tissot fantasy tour de france rules

How to Not Finish Last in Tour de France Fantasy

Rule your mini-league, or at least avoid ignominious defeat, with these strategies.

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Don’t be Lee. Sure, he was able to carve nine hours off his sentence by scarfing a bunch of waffles, but it’s far better to just…not finish last.

There are several fantasy games around the Tour, all with different rules, and some of them get a little arcane. We’re focusing on two: the official fantasy Tour from the organizers , and VeloGames’s long-running fantasy competition, simply called VeloGames 2023 for trademark reasons.

How Tour de France Fantasy Works

Both leagues require you pick a certain mix of riders for a balanced team; you can’t go all sprinters, for example.

VeloGames is the simpler of the two: you have a 100-point budget to pick nine riders (which, after the UCI reduced official team sizes to eight, is one more than the teams in the actual race get). Each rider scores points based on his ride on each stage, including finish placing, time in the breakaway (if he joined one), any King of the Mountain (KOM) and intermediate sprint points scored, and overall standings in each of the various jersey competitions.

You also earn points when a teammate of your chosen rider does well. That all sounds complicated, but it’s pretty basic: You pick nine riders you think will find success individually or through their teams, and you’re set with them the whole Tour. There’s no substitutions, even if a rider drops out. If you want to set your team and not check standings daily, this is your league.

The official game from the Tour seems similar on its face: You have a budget (120 stars, which is the currency) to pick eight riders. There are similar points scales for stage finish, KOM, and sprint points, and position in various jersey competitions . You can score points in the combativity classification, but only for the rider awarded each day’s prize; there are no breakaway or teammate points.

The big differences from Velo to the official Tour de France fantasy game:

• You can swap riders midrace, for 50 credits.
• You can designate one rider each stage as your Stage Winner Bonus—all points that rider scores that day are doubled.

That requires you to change your designation each stage. If you want to tinker with your lineup like you do with weekly picks for fantasy football, the ASO game is your huckleberry.

(If you really want to nerd out, ProCyclingStats ’s game has more intricate rules and an arbitrage-like theme to it, where you buy and sell riders as they appreciate or depreciate in value. It’s cool, but complex.)

Broad Advice for Tour de France Fantasy Games

Don’t skimp on your gc guy.

The way both games are designed, the favorites for the overall will cost the most points. That’s because it’s difficult, albeit not impossible, to win your mini-league without picking the overall race winner .

We can’t tell you who that’s going to be, but what we can say is this is the one place where you should spend whatever points you think will get you the best possible choice, a.k.a. the rider you really think is going to win. Don’t try to get cute and budget points picking who you think will finish in second and third place. The math of the games is not kind.

Go reliable and versatile on sprinters

This is one place where consistent finishes can outpoint a winner over time. The cumulative point totals with a guy who’s regularly hitting top-five finishes is higher than someone who wins once or twice and is out of the top 10 on other stages.

Good picks here include Wout van Aert, Jasper Philipsen, Mads Pedersen, Biniam Girmay, and Fabio Jakobsen, Julian Alaphilippe, all of whom are contenders for the green jersey and are capable in both field sprints and trickier finishes with small hills.

Don’t get locked in on rider classifications

Because the games are predicated on balanced rosters, each assigns riders to distinct categories: all-arounder/ general classification , climber, sprinter, etc. But that may not match up with their own goals, or your view of how the race will unfold. Julian Alaphilippe may also listed as a contender (because he’s French), but his fifth-place overall at the 2019 Tour notwithstanding, he’s actually a stage hunter : a climber who can sprint.

As you pick, keep your goals and predictions in mind—if you think a climber’s going to win the overall and he’s not listed in the All Arounder group, pick him anyway, and use an All Arounder pick for different purposes.

Check your lineup against confirmed rosters the night before

With COVID still looming, it’s entirely possible someone will positive-test right out of a start spot. Make sure the guys you’re racing are actually in the race. It’s not official, but the most accurate roster list is on ProCyclingStats .

VeloGames Strategies

Use a “barbell” strategy to boost points around your gc contener.

This strategy leverages VeloGames’s teammate points awards. Option 1: pick a low-cost teammate who won’t score his own points, but could be a goldmine of points based on his team leaders. This is a good strategy to fill out a roster if you don’t have a lot of points left after picking GC riders and sprinters. A good option here would be someone like UAE-Emirates Vegard Staeke Langen, a guy doing the thankless grunt work for high-profile team leaders.

Option 2: Pick a versatile, higher-pointed teammate who can also get his own results. A good option here would be Jumbo’s van Aert, a threat in TTs and sprints. Your best bets are teams able to win multiple stages of different types, like Jumbo and UAE Team Emirates, but only if they fit your GC strategy.

Hedge your sprint pick

Fully a third of this year’s stages are, on paper, likely sprint finishes. And breakaway success on flatter stages of the Tour has been abysmal the past decade. The teams are simply too good at timing the catch. So sprinters are going to play a big role this year. Flat stages favor pure sprinters like Caleb Ewan and Mark Cavendish . But more versatile types, like van Aert, merit a look because they can score points in a variety of scenarios.

The best strategy may be to hedge: pick one higher-cost sprinter of one type, and a lower-point sprinter of another as your wild-card selection. Just remember riders who drop out will still keep all points scored to that stage, but are not eligible for teammate points after that.

