The Pyrenees, Vosges, and Alps await them — 21 stages through the mountains and fields of La France Profonde en route to Paris for the iconic finish over Montmartre and onto the Champs-Élysées. Every day will be a new opportunity to take the race to the peloton. We're going to rip up the script again and again.

Richard Carapaz is back to his best and ready to soar in the high mountains. The Olympic champion and 2024 polka dot jersey winner is coming off second place at the Tour de Suisse and would love to get another Tour stage win.

Ben Healy had a dream Tour last year with two days in the yellow jersey and his stage 6 victory. Ben is going to race this Tour with the same aggressive verve.

Alex Baudin is on a roll in 2026. Our Frenchman won stage 1 of the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes with a 28-kilometer solo breakaway and defended the yellow jersey until the final stage. He can't wait to show his strength in his home Alps.

Max Walker and Georg Steinhauser will make their Tour debuts this weekend in Barcelona. They are confident and excited to take on the biggest race in the world. Max is a dependable teammate with the power to drive the peloton or a breakaway on all terrain. Georg is a Giro d'Italia stage winner. Earlier this year, he finished third on GC at Paris-Nice and won the white jersey as best young rider. He will go on the attack when the Tour hits the mountains.

Danes Kasper Asgreen and Michael Valgren bring strength, experience, and race-winning savvy. Kasper has already won a stage of the Tour de France, alongside classics like the Ronde van Vlaanderen, E3 Saxo Bank Classic, and Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne and a stage of the Giro. He knows how to keep a cool head in a break, see his moment, and go. So does Michael Valgren. Michael just added a Giro stage win to his long list of achievements and would love to do the same at the Tour.

Sean Quinn rounds out our EF Education-EasyPost roster. The 2024 American champ is in great form after coming back from a career-threatening knee injury. Sean can't wait to get this Tour de France started.

Read our squad's thoughts before the start in Barcelona.

I'm very motivated for this Tour. After a long period at home training at altitude, things have gone really, really well. I'm coming in with high motivation and, above all, high morale, which I think is crucial for starting this great race. I am very happy and very eager. I believe that's the most important thing for the start of this Tour.

My ambition is to try and do my absolute best, to make it a beautiful Tour, and, above all, to enjoy it as much as possible.

We have a versatile team and that ultimately helps a lot with the team's ambitions. The general classification will depend heavily on how the race circumstances unfold. I want to go after stage wins and could try to repeat winning the mountains jersey. That would be beautiful for me, and it's what I desire most for this Tour.

The Tour is a race that is simply the best in the world. The top riders are there, and it's surrounded by an atmosphere of the absolute highest level. Just being there is already a win for me. The Tour is the Tour, and everyone involved in cycling knows it is a beautiful, very special race — the most important one in the world of cycling. It's a race that makes you fall in love, fills you with hope, and stirs up emotions that few other races can. It's thrilling and, above all, incredibly motivating.

I'm hopeful. I've had a spring with some bad luck, but I'm in good shape and ready to race. I'm looking forward to being back racing again and hopefully racing at the front.  

Last year was a standout year and it would be amazing to replicate it, but even half that success would still be a successful Tour in my eyes. There’s not too much pressure —  I just want to be up front and in a fight for a stage win, maybe even two. There are a lot of hard transitional stages this year, so I think there'll be plenty of opportunities for breaks.

Our team is super strong and pretty well balanced. We can go into this Tour with any goal in mind and be adaptable to any situation. We have a lot of experience, a lot of young guys — it's going to be a fun one.

I have had a good prep. I did an altitude camp, which I was able to do the full block of, and then Dauphiné as a prep race — even though I got sick, I didn't really miss too much and was able to get back into training fairly quickly. And yeah, some heat work in Mallorca. Hopefully that's me ready.

I will just have to race the same way, with an air of unpredictability. Even if they know how I'm going to race, if it's still unpredictable then it's still hard to predict. Even last year people kind of knew who I was and I was still able to do it. So nothing's going to change really — just going to try and rinse and repeat.

