Bardet: I'm in favour of everything that shakes up the Tour de France

Romain Bardet wasn't in Paris last week for the presentation of the 2019 Tour de France race route, but the AG2R La Mondiale team leader liked the mountainous, high-altitude, limited-time-trial route. With stage 9 on Bastille Day also finishing in his hometown of Brioude in the Massif Central, Bardet could not ask for a better route for another shot at overall victory.

Stephen Farrand
Head of News

Stephen is the most experienced member of the Cyclingnews team, having reported on professional cycling since 1994. He has been Head of News at Cyclingnews since 2022, before which he held the position of European editor since 2012 and previously worked for Reuters, Shift Active Media, and CyclingWeekly, among other publications.