Roll the dice on breakaways

Breaks are a fool’s game to try to predict, with few exceptions (hello wild card teams). Your best bet this Tour is to go one of two ways with affordable options: with time-trial style guys who will give it a go on transitional stages (neither flat nor mountainous) and also have a shot in the the TT itself, or climber types who will have their shot in the uphill finishes.

In either case, pick from teams that are at the race to focus on stage wins. TT-style riders who are promising selections are Kasper Asgreen and Victor Campenaerts. Climber-break specialists include Simon Yates and Alexey Lutsenko. Riders like Asgreen, Yates, or Lutsenko are also compelling because their teams have multiple stage-win options, meaning you’ll be better positioned for teammate points.

ASO Tour Fantasy Strategies

Maximize your stage winner bonus with the right roster.

The ASO bonus function is a significant potential point booster. So your team should be tilted toward likely stage winners for various situations. Once you’ve got your GC riders selected, go with versatile breakaway threats, like Alaphilippe. And don’t forget to change your designated rider for different types of stages!

Focus on KOMs

Through a quirk, you get awarded the same points total in fantasy for the two highest categories of climb (HC and Category 1) even though it doesn’t do this in the actual race. And there are 12 Category 1 climbs this year, more than any other category. Many of them will be crossed first by breakaways. So pick a climber you think might target both breaks/stage wins and the KOM competition. A few likely options are Giulio Ciccone, Romain Bardet, and Thibaut Pinot.

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Jeux officiels

Tour de France Fantasy by Tissot

Winter Cycling Blog

Cycling Enthusiast News

How to pick the best Tour de France fantasy team – CyclingTips

July is upon us, and that means the Tour de France is nearly here. It also means the Fantasy Tour de France game is here, and if there’s one thing that makes watching sports even more fun, it’s watching them while you root for guys who compete on a fake team you put together.

I’m here to help you put together the best fake team you can.

You’re probably wondering why you should listen to a real-life cycling journalist when it comes to matters of fantasy sports. You may be surprised to know that before I was covering bike races, I was watching them from afar as a connoisseur of fantasy cycling. On my palmares, you’ll find a global top 10 overall finish in the Velogames Tour de France (RIP), and a few victories in other fantasy cycling competitions.

I haven’t secured a real maillot jaune, but I did win a long-sleeve jersey once as a prize for fantasy cycling. I’m like a fantasy Bauke Mollema—no blasting off the front like Chris Froome, but I’m always there or thereabouts. Lately, I’m starting to focus more on helping others.

In this case, that’s you. Here’s your guide to rocking the 2019 Tour de France Fantasy game.

Bauke Mollema at the Giro d’Italia. Photo: ©kramon

The way the Fantasy Tour de France game works should be relatively familiar to anyone who has played Velogames. If you have, you can skip this section (and you can also shed a tear for the Velogames Tour de France, which was shut down by the ASO when it launched its own fantasy game) and just read the official rules for the full rundown of all the important scoring stuff and the transfer process .

For those who aren’t versed in Velogames, the idea is to select a roster of riders who score fantasy points for you over the course of the race by getting real-life results, like winning stages or wearing jerseys. You have a budget, and riders are assigned a cost, so you must be judicious in how to spend your assets.

Eight roster slots, 120 stars to spend.

In the Fantasy Tour de France game, you have eight roster slots, and your budget comes in the form of “stars.” You have 120 stars. Riders like Geraint Thomas and Peter Sagan cost more stars to put in your team than, say, domestiques on Pro Continental teams.

Crucially, you have the ability to transfer riders in and out during the race a limited number of times. Each transfer costs 50 “credits,” and you start with 400 credits. However, you are apparently able to rack up a few more credits by getting your friends to play — which is pretty lame if you ask me. The way I see it, you shouldn’t need real friends to succeed in this fantasy world.

Riders on your team score points over the ensuing stages based on a scoring rubric. For instance, a stage win is 200 points, a day in yellow is 50. Each day, you appoint a road captain, who scores double points for his stage results that day. On the final stage of the race, the classification-based points earned by any rider are multiplied by five to reward them for their final positions in those rankings.

That’s most of what you need to know, although I would highly recommend reading the rules for the full breakdown of scoring plus some nuances and fine print.

Core Strategy

This is probably what you’re really here for so let’s get to it.

Success in fantasy cycling is all about identifying value — spending less of your budget to earn more points. Familiarizing yourself with the scoring system is a critical starting point.

This particular game awards perhaps fewer points than you’d expect to yellow jersey contenders when it comes to the final standings. With that in mind, you may want to prioritize stage-hunters – sprinters and puncheurs alike – more than you otherwise might. The ability to select a road captain, doubling your stage points, boosts stage winners even more.

That said, you can expect certain familiar faces to do well in the various classifications, so relying on points from the consistent contenders for the various jerseys might be a bit more lower-risk than trying to pick individual stage winners.

My advice? Embrace the balance. The highest scorers will be riders who consistently finish highly on stages,  and also routinely get ahead in a jersey battle. That includes the green and mountains jerseys—they’re worth a fair few points, more than you might expect. If a rider seems like the kind of guy who could win the whacky combination classification at the Vuelta a España, he’s a good choice.