It doesn't really feel real at the moment. I don't think it will till I get there, but it's really exciting. I can't really believe it's happening. I always remember when I was in primary school, probably around 10 years old, rushing back from school to watch the last 20 or 30 kilometers of the Tour at home with my brother and my dad. I think since then I just wanted to do it because I thought it looked so cool, mainly because Cav was doing it, and it's obviously where we both grew up, so just watching him — I remember shouting at the TV so much on the sprint stages, getting mad if he crashed, then being really happy if he won. Those are the stages I remember most, the sprint stages when he was winning.

Hopefully, we'll be doing the same — well, hopefully I can be one of the teammates helping someone win. I don't really have any personal ambitions. I just want to go there and be the best helper I can for Ben and Richie and the people going for stage wins. The TTT is something we're quite focused on, so it'd be nice to get a good result there. But the rest of the time, my ambition is just to be as helpful as I can for the team leaders.

I think the first few stages will be really cool — the crowds will be big, and my family's coming out to watch, so those are the ones I'm most looking forward to at the moment. My family is really excited.

I'm feeling good. Obviously the preparation hasn't been without bumps in the road — with the broken collarbone and things like that — but in the end I think it's been OK. I feel like the shape is pretty good and it's definitely on the way up, so I hope to be able to add a little bit in the first week.

First of all, the goal is trying to get a stage win for us. I'd love to get out there myself, of course — that's always fun in the breakaways. But otherwise it's about supporting the team. Alex is going super well, and Richie seems to be going well for the climbing stages.

The Tour is just super cool. It's the biggest race on the calendar, and I'd say 90 per cent of cycling's media exposure comes from the Tour. When you win a stage there, the reach you get is so much bigger — the number of people who realise what you've done and what kind of rider you are, it reaches so many more people. So it's incredible for your career.

Everybody there is at the peak of their physical ability, and they've been working specifically towards that race. Nobody is there to prepare for something else; this is what it's all about. That makes everybody go that bit faster, because that's what's necessary to win. And the exposure means there's a lot of pressure on all the teams to perform. It just means the world to any cycling team to do well there.

The TTT is going to be super nice. It's been a long time since there has been one in the Tour. I was going over the stages right now looking at wheels and gears and stage 9 also looks really, really interesting. It's really lumpy — up and down all day, with some third- and fourth-category climbs. Looks like a hard day, and then there's a rest day after, so you can really empty the tank.

I honestly hadn't really imagined I'd be doing the Tour this year, so it's quite a surprise, but I am feeling good, feeling ready and looking forward to it for sure. After the Giro, I went back into the same routine. With age, professionalism somehow gets easier. I knew I might be doing the Tour, but if not I was thinking maybe the Tour of Austria or other races. I am having a good season and want to ride that wave. That's my motivation.

The Giro stage win and the Tirreno win have given me a lot of confidence. It's always nice to win — you start to believe in yourself more. But I've done eight Tours de France now, and I know how difficult it is. So I'm trying to keep my expectations within reach. I'm not going to say I want to go there and win a few stages or whatever. I'm just going to do a good job for the team, and if an opportunity comes, I'll try to grab it.

In my first couple of Tours I just ate it all up — every interview, every media request. And I ended up with no energy, totally overcooked from the racing and the stress outside of it, and then I got sick. My advice to the young guys would be: enjoy the circus, but also — once the race is done and we're racing again the next day, don't mess around and do stupid things. The Tour is just different.

If you do well, it can change your life, change your career. If you do badly, it's doubly bad — if you underperform at some other race, no one really cares, you write it off as building for the future. The Tour is where you have to deliver.

I think that with my experience, I can bring a lot of calm within the group. I wouldn't say I teach my teammates, but I can be there for them in hard moments — and there are going to be hard moments, because things are going to go wrong. And that's OK. The difference is that in the Tour, when things go wrong, 10 times more people see it. That doesn't make you a bad bike rider. They call me daddy in the team — this big brother figure they can come to with anything, not just cycling stuff. Keeping morale high around the dinner table, when things go well and when they don't — I think I can be really useful there.

And then in those big breakaway situations, I have a good sense of who's going well, who you should follow, who's always going to make it through in a large group. Knowing when there's a good moment to make a move — I think that's something I can contribute with.

I would love to get out there and do well in a stage — be in the fight for the win. That's always special at the Tour. Last year I came close. It's nice to be able to taste that, because then you know you're still good enough, you still have the level. That's basically what I'm hoping to get out of it.

