The Fight to Save Professional Cycling From Itself
There’s a move afoot to fix international bike racing before it’s too late.
The peleton on July 6 during the first stage of the Tour de France.
Photographer: Marco Bertorello/AFP via Getty Images
If you watch professional cycling at all, you probably tune in once a year to the Tour de France. During those three weeks in July, fans can watch the best riders in the world glide along the winding roads of the French countryside, vying for supremacy at the front of a long, sinuous peloton.
But behind this carefully orchestrated European travelogue—won this week by Colombian Egan Bernal—the sport is suffering. In recent years, teams have been folding at an alarming rate, leaving riders and staff scrambling to find jobs. Its financial model has created a world of haves and have-nots.