Alejandro Valverde has won the Vuelta combination jersey three times. Keep him in mind.

Once you have a grasp of the points structure, it’s all about picking the riders you think will give you the best return on investment. If you’re not great at predicting stage winners, check the bookmakers’ odds. The bookies’ favorite won’t always win, but looking at the top few names favored for a specific result is a darn good way to confirm you’re on the right track. Out-of-the-blue winners are very, very rare, except on breakaway days.

Using your transfers efficiently is the other key aspect of lineup management. Remember, you have the ability to shuffle your lineup a limited number of times.

Five Big Tips

1. Study the stages well in advance . It helps to know how many sprinters’ stages await before you decide on how many sprinters you want. Ditto for puncheurs, rouleurs, etc. This is a pretty climber-friendly Tour, so keep that in mind. TT-only guys won’t win you many points. As usual, however, the climbing stages mostly come later, so keep that in mind too.

2. Plan your transfers . This is a big one, particularly if you’re used to fantasy cycling games that don’t have transfers. Maybe save a few transfers to account for injuries, but plan to swap riders in ahead of extended stretches of stages with similar profiles. In other words, feel free to start with sprinters and puncheurs in your lineup for the first block of stages. If you followed that last tip, you’ll know that there are plenty of stagehunter-friendly days in the early goings. You can load up on climbers in the middle of the second week when the race hits the mountains.

3. Beware overpriced veterans . I’d love to end up eating my words here because he came so close to that 2016 Giro d’Italia win, but Steven Kruijswijk sure looks expensive considering he costs almost as much at 18 as Peter Sagan at 20. Kruijswijk is a consistent top 10 type but not much of a stage winner; Sagan, for two points more, is a fantasy cycling machine. Even if Kruijswijk wins the Tour, you will have picked him up by then.

Picking with your heart may be the easiest route, but it might not yield the best results. An all-Dutch team could be fun if you’re from the Netherlands, but it probably wouldn’t be the most successful.

4.  Acquaint yourself with the plans of riders’ real-life teams . Simon Yates is a proven Grand Tour rider, but he’s ostensibly a domestique at this race for his brother Adam Yates according to Mitchelton-Scott. Could those plans change? Sure. Will I gamble 19 stars on him when I could spend them elsewhere? No way. Plus, you can always transfer him in later.

5. Find the hidden gems . Low-cost, high-return athletes are the bedrock of a fantasy sports team. Up-and-comers often fit the bill. Kasper Asgreen, making his Tour debut, comes to mind. You’ll need a few, because you won’t have the budget for a team full of  yellow jersey contenders—which is the way it works in real life too. Unless you’re Ineos.

Naming Names

I won’t weigh on all 170-something Tour starters, but I’ll give you at least a handful of other names that stand out to me as good values like Asgreen , or less attractive options like Kruijswijk .

I’ve mentioned Sagan and Valverde , but it’s worth reiterating how valuable I think they’ll be despite their relatively high costs. A typical Sagan performance should put him on par with the winner of the Tour de France in the points department, and the guy is pretty darn consistent, so 20 stars seems like a decent price to pay. Valverde is a bigger risk because of Movistar’s whacky leadership situation, but the potential reward is great—he could very well end up in the GC battle, as well as constantly finishing highly on stages.

Michael Matthews (18 stars) is cheaper than plenty of other big names, and his versatility should translate to plenty of points. Plus, he should be riding with a smile on his face, having secured a two-year extension with Sunweb this week.

Michael Matthews wins stage 2 of the Volta a Catalunya. Photo: Luis Gomez/Cor Vos © 2019

Fabio Aru  is a special case. He only costs 10 stars. As he works his way back to form following surgery, he’s a great candidate for a mid-race transfer. If he looks healthy and fit, bring him aboard for the mountains.

As for riders I’m avoiding,  Mikel Landa  comes to mind. Coming off the Giro, I don’t expect Landa to be terribly fresh, so I’d rather spend those 19 stars on, say, Elia Viviani , who seems very likely to shine in the first few stages. I can always bring in Landa later if he proves me wrong.

Thibaut Pinot  looks very expensive at 20 stars. For the same amount, you can get the guy hunting a record green jersey. Pinot’s inconsistency is not what I want for that cost

Michal Kwiatkowski is another rider I’m not in love with for this specific game. He’s one of cycling’s most versatile riders and can therefore be a fantasy monster under the right circumstances, but for the Tour, he’s a super-domestique that costs a whopping 16 stars. If Bernal, Thomas, and Wout Poels crash out, pick him up. Otherwise, pass.

Hopefully that’s enough to get you started on the road to strong Tour de France Fantasy lineup. I could maybe spend more time telling you which riders I like and which I don’t but I would rather put together my own team.

Fantasy cycling is a great way to keep yourself invested in every single stage of the race. Even if none of your favorite guys are going to do anything on a given day, someone of your fantasy roster might, and that makes it more compelling to watch whether they score points for you or not. The real goal here is to have some fun, so hopefully you’re able to do that even if your picks don’t all turn out.

Of course, it’s even more fun to win, so be sure to get your friends to join you in your league, and then crush them with your fake team.

Who are you picking, and why?

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Tour de France Fantasy by Tissot

Tour de France Fantasy by Tissot

Have you ever dreamed of being the Director Sportif of a professional cycling team? You can now by joining the 2022 Tour de France Fantasy by Tissot .

