“Physically you’re at your best, you’ve been away preparing for months, and then it all ends. The Tour is a big beast that eats you up and you can’t compare it to anything else” — Tom Steels

Put yourself in the mind of a professional cyclist. It’s been a lifelong ambition to ride the Tour de France, the biggest, grandest, most magnificent bike race of all. You’ve literally dreamt of riding up the famous cols. You’ve imagined fans at the side of the road screaming for you as your front tyre rolls over your name that is chalked onto the road. On your long, solo training rides in preparation for the race, you fantasise that you can smell the barbecues, and hear the never-ending roar of noise from the hundreds of thousands of spectators. For three glorious summer weeks, you’re going to be a hero, a protagonist in one of the globe’s premium sporting events, a spot reserved for only a select few. And who knows, perhaps you’ll win a stage, a classification jersey or maybe the whole thing…

But then on day one of the race, disaster strikes. You crash, injure yourself and exit the race. You were riding the Tour de France, your name still appears in all of the previews and in the sticker books, but now you’re not. You were on the inside but now you’re on the outside, just like everyone else. Six months of training and perfectly-tuned preparation, in the words of Richard Carapaz, goes “down the drain”. “Everything goes to shit,” the Ecuadorian adds.

He’d know. In 2023, on stage one through the winding and undulating streets of the Spanish city of Bilbao, Carapaz crashed with 12km to go, along with Spanish hope Enric Mas. Both failed to start the next day. This is what happens when a rider sacrifices everything to make the Tour – only for the prize to be snatched away from them before they and the race have even got going.

This article was published by Rouleur magazine in June 2026. To read the full article click here.