Tour de France 2025 Race Preview Part 2: 2025 teams and the riders to watch

The Tour de France is the biggest race in cycling – no question. In part 1 of the CYCLING247 preview, we looked at the route: the theatre where the drama will unfold. (If you haven’t read that, hit pause and go check it out).

Now it is time to look at the cast – the teams, the riders, and a few educated guesses on how it might all shake out.

2025 Tour de France teams: The big players and the potential disruptors

This year’s race features 23 teams, one more than the traditional 22. Every team dreams of a stage win, a day in a jersey, or even just winning an intermediate sprint or a solid breakaway appearance. That’s part of what makes racing the Tour de France unlike anything else: every prize is contested, every rider is flying, and everyone wants a televised moment.

Tour de France 2024 Evenepoel Vingegaard — [Photo: A.S.O / Charly Lopez]

While the course itself may not be the most brutal on paper (many argue the Vuelta and Giro are often harder), no race matches the Tour de France for intensity. Riders peak for this. There’s no such thing as an easy day.

Broadly, we can group the teams into a few types:

Overall teams: UAE Team Emirates – XRG, Team Visma | Lease a Bike, and Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe are all-in for the yellow jersey. Their rosters are built around that one goal: Paris, in yellow.
Hybrid teams: think EF Education–EasyPost, Soudal Quick-Step, Ineos Grenadiers and Lidi-Trek. These teams have the possibility to be up there in the overall, but they’re also here to hunt stages. (Note. We’re including Soudal Quick-Step in here because, realistically, their team is unlikely to control a GC battle the way UAE or Visma can.)
Sprinter teams: Alpecin-Deceunik and Intermaché-Wanty will be targeting the Green Jersey and all or any of the flatter stages.
Breakaway specialists: The rest – including a handful of French teams and second-division teams that would have needed a wild card selection – will scrap for whatever’s left: breakaway glory, maybe the polka dot jersey, and the chance to light up a stage.

Riders to watch: A Pogačar vs Vingegaard rematch on the books – but who else can contend?

For the overall, it’s the big two: Tadej Pogačar vs Jonas Vingegaard, a rematch of last year’s 1–2.

Could 2025 be another Vingegaard vs Pogačar showdown? [Photo: A.S.O / Charly Lopez]

Remco Evenepoel will be fighting for the final step of the podium, and he’ll be up against a mix of super domestiques from the top teams – think João Almeida, either of the Yates brothers, Matteo Jorgenson – and some less-dominant leaders like Primož Roglič, Enric Mas and Ben O’Connor. Stay tuned for our full GC contenders deep dive for more analysis!

Sprinters

In the sprints, keep an eye on Jasper Philipsen, Biniam Girmay, Jonathan Milan and Dylan Groenewegan. Our money is on Philipsen, but Girmay might surprise – he climbs better than most sprinters and could make it through the tougher stages feeling fresher.

Climbers

For the climbers’ classification, riders like Santiago Buitrago, Ben Healy, and maybe Lenny Martinez will be in the mix. But our feeling? The polka dot jersey will be won by someone who gets in the big breakaways in the final week during the tough mountain stages.

Wildcards

Watch out, too, for wildcard stage-hunters like Mathieu van de Poel and Magnus Cort. Riders who don’t fit into one single box, but will still light things up.

Because if there’s one thing to remember: the Tour de France will always be the Tour de France. Anything can happen.

CYCLING247’s Tour de France 2025 predictions

Fully predicting what will happen over the 3 weeks of the Tour de France requires elite level crystal ball skills, but using our experience here at CYCLING247, we can give you some thoughts and predictions of what we can expect.

Week 1: Crashes, potential crosswinds and unexpected GC battles

The first week is generally the most stressful. Every rider starts on zero, and early wins – stage victories, bonus seconds, breakaways – can mean jerseys and headlines. That pressure leads to nervous, risky racing. And crashes. Lots of them.

Add potential crosswinds (we’re near the coast in Northern France, after all), and we predict that at least one of the wider group of favourites will lose time or crash out of the race. On recent form, a rider like Roglič seems vulnerable as he seems to make some poor decisions when riding in big groups when the pressure is on, the peloton is big, and the racing fast.

Also expect at least one big move from the top three. This era of racing full gas. Gone are the Sky-train years of controlled, robotic racing. Like a red flag to a bull, if Pogačar, Vingegaard or Remco see a chance – a punchy climb, crosswinds, or just a good feeling in their legs – they’ll throw down some watts and go. It’s not even about tactics; they just can’t help themselves.

Week 2: GC falls into place

With the arrival of the mountains, the GC will start to fall into place. With the hardest stages waiting in week three, some GC contenders might sit tight and play it safe, saving legs for what’s to come.

This is, however, where the mountain classification could take shape. In recent years it’s lost a bit of its prestige, but a good battle for polka dots could add some unpredictability to a week where the GC might otherwise stagnate.

Look for French riders in big breaks, especially with the home crowd and national media watching closely.

Week 3: Heavy legs and a hard course will dampen the fireworks

Week three is no joke. You could argue that the organisers have taken a page from the playbook of the Giro with the mega stage 18 Vif to Courchevel. But with fatigue at its peak, this stage’s potential fireworks could be damped. Instead of seeing explosive attacks, it’s more likely riders will just get dropped, one by one.

That said, we’re marking stage 16 to Mont Ventoux as the one not to miss. Hot, exposed and steep (by French high mountain standards), this climb is going to slap. The perfect launchpad for GC attacks. Just please: No running a la Chris Froome, 2016.

So that’s where we’re at: one of the least open Tours in recent years. Without Carapaz (out with an infection) and with a potentially-past-his-best Roglič, we’re down to two key protagonists for the overall, making this feel more like a three-week boxing match than a peloton.