The rider who has dominated stage racing for the last two years is set to clash with a reinvigorated multiple grand tour winner in what shapes up to be one of the biggest duels in recent years when the 101st edition of the Tour de France kicks off in Leeds on Saturday. They will be challenged by two riders who both won a three-week race in 2013, a 34-year-old Spaniard who is in desperate search of his first Tour podium, and a host of young, upcoming talents that are knocking on the door for their big breakthrough. ASO has truly assembled a fabulous line-up that will test themselves on a more mixed and diverse route than usual, setting the scene for a great battle in the world’s most important race. CyclingQuotes.com takes a thorough look at this year's favourites and outsiders and finds out all about their strengths and weaknesses.

 

The 2012 and 2013 editions of the Tour de France evolved into pretty one-sided affairs that were completely dominated by a seemingly invincible Sky team. Last year Chris Froome was in a class of his own and already from the very first mountain stage it was clear that only bad luck could prevent the Brit from winning a maiden Tour title.

 

This year the defending champion is back for more but arrives at the start in Leeds on the back of a spring season in which nothing has gone according to plan. Furthermore, he faces much stiffer competition, led by a reinvigorated Alberto Contador who has been the dominant stage race of 2014 and reportedly is better than ever before.

 

All is set for a fascinating duel between what are probably the two best stage racers of their generation and the result is definitely not a foregone conclusion. So far Contador has had the upper hand but health issues have set Froome back and when they were both still at 100% in the Criterium du Dauphiné, Froome was clearly the strongest.

 

However, it is not all about Froome and Contador. Having taken a dominant victory in the 2013 Giro d’Italia, Vincenzo Nibali has set his sights on the only grand tour he hasn’t won, and Alejandro Valverde will continue to chase some luck in his dream race on the back of a fabulous start to the season. World champion Rui Costa will get his first chance to lead a team in a grand tour and Bauke Mollema and Jurgen Van Den Broeck aim to continue their steady progress through the grand tour ranks.

 

Finally, a host of youngsters like Andrew Talansky, Thibaut Pinot, Michal Kwiatkowski, Romain Bardet and Pierre Rolland continue their rise through the professional ranks and they will all be eager to put in a breakthrough performance on the French roads this summer.

 

CyclingQuotes.com has taken an in-depth look at the race's favourites, assigning 5 stars to the race's biggest favourite, 4 to his two biggest rivals, 3 to three other potential winners, 2 to four of the podium contenders and 1 to 5 of the race's minor outsiders. In this article, we take a look at the  1-star riders that may finish on the podium if everything goes their way.

 

Mathias Frank (*)

Since Alex Zülle hung up the bike, Switzerland has not had a genuine grand tour contender and going into the 2013 season, nothing suggested that their next big three-week rider would emerge in the near future. Back then, Mathias Frank had done nothing to recommend himself as a podium contender for the biggest races in the world and he had taken no major results in stage races

 

However, 2013 turned out to be a breakthrough year for the Swiss. It all started when he capped a fabulous support ride for Tejay van Garderen in the Tour of California with an overall fourth place but he really captured the attention of the cycling world one month later in his home race, the Tour de Suisse. Having gone into the race as van Garderen’s domestique, he wore the yellow jersey for almost the entire race and only a poor time trial on the final day caused him to drop to fifth in the end. Having won two stages in the Tour of Austria, he was again at in van Garderen service at the US Pro Challenge but still managed to finish second behind his race-winning teammate and.

 

Of course the results prompted Frank to search for a team where he would get a bit more freedom and IAM was the perfect fit. The Swiss team was in desperate need of a GC rider and would obviously prefer to have the best Swiss stage racer on their roster. In September, Frank was announced as joining his home squad and since the team got its wildcard for the Tour, he has been focusing on a leadership role in what will be his second participation in the biggest race of them all.