Join SISU Racing's League, and select eight riders from the complete TDF starting list.

At each stage, you'll gain points depending on your riders' performances during the race and their rankings in different classifications (individual, points, climber).

Select your Stage winner bonus carefully at each stage; his points will be doubled!

Throughout the Tour de France, you'll be able to make changes in your team and adapt the strategy!

In the SISU Racing League, we've increased the budget cap to the maximum available so you can select your dream team without budget constraints!

With the opening stage, a 13km iTT on Copenhagen's flat yet technical streets, 100 bonus points are available if you can guess the best time.

Join the League: click here

Password: SKMRZ

League Code: 30739

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• Thread starter richiesraiders
• Start date Jul 6, 2021
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• Jul 6, 2021

The Tissot Tour de France Fantasy League tells you your ranking, but I can't see the total number of participants. Its all very well to be ranked 4,000th, but how good is that? What is the total number of people in the fantasy league?  

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The Third Annual TBD x Castelli Tour De France Fantasy Challenge

It's all been building to this moment. You've watched every spring and cobbled classic. You've watched the Giro, the Dauphine, and every minor stage race in between. You've spent months following every racer's trajectory. Now it's finally time to cash in on the hours and hours (and hours and hours) of envy-inducing images of pastoral european countrysides, and of suffering through Carlton Kirby's insufferable commentary.

Or Maybe you have no idea what any of that means and you just finished watching 8 hours of unchained.

Whichever kind of fan you are, It's time for Fantasy Tour De France.

Bienvenue to friends, old and new. Whether you've been a long time watcher of the Tour, or just recently watched Tour De France: Unchained and fell in love with the characters and emotions of our sport, the chance at glory in the TBD Tour De France Fantasy league can be yours. Block your calendars off until at least 11:30AM every day between July 1 and 23, the biggest bike race is here.

THE GAME: The Official Fantasy Tour De France game by Tissot.

THE PRIZE: A jersey of your choice from our kit sponsor Castelli.

For those who hate reading rules:

You get 120 credits to build a team by “buying” riders. You can make 8 changes (transfers) during the race. But! If you sell a rider worth 8 credits, you can only buy someone worth 8 credits. That's it. That's the whole game. If you’re looking for something more exciting or complicated, might I recommend watching David Gaudu win the video game version of the Tour De France with his own virtual avatar on Pro Cycling Manager on twitch .

A few quick tips:

You must have a full race roster to score points! Remember to double check your team before the game starts to account for any last minute changes to teams.

Select a road captain every day - they will score double points. This should be someone who could potentially win, or at least come in top 10 on the stage. A stage result gets more points than leading the GC on the day.

Log in to the site now to take the quiz and score points that you can use to make more transfers during the race.

Use your transfers wisely! Don’t start trading on the first or second day because there are always more abandons than you expect. Remember this year’s Giro? Which is a joke I made last year and didn’t have to even update for this post. Yeesh.

The game is open (finalized roster to come soon!), so go ahead and start building the squad of your couch Directeur Sportif dreams. Do you want to bet on a reliable, consistent GC contender to lead your squad, or a dark horse contender? A farmer's son from Belgium,  or a former fish factory worker? Maybe you prefer a tactical rider, a chess player on a bike to a romantic rider, lost in the modern world? Are you the type of DS who plays with their heart, who will sing songs of victory and defeat with their riders, or are you a strategic DS, pouring over VeloViewer for every detail about the route?

Whichever tactic you use to go for the fantasy leader’s jersey, remember, the peloton never stops moving, and if you're in the peloton you're alive.

If the above link doesn’t work (blame the TDF site designer), join the fantasy TDF game , and search leagues for The TBD Castelli Fantasy TDF 2023.

Huge thanks as always to our sponsors Castelli Cycling.

TBD Fantasy Tour de France with Athletic Brewing and Castelli Cycling

Think you can out pick TBD in a Fantasy TDF League? Give it a shot, and win some prizes along the way.

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We are SUPER excited to announce our continuing partnership with Castelli in 2023 and 2024.

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Play Fantasy Tour de France with road.cc!

How is it Tour de France time already? Even as we speak the team mechanics are rolling posh bikes out of the back of lorries in the car parks of nondescript Copenhagen hotels ready for the Grand Départ on Saturday. There's almost a week of flat riding (including a cobbled stage that will no doubt claim one GC rider) until the race hits the Vosges mountains, and then it's a war of attrition for the rest of the three weeks until the race spits out a yellow jersey winner on the Champs Elysées. And if you play our Fantasy Cycling competition you can live every turn of the wheels along the way.

What's Fantasy Cycling?

It's very simple: Pick a team of riders, and if they do well in the race they score points. And the more points they score, the better you do!

Read our Tour de France 2022 race preview

You can play against thousands of other road.cc users, and you can set up private leagues for bragging rights over your friends or work colleagues.

Once you've picked your team and they all turn out to be duffers like ours (above) inevitably will be, you can transfer in the good riders you should have picked in the first place. You only get 45 transfers over the 21 stages though, so pick wisely! If that sounds like too much hard work for you, there's a purist competition where you just pick a team for the whole thing, like you'd have to if you were managing a real team, and take the hits as they come.

