A Beginner’s Guide to the 2025 Tour de France (Part 2): Cycling Jargon and the First Ten Stages
The world of cycling has its own jargon and colourful expressions. Here’s a quick glossary to help you make sense of it all.
Breakaway specialist: The French term baroudeur is also used. This type of rider often gets into breakaways and can stay ahead of the peloton for long stretches.
Time trial: A shorter race where riders start one by one and aim for the best time on the race course.
Crosswind attack: A tactic that involves a sudden acceleration during strong crosswinds to break up the peloton.
Team director: A team staff member, also known as the directeur sportif, who manages the riders and race tactics, among other things. Teams usually have two, who follow the race in cars behind the peloton.
Breakaway: A small group of riders that escapes off the front of the peloton.
Domestique: A rider whose job is to help his team leader win the race.
Bumping bars: This happens when riders fight for position in the peloton, especially before sprints, climbs, or narrow sections. Since they’re already riding close together, this jostling can put the peloton on edge and increase the risk of big crashes.
Climber: A rider who excels when the road heads into the mountains.
Gruppetto: An Italian term for the group of riders who can’t keep up with the main peloton’s pace, usually on big mountain stages. The French term autobus is also used.
Outside the time limit (OTL): When a rider finishes a stage too far behind the winner’s time. Riders who miss the time cut are eliminated from the race.
Lanterne rouge: The rider who is last in the general classification.
Leader: There is normally one per team, usually the rider with the best chances of placing high in the overall standings.
Lieutenant: One of the support riders, usually a strong climber who isn’t trying to win in the general classification. He plays a critical role in the mountains, setting the pace and blocking the wind while the leader sticks to his wheel.
Categorized climb: A climb that awards points for the King of the Mountains classification. Climbs range from category 4 (easiest) up to category 1 and hors catégorie (beyond category), which are the longest, hardest ascents.
Peloton: The main group of riders in a race.
Lead-out rider: A trusted teammate who guides the sprinter and launches him in the final few hundred metres of a race.
Chasers: A group of riders trying to catch another group up the road (usually the breakaway).
Combativity award: A prize given at each stage to the rider who showed the most grit, launched attacks or stirred up the race.
Puncher: A rider who can produce explosive power on short, steep climbs. Some are also strong sprinters or climbers, depending on their strengths.
Rouleur: A strong all-around rider who excels on flat or rolling terrain, including time trials.
Sitting up: When a rider slows down after a hard effort.
Sprinter: A rider who can reach the highest top-end speed over a few hundred metres.
Wheel sucking: Drafting behind another rider without ever coming to the front.
The opening week of the Tour de France was set up to be a thriller—and it delivered! Team Alpecin-Deceuninck stole the show early, with back-to-back wins from their star sprinter Jasper Philipsen and the powerhouse Mathieu van der Poel. Unfortunately, Philipsen was forced to abandon after Stage 3 due to a hard crash that left him with a broken collarbone. In the end, Tim Merlier (Soudal Quick-Step) crossed the line first after a textbook sprint finish.
Stage 4 of the 2025 Tour promised fireworks and didn’t disappoint. A series of climbs in the final kilometres kept fans on the edge of their seats, and Tadej Pogačar earned the hundredth win of his pro career at just twenty-six years old.
The next day featured a time trial. Unsurprisingly, young Belgian rider Remco Evenepoel dominated the flat thirty-three-kilometre course. With his second place in the time trial, Pogačar took the yellow jersey.
Several breakaway specialists in the peloton had the sixth stage in their sights. With a rolling course profile well suited to a successful breakaway, plenty of riders were eager to make a move. At forty-two kilometres to go, Irishman Ben Healy launched a surprise attack and slipped away from the lead group, who never saw him again. After several failed attempts in 2024, the breakaway specialist finally claimed his first Tour de France stage win.
The teams with GC contenders did a solid job managing the gap between the peloton and the breakaway on stage 7. At the finish line, Pogačar once again raised his arms in victory after an explosive finish atop the Mûr-de-Bretagne.
Two sprint stages followed, with Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek) and Tim Merlier each taking a win. Team Alpecin-Deceuninck made headlines again (though not all of them positive) when van der Poel and teammate Jonas Rickaert launched a two-man breakaway right from the start of stage 9. Despite a brief glimmer of hope for the escapees, the peloton reeled them in and crushed their dreams just 800 metres from the finish line.
Stage 10 marked the peloton’s first real taste of the mountains, with eight categorized climbs through the Massif Central. Team Visma - Lease a Bike’s strategy paid off, with Simon Yates taking the stage win. In the end, Ben Healy slipped on the yellow jersey just in time for the first rest day.
Racing resumes on Wednesday, July 16, with a gently rolling stage around Toulouse that could favour a breakaway again if the top teams choose not to set the pace.
Then the real show begins, with high mountain stages through the Pyrenees first, then the Alps. The battle for the general classification will unfold on legendary mountain passes, such as Hautacam, the Tourmalet, Col de la Loze, and more. Keep an eye on stage 13 too: it’s a 10.9-kilometre time trial that’s all uphill.