 

The Tour may have been his big target but this hasn’t stopped Frank from riding excellently in the first part of the season. After a slow start, he found his best form for the Criterium International where he won the queen stage and only missed out on the overall victory by one single second. He went onto finish 7th in the Circuit Cycliste Sarthe – a race that didn’t suit him at all – before proving his skills at the WorldTour level by taking 4th against some very classy rivals in the Tour de Romandie.

 

A short break allowed him to recover a bit before he resumed competition in the Bayern Rundfahrt. Immediately, he was back in the front row and won the queen stage ahead of the likes of Thibaut Pinot, Leopold König and Romain Bardet. Against Geraint Thomas, he had no chance in the time trial but ended the race second overall.

 

All those results confirm that he has taken a massive step up and in fact he has been one of the most consistent stage racers of the first part of the season. What really has marked him out as a Tour outsider, however, is his great performance in the recent Tour de Suisse. Having been at the same level as Bauke Mollema and Rui Costa in the mountains, he ended the race in second overall, his best ever result in a WorldTour stage race.

 

Frank is a very gifted climber with an aggressive spirit whose main strength is his great consistency. In the past, he was not known for his TT skills but while he has improved a lot in the mountains, he has made an even rapider progress in the race against the clock. This year he has done 7 time trials and he has only finished in outside the top 10 in the two prologues. It’s that kind of versatility and constant progress that makes the 27-year-old one to watch for the future.

 

Going into the Tour de France, however, Frank is on untested territory. He has never done a three-week race as a team leader and in fact he has not been at the start of a three-week race since he finished the 2012 Giro in 83rd, his best performance in the five grand tours he has done so far. It’s a pretty tough start to get his first taste of GC racing in a three-week race as the undisputed team leader in the Tour de France but Frank seems to be able to handle the pressure.

 

His lack of experience makes him a bit of a wildcard in this year’s race and no one really knows whether he will be able to cope with three weeks of hard racing. Due to his consistency, however, he seems to have all the skills to excel in grand tours and this year’s Tour could be the start to a great career in the biggest stage races. Of course he won’t win the Tour de France this year but Frank can definitely kick start what could be a golden age for Swiss stage racing with a great showing in the 101st edition of the biggest race in the world.

 

Romain Bardet (*)

Like Thibaut Pinot, Romain Bardet finds himself in the uncomfortable position of having been announced as the next potential French Tour de France winner. While his compatriot seems to have difficulties handling the pressure, however, Bardet seems to be pretty unfazed by the attention and hype his great talent has created.

 

At just 23 years of age, Bardet is the 7th youngest rider in this year’s race and he is the youngest to go into the race with his sights set on the overall standings. One year ago he went into his first ever grand tour with a similar approach and rode an aggressive, consistent race to come away with 15th and ending the race as the best Frenchman.

 

Having excelled in the biggest U23 stage races, Bardet was already known as a big talent when he signed a contract with Ag2r for the 2012 season and he immediately proved that he has the skills to become of the sport’s greats. He captured the attention of a broader audience when he nearly finished off a long-distance breakaway in his first ever classic, the Amstel Gold Race, in the most grandiose fashion. Later that year he finished 4th in the Tour of Turkey and 12th in the Tour de Pologne before he again did a fantastic long-distance attack in Il Lombardia at the end of the season. In general, his first season may not have been littered with great results but his many attacks made him a well-known figure and made him a lot stronger for the next year.

 

Already from the start of the 2013 season he proved that he had stepped up his level when he finished 7th in the Etoile de Besseges and in general he took a lot of top 20s in the spring.  At that point, however, he had mostly shined in the hilly terrain but in the Route du Sud he proved that he can also handle climbing in the high mountains by taking fourth overall. That set him up for his very impressive Tour de France debut and as it has been the case for so many others, his first grand tour served him well. Just weeks after the end of the race, he won the Tour de l’Ain overall and ended his season on a high by taking fifth in the Tour of Beijing.