It's not just about getting over the line first: riders score points for the different jersey competitions, KOMs, intermediate sprints... even rolling in dead last. So there's lots to think about. What kind of stage it is, who's in form, who's ALWAYS in the break, who's doing well overall, who's very much not... so many decisions to make.

Register now!

You'll need to be a registered user of the site to play, then all you have to do is head over to fantasy.road.cc to join some competitions and pick your team. The Tour de France is open now, and there's competitions going on throughout the season.

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Dave is a founding father of road.cc, having previously worked on Cycling Plus and What Mountain Bike magazines back in the day. He also writes about e-bikes for our sister publication ebiketips. He's won three mountain bike bog snorkelling World Championships, and races at the back of the third cats.

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If I can't have Cav, I'm not playing!!

Also; 'a cobbled stage that will no doubt claim one GC rider'? Let's not curse Geraint before the whole thing's even started.

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How to pick the best Tour de France fantasy team

Tips and tricks for picking a fantasy tour team that will leave your friends in the dust.

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July is upon us, and that means the Tour de France is nearly here. It also means Fantasy Tour de France games are here, and if there’s one thing that makes watching sports even more fun, it’s watching them while you root for guys who compete on a fake team you put together.

I’m here to help you put together the best fake team you can.

You’re probably wondering why you should listen to a real-life cycling journalist when it comes to matters of fantasy sports. You may be surprised to know that before I was covering bike races, I was watching them from afar as a connoisseur of fantasy cycling. On my palmares, you’ll find a global top 10 overall finish in the Velogames Tour de France (RIP), and a few victories in other fantasy cycling competitions.

I haven’t secured a real maillot jaune, but I did win a long-sleeve jersey once as a prize for fantasy cycling. I’m like a fantasy Bauke Mollema—no blasting off the front like Chris Froome, but I’m always there or thereabouts. Lately, I’m starting to focus more on helping others.

In this case, that’s you. Here’s your guide to rocking the 2019 Tour de France Fantasy game.

The way the Fantasy Tour de France game works should be relatively familiar to anyone who has played Velogames. If you have, you can skip this section (and you can also shed a tear for the Velogames Tour de France, which was shut down by the ASO when it launched its own fantasy game) and just read the official rules for the full rundown of all the important scoring stuff and the transfer process .

For those who aren’t versed in Velogames, the idea is to select a roster of riders who score fantasy points for you over the course of the race by getting real-life results, like winning stages or wearing jerseys. You have a budget, and riders are assigned a cost, so you must be judicious in how to spend your assets.

In the Fantasy Tour de France game, you have eight roster slots, and your budget comes in the form of “stars.” You have 120 stars. Riders like Geraint Thomas and Peter Sagan cost more stars to put in your team than, say, domestiques on Pro Continental teams.

Crucially, you have the ability to transfer riders in and out during the race a limited number of times. Each transfer costs 50 “credits,” and you start with 400 credits. However, you are apparently able to rack up a few more credits by getting your friends to play — which is pretty lame if you ask me. The way I see it, you shouldn’t need real friends to succeed in this fantasy world.

Riders on your team score points over the ensuing stages based on a scoring rubric. For instance, a stage win is 200 points, a day in yellow is 50. Each day, you appoint a road captain, who scores double points for his stage results that day. On the final stage of the race, the classification-based points earned by any rider are multiplied by five to reward them for their final positions in those rankings.

That’s most of what you need to know, although I would highly recommend reading the rules for the full breakdown of scoring plus some nuances and fine print.

Core Strategy

This is probably what you’re really here for so let’s get to it.

Success in fantasy cycling is all about identifying value — spending less of your budget to earn more points. Familiarizing yourself with the scoring system is a critical starting point.

This particular game awards perhaps fewer points than you’d expect to yellow jersey contenders when it comes to the final standings. With that in mind, you may want to prioritize stage-hunters – sprinters and puncheurs alike – more than you otherwise might. The ability to select a road captain, doubling your stage points, boosts stage winners even more.

That said, you can expect certain familiar faces to do well in the various classifications, so relying on points from the consistent contenders for the various jerseys might be a bit more lower-risk than trying to pick individual stage winners.

My advice? Embrace the balance. The highest scorers will be riders who consistently finish highly on stages,  and also routinely get ahead in a jersey battle. That includes the green and mountains jerseys—they’re worth a fair few points, more than you might expect. If a rider seems like the kind of guy who could win the whacky combination classification at the Vuelta a España, he’s a good choice.

Alejandro Valverde has won the Vuelta combination jersey three times. Keep him in mind.

Once you have a grasp of the points structure, it’s all about picking the riders you think will give you the best return on investment. If you’re not great at predicting stage winners, check the bookmakers’ odds. The bookies’ favorite won’t always win, but looking at the top few names favored for a specific result is a darn good way to confirm you’re on the right track. Out-of-the-blue winners are very, very rare, except on breakaway days.

Using your transfers efficiently is the other key aspect of lineup management. Remember, you have the ability to shuffle your lineup a limited number of times.

Five Big Tips

1. Study the stages well in advance . It helps to know how many sprinters’ stages await before you decide on how many sprinters you want. Ditto for puncheurs, rouleurs, etc. This is a pretty climber-friendly Tour, so keep that in mind. TT-only guys won’t win you many points. As usual, however, the climbing stages mostly come later, so keep that in mind too.

