas is quiet. Pensive, even. Not as flashy a rider as Tadej. That matters to bettors, I suspect. That drives the odds.
Tadej Pogacar descending in stage one of the 2026 Tour de Suisse. Sirotti photo
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After much further consideration; 1900 words, hours of research and pondering, I’ve changed my mind. I don’t know who will win this Tour26. I still will take Florian Lipowitz in 3rd. Everything I’ve seen about him over the last 2 seasons: he’s steady, he’s always in the front, he doesn’t do dumb stuff, he doesn’t lose big chunks of time – that says, given his quality over three weeks, third place to me.
Florian Lipowitz heads to the start of stage 15 of the 2025 Tour de France. Sirotti photo
As for the final Maillot Jaune, the man who hoists the striking, handcrafted crystal glass trophy that stands 23 inches tall, weighs 12 pounds, the trophy whose silhouette is inspired by the dynamic shape of a cycling peloton, the trophy designed by Peter Olah from Škoda Design and meticulously handcrafted by master artisans at Lasvit, the renowned Bohemian crystal manufacturer in the Czech Republic, yeah, that guy and that trophy?
I don’t know.
What I do know, with about 94% certainty, is that this will be the most intense battle of La Grande Boucle since Greg slayed the Badger in 1986. (minus the rancor; Jonas and Tadej clearly have shared respect and admiration, and neither would lie and stab the other in the back for a win, eh, Bernie?)
Vive le Tour! Vive Le France! See you on Les Champs!
David Stanley, like nearly all of us, has spent his life working and playing outdoors. He got a case of Melanoma as a result. Here's his telling of his beating that disease. And when you go out, please put on sunscreen.