Last year was my first Tour and I really got a sense of how big it is. That's why I can't imagine not doing it every summer now. I am really excited to go again. Last year was a good learning experience — I made a lot of mistakes in my preparation and in the race itself, in terms of managing the stress over the three weeks. This year I think I'm more ready to arrive with a better level already, and with a bit more experience behind me.

I could feel the work paying off this spring. I could really perform at the start of the season, so I'm super happy. The team gave me a lot of opportunities this year and I was able to take them and be present. Having the role of leader — in Basque Country, in the Ardennes, and then at the Dauphiné — that's a lot of experience. And I'm really grateful to the team for everything they did at the Dauphiné when we had the yellow jersey. That was really, really special.

I think we can have great ambitions as a team. We're going to chase stages, and I think a few of them suit me well personally. We'll try to take the opportunities as they come, see which stages fit which riders, and help each other out.

It'll depend a bit on how the earlier racing goes with the GC leaders and everything, but stage 6, and then maybe stages 9 and 10 are the ones I am most excited about. And then a few others in the third week — the final week of the Tour is always really open and a bit unpredictable.

The crowd on the road and just the sheer level of attention is insane. When you're actually doing it, you realize how many people are watching — it's one of the biggest sporting events in the world. As a French guy, it's even more of an honor to be at the start again. And I always think back to some of the days we had last year. When I look at the pictures, I remember it being just crazy every single day — incredibly hard, but you want to go back. You just want to go again.

I'm super excited. It's going to be my first Tour. I'm really looking forward to it.

My dad was a racer and I just grew up with the Tour, because I grew up with cycling generally, and the Tour is the biggest race of the year. So I was always aware of it and always enjoyed watching it the most. It is in the summer and all the biggest names are competing. I think that's why it's always the most exciting racing.

For me personally, my ambition is just to be part of the race — to actually be there competing, getting in breaks, maybe even racing for a stage win. If I won a stage, that would be the ultimate dream scenario. But it would already mean a lot just to be there competing. At the same time, Richie seems very strong, and we have Ben Healy.

Stage 14 — the one to Le Markstein is the one I am most excited about. It's a nice profile for me, and it's close to home. A lot of friends and family have already told me they're going to be on the roadside for that one. Just to do that stage with everyone supporting, maybe even be in the break and competing for it — yeah, that's what I'm really looking forward to.

How does it feel to be going back to the Tour? I can't really give you a proper answer until I get to the start line and it sinks in. But the initial reaction is just — I'm pretty proud to be there. The last two years have been extremely rocky, due to a lot of stuff out of my control. After my second knee surgery this winter, I sat down and told myself: I'm going to do everything I possibly can, one hundred percent, to get back to the Tour. I kind of manifested it. There were times when it looked unlikely, but I'm just proud I was able to stay the course and keep my head down in the hard moments. I turned a corner physically at some point in May and it was like, OK, I'm good enough to be there — now I just have to earn my spot by being a good teammate. This is a group I'm super happy to do a grand tour with. I am just super proud and happy.

From a personal standpoint — as I've grown up as a bike racer, I've learned that pinning an outcome-based goal on a race is a dangerous game. When things aren't going well you start questioning yourself, and so much is out of your control anyway. So my goal for this Tour is: every day, do what I need to do, to the best of my ability. Whether that's a teammate role or an individual performance, that's going to change a lot day to day. We could have a plan right now, but there's no way it'll look the same by the end. So basically — be spontaneous, give everything, and do it to the maximum. Because you never know when your last race is going to be.

To the casual fan, the Tour is the only bike race that matters. Even within the cycling world, there's just an extra emphasis on the Tour above everything else — the Giro, the world championships, the Tour always takes precedence. And you feel that when you're racing it.

It's the first bike race I ever watched. It's the reason I started racing, the reason I fell in love with riding a bike. I rode a bit as a kid, but what made me really love it was this idea of racing the Tour de France. It's what got me on a bike and what made me pursue cycling. So when you go to the Tour, a lot of your life in the sport flashes before your eyes, which is a really cool feeling. And yeah, you just feel it's the most important race, the biggest stage. It gives you an extra shot of adrenaline. It is a pretty cool feeling to be there — I'm looking forward to feeling it again.