2. Plan your transfers . This is a big one, particularly if you’re used to fantasy cycling games that don’t have transfers. Maybe save a few transfers to account for injuries, but plan to swap riders in ahead of extended stretches of stages with similar profiles. In other words, feel free to start with sprinters and puncheurs in your lineup for the first block of stages. If you followed that last tip, you’ll know that there are plenty of stagehunter-friendly days in the early goings. You can load up on climbers in the middle of the second week when the race hits the mountains.

3. Beware overpriced veterans . I’d love to end up eating my words here because he came so close to that 2016 Giro d’Italia win, but Steven Kruijswijk sure looks expensive considering he costs almost as much at 18 as Peter Sagan at 20. Kruijswijk is a consistent top 10 type but not much of a stage winner; Sagan, for two points more, is a fantasy cycling machine. Even if Kruijswijk wins the Tour, you will have picked him up by then.

4.  Acquaint yourself with the plans of riders’ real-life teams . Simon Yates is a proven Grand Tour rider, but he’s ostensibly a domestique at this race for his brother Adam Yates according to Mitchelton-Scott. Could those plans change? Sure. Will I gamble 19 stars on him when I could spend them elsewhere? No way. Plus, you can always transfer him in later.

5. Find the hidden gems . Low-cost, high-return athletes are the bedrock of a fantasy sports team. Up-and-comers often fit the bill. Kasper Asgreen, making his Tour debut, comes to mind. You’ll need a few, because you won’t have the budget for a team full of  yellow jersey contenders—which is the way it works in real life too. Unless you’re Ineos.

Naming Names

I won’t weigh on all 170-something Tour starters, but I’ll give you at least a handful of other names that stand out to me as good values like Asgreen , or less attractive options like Kruijswijk .

I’ve mentioned Sagan and Valverde , but it’s worth reiterating how valuable I think they’ll be despite their relatively high costs. A typical Sagan performance should put him on par with the winner of the Tour de France in the points department, and the guy is pretty darn consistent, so 20 stars seems like a decent price to pay. Valverde is a bigger risk because of Movistar’s whacky leadership situation, but the potential reward is great—he could very well end up in the GC battle, as well as constantly finishing highly on stages.

Michael Matthews (18 stars) is cheaper than plenty of other big names, and his versatility should translate to plenty of points. Plus, he should be riding with a smile on his face, having secured a two-year extension with Sunweb this week.

Fabio Aru  is a special case. He only costs 10 stars. As he works his way back to form following surgery, he’s a great candidate for a mid-race transfer. If he looks healthy and fit, bring him aboard for the mountains.

As for riders I’m avoiding,  Mikel Landa  comes to mind. Coming off the Giro, I don’t expect Landa to be terribly fresh, so I’d rather spend those 19 stars on, say, Elia Viviani , who seems very likely to shine in the first few stages. I can always bring in Landa later if he proves me wrong.

Thibaut Pinot  looks very expensive at 20 stars. For the same amount, you can get the guy hunting a record green jersey. Pinot’s inconsistency is not what I want for that cost

Michal Kwiatkowski is another rider I’m not in love with for this specific game. He’s one of cycling’s most versatile riders and can therefore be a fantasy monster under the right circumstances, but for the Tour, he’s a super-domestique that costs a whopping 16 stars. If Bernal, Thomas, and Wout Poels crash out, pick him up. Otherwise, pass.

Hopefully that’s enough to get you started on the road to strong Tour de France Fantasy lineup. I could maybe spend more time telling you which riders I like and which I don’t but I would rather put together my own team.

Fantasy cycling is a great way to keep yourself invested in every single stage of the race. Even if none of your favorite guys are going to do anything on a given day, someone of your fantasy roster might, and that makes it more compelling to watch whether they score points for you or not. The real goal here is to have some fun, so hopefully you’re able to do that even if your picks don’t all turn out.

Of course, it’s even more fun to win, so be sure to get your friends to join you in your league, and then crush them with your fake team.

Who are you picking, and why?

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Tissot and the Tour de France renew their partnership

Tissot is once again celebrating its commitment to cycling by renewing its partnership with the Tour de France, La Vuelta and the great cycling classics organised by A.S.O.  

Official Timekeeper of the world's most prestigious cycling races and a long-standing partner of the UCI for 25 years, Tissot has once again confirmed its passion for the sport by renewing its partnership with the Tour de France, La Vuelta and the great classics organised by Amaury Sport Organisation (A.S.O.). Performance, team spirit and surpassing oneself are the strong values that the Swiss watch brand shares with cycling enthusiasts by offering indispensable and extremely precise solutions for timing, scoring, ranking and statistics, to suit the requirements of organisers, athletes and fans.

In the Tour de France, which this year is taking place from 26 June to 18 July, victory is sometimes decided by a fraction of a second, or a tenth of a centimetre of a wheel on the finish line. Tissot has been developing, mastering and improving the technical tools to calculate the time difference between victory and defeat since 1938, when the brand first became involved in sports timekeeping. It is now one of the key players. When a sprint finish cannot be analysed with the naked eye, the Swiss watch brand plays the role of judge with increasingly sophisticated technological tools.

To guarantee a reliable result for organisers, competitors, spectators and television viewers of the most prestigious cycling races, high-speed cameras capable of taking 10,000 images per second are trained on the finish lines of each stage. Thanks to multiple devices capable of producing the "photo finish", Tissot can provide all the detailed information related to timing, scoring, ranking and statistics in a matter of seconds.

This requires outstanding organisation and total dedication. During the Tour de France, the world's premier cycling race, no less than eight Tissot timekeepers - assisted by almost a dozen additional technicians during the time trials - are on the ground during the 21 stages of the competition. On average, they carry out just over 4,200 photo finish judgements for an estimated 2,600 hours of work, including 280 hours of preparation! Without them, there would be no results and no rankings. They are in the shadows, but thanks to them, the world's most prestigious cycling race retains its reputation. Tissot's involvement is driven by a passion for cycling.

Official Timekeeper for the Tour de France from 1988 to 1991 and again in 2016, the Swiss brand is also the Official Watch of “La Grande Boucle” (or “The Big Loop”, as the Tour de France is also known). A major partner of the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) for 25 years, Official Timekeeper for La Vuelta since 2016, Tissot is without doubt the watch-making king of this sport. In 2020, the Swiss watch brand also welcomed Slovenian cycling champion Primož Roglič to its team of sports ambassadors.

The renewal of the partnership contract between Tissot and Amaury Sport Organisation (A.S.O.) is a sign of the brand's determination to build lasting links with the biggest names in cycling. " Tissot is pleased to announce the extension of its partnership with A.S.O. as Official Timekeeper of the Tour de France and La Vuelta as well as legendary classic races such as Paris-Roubaix, Liège-Bastogne-Liège and La Flèche Wallonne," says Sylvain Dolla, CEO of Tissot . "We have teamed up with A.S.O. for many years, providing extremely precise timing solutions.”

Christian Prudhomme, director of the Tour de France : " I am delighted that we are extending our partnership with the legendary watchmaker from Le Locle . Cycling events are often decided by a few seconds, sometimes even a few thousandths in some finishes. Tissot and A.S.O. share the same vision of cycling and excellence that the Tour de France should represent to highlight the efforts of great champions.”

With the Tour de France, La Vuelta, the Paris-Nice and Critérium du Dauphiné stage races as well as prestigious classic races such as Paris-Roubaix, Liège-Bastogne-Liège (Men and Women), La Flèche Wallonne (Men and Women), A.S.O. is the world's largest cycling operator with 110 days of competition organised each year. Committed to the development of women's sport, A.S.O. will be organising the Tour de France for Women in 2022 with Zwift. This will be a rebirth for this event, which had already been organised between 1984 and 1989 before disappearing. " This women's race is linked to the past, present and future of the Tour de France," says Christian Prudhomme, the current director of the prestigious event. The popularisation of the sport is one of the major axes of A.S.O.'s strategy to actively contribute to the economic development and promotion of cycling worldwide.

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Is this the ultimate Tour de France fantasy team from the last decade?

As 2019 comes to an end, we build a squad of heroes from the last 10 years

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Probably the toughest job for any pro cycling team boss is putting together the perfect selection of talent for the biggest race of the year, the Tour de France.

Squad selection for the Tour is a tightrope walk, as management balance the demands of the sponsors, the compulsion to win, rider injuries, form and personalities, as well as the budget limitations of signing riders you might want to carry you to the top step.

While some team managers hedge their bets, choosing to back a sprinter and a GC hopeful (looking at you Jumbo-Visma), others go all-in for the yellow jersey with either one, two, or even three leaders.

But if we were to throw out all the rules and restrictions, ignore the budget and the personalities, and choose purely on Tour de France talent from the last decade, who would make the list?

Well if we were given free reign, here is what our fantasy eight-rider Tour de France squad would look like.

Thank god we don’t have to manage this lot.

The GC leader – Chris Froome

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While there are a handful of riders you would love to have as general classification leader on your team, there is an obvious choice that stands out above the rest.

Chris Froome is the most successful Tour de France rider of the last decade and arguably among the greatest in cycling history.

With seven three-week titles to his name, including four Tours de France, there is no one from the last 10 years more consistent on the biggest stage, making him the clear choice for leader of the fantasy eight.

Mountain domestique/back up leader – Vincenzo Nibali

The choice for an ultra-domestique and back up general classification leader is between two riders in my view – Alberto Contador and Vincenzo Nibali.

Contador sits level with Froome on seven Grand Tour wins, with two Tours de France, two editions of the Giro d’Italia and three red jerseys from the Vuelta a España.

But Contador’s golden years were before the last decade, when he won both his Tours and one each of the Vuelta and Giro between 2007 and 2009.

His last Grand Tour podium was his victory in the 2015 Giro and he retired before the end of the decade.

Vincenzo Nibali continues to build his already remarkable legacy at 35 years old.

The Italian has may have fewer Grand Tour victories than Froome or Contador, but his ongoing success make him the top pick for my fantasy squad.

All of Nibali’s three-week victories come from the last 10 years – two editions of the Giro, two Vuelta and one Tour.

He is a regular Grand Tour podium finisher, most recently finishing 2 nd in the 2019 Giro, and has added Milan-San Remo and Il Lombardia to his palmarès in recent seasons, which is an added bonus.

Although good luck asking a champion like Nibali to support another rider in a Grand Tour.

Sprinter – Mark Cavendish

Now for choice of sprinter in the fantasy team, again there is a clear favourite.

While arguments could easily be made for the German powerhouses André Greipel or Marcel Kittel, there is one rider who has to be included based on the sheer number of Tour de France stage victories in the last 10 years.

Mark Cavendish may have started his almost-unparrallelled winning streak back in 2008, but more than half of his 30 Tour de France stages have come since the turn of the last decade.

Since 2010, the ‘Manx Missile’ has won 20 Tour stages, while Greipel has won 11 in his career, Kittel 14.

Of course Cavendish hasn’t reached his former heights in recent seasons, but as the second most successful Tour de France stage winner in history, only four behind the legendary Eddy Merckx, not including him would be a crime.

Lead-out rider – Mark Renshaw

Every great sprinter needs a rider and friend they can trust to deliver them at the perfect moment to fight for victory, and there is none better than the legendary Mark Renshaw.

The Australian played a huge role in the success of his long-time friend Cavendish before his retirement this year.

Cavendish  and Renshaw first teamed up in 2009 at Columbia-HTC and have had phenomenal success together, with Renshaw contributing to 19 of the Brit’s 30  Tour de France  stage wins.

Renshaw said one of his fondest memories was finishing second to team-mate Cavendish on the Champs-Élysées on the final day of the 2009 Tour de France.

Time trial specialist – Tony Martin

This was a tough selection between two era-defining TT specialists, but I’ve opted for Tony Martin.

The other choice was the also outstanding Fabian Cancellara.

On paper, Swiss rider Cancellara has more career wins – 86 to Martin’s 66 – and of course has a slew of glorious victories in the Classics, most notably three Tours of Flanders and three Paris-Roubaix.

However, when narrowing down results purely to the last 10 years, for me, Martin has to be the choice for the squad.

All of the German’s four World Championship time trial victories happened after 2010, while Cancellara’s last of four Worlds wins was in 2010.

Martin also has more Tour de France victories from the last decade – five to Cancellara’s three.

However, Cancellara did close out his career with his second career gold medal at the Olympics in 2016, which is a huge result to have as your last ever competitive race.

The clinching factor however is longevity, as Cancellera retired part way through 2016 while Martin will close out the decade still racing at 34, as a faithful road captain and workhorse for Jumbo-Visma.

But I wouldn’t begrudge anyone who swapped Martin for Cancellara.

The breakaway specialist – Tommy Voeckler

Another tough choice here between to stars of the stage escape, but I’ve gone for the legendary Tommy Voeckler.

With 43 career wins to his name, Voeckler was one of the unsung heroes of the cycling world before his retirement in 2017 – the kind of rider who slowly cultivated his palmarès with prestigious wins through experience and opportunism.

With three Tour de France stage victories from the last decade, he is slightly ahead of the other heroic breakaway rider, Thomas De Gendt, who has also built up some phenomenal victories sporadically.

But the clincher for Voeckler is his performance in the 2011 Tour de France, when he led the race for 10 days and came within a handful of stages of winning the yellow jersey in what would have been a huge upset.

Voeckler may have slipped back to fourth with three stages to race, but his exploits live on in history.

All rounder – Peter Sagan

No Tour de France roster is complete without an all-rounder to pick up results when things get unpredictable and Peter Sagan is the ultimate in that mould.

The Slovakian started winning in 2010 and has barely stopped since, taking 14 Tour de France stage wins since his first in 2012.

While Sagan’s versatility him a strong contender for any Tour squad, the factor that guarantees his inclusion in the team is his rockstar status.

Sagan has a reputation as an entertainer, whether it be in the race with his exciting attacking style of racing, or his one-handed wheelies and infamous finish line celebrations, the former three-time world champion is a crowd pleaser, a rider that will definitely keep the sponsors happy while racking up wins along the way.

Road captain – Luke Rowe

Luke Rowe at the 2018 Tour de France (Sunada)

Team Ineos road captain Luke Rowe may have only ridden his first Tour de France in 2015, but the Welshman has built up a reputation as a formidable tactician despite being only 29 years old.

Rowe’s understanding of bike racing has been matched by few others in the professional peloton in the last 10 years, as shown by his control in the 2019 Paris-Nice when he helped split the race and taught rising star Egan Bernal a few things while he did it.

Also a Classics specialist, Rowe is an essential asset when things get tight and technical, successfully steering his team through the Tour de France to victory in the last five editions.

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Alex Ballinger is editor of BikeBiz magazine, the leading publication for the UK cycle industry, and is the former digital news editor for CyclingWeekly.com. After gaining experience in local newsrooms, national newspapers and in digital journalism, Alex found his calling in cycling, first as a reporter, then as news editor responsible for Cycling Weekly's online news output, and now as the editor of BikeBiz. Since pro cycling first captured his heart during the 2010 Tour de France (specifically the Contador-Schleck battle) Alex covered three Tours de France, multiple editions of the Tour of Britain, and the World Championships, while both writing and video presenting for Cycling Weekly. He also specialises in fitness writing, often throwing himself into the deep end to help readers improve their own power numbers.  Away from the desk, Alex can be found racing time trials, riding BMX and mountain bikes, or exploring off-road on his gravel bike. He’s also an avid gamer, and can usually be found buried in an eclectic selection of books.

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