 

This year, however, he has gone from talent to WorldTour contender. After he took his first one-day win in La Drome Classic and helped Carlos Betancur win Paris-Nice, he was in the spotlight at the very highest level in Volta a Catalunya which probably had the strongest line-up of all the early WorldTour races. In the queen stage, he made use of a tactical battle between Chris Froome, Joaquim Rodriguez, Alejandro Valverde and Nairo Quintana to escape with Tejay van Garderen and even though he was beaten in the sprint for the stage win, it set him up for an overall fourth place finish.

 

Later in the season he finished 10th in Liege-Bastogne-Liege to prove that he can now also handle the very long distances and after having finished 4th in the Bayern Rundfahrt queen stage, he proved that he is fully ready for the Tour by finishing fifth in the Dauphiné. He got his race off to a very bad start but after he had found his legs, he rode a great final weekend and was one of the riders to contribute to the big coup that saw the race being turned upside down on the final day.

 

Bardet’s progression has been fast but gradual and he has already reached a level where he can realistically challenge for a top spot in the Tour de France. His main assets are of course his climbing skills and this year he has proved that he can be up there with the very best when he is at 100% of his capabilities. What really marks him out as a great prospect for grand tours, however, is his consistency and endurance. He rarely has a bad day and already at 22 years of age he proved that he can handle a three-week race. Furthermore, he has excelled in the longest races right from the beginning of his career and those are exactly the attributes that characterize a grand tour rider.

 

Bardet’s main weakness is his time trialling skills and he knows that he will lose a lot of time on the penultimate day. Furthermore, he could easily end up as one of the losers at the end of the cobbled stage 5. On the other hand, Bardet has the aggressive mindset that has so often served the riders just below the big favourites so well. Very often top or top 10 spots have been earned by going on the attack in the mountains and Bardet is definitely not afraid of taking some risks. 2014 could be the year when Romain Bardet becomes a household name all over the world.

 

Michal Kwiatkowski (*)

The peloton is loaded with great talents but perhaps the most versatile of them all is Michal Kwiatkowski. Time trialling, climbing, sprinting, classics, cobbles, stage races… the Pole seems to master all the disciplines of cycling. What makes him truly unique, however, is the fact that he is even one of the very best in most of them. This year has marked his big breakthrough as a top contender for the biggest races and if one was asked to select the three most successful riders of the first half of the season, Kwiatkowski would undoubtedly make the cut.

 

Having long been known as a huge talent, Kwiatkowski already turned professional as a young 19-year-old rider, signing a contract with Caja Rural for the 2010 season. One year later he joined the highest level when he was picked up by Radioshack before moving to Omega Pharma-Quick Step at the beginning of 2012.

 

Having turned professional at a very young age, Kwiatkowski was not one of those riders that set the world on fire right from the beginning. In fact, he had a pretty slow start and in his first years he was mostly known as a great time triallist who made use of those skills to finish on the podium of races like Driedaagse van Westvlaanderen, Driedaagse van de Panne and the Tour du Poitou-Charentes in 2011. However, things started to change for him in his first year with Omega Pharma-Quick Step and it seemed that his first grand tour, that year’s Giro d’Italia, served him well. That summer he broke through at the WorldTour level when he finished 2nd in his home race, the Tour de Pologne, after having shown both great climbing and sprinting skills.

 

Over the winter, he worked a lot on his climbing and when he started his 2013 season, he suddenly proved that he could become a real GC contender. He excelled in the Tour de San Luis before fading in the final mountain stage and finished 2nd in the Volta ao Algarve a few weeks later. However, his main breakthrough as a climber came in Tirreno-Adriatico where he finished 4th overall after having been up there with the likes of Chris Froome and Alberto Contador in the mountains.

 

While he had proved to be a solid stage racer, however, he had now turned into one of the best classics riders in the world. Even his team were greatly surprised when he finished in the top 5 in two of the Ardennes classics where he made use of his great climbing skills, explosiveness and fast sprint to mix it up with the best even in the very long races.

 

Last summer he made his Tour de France debut and again he exceeded his team’s expectations. Going into the race, the management just wanted to take it day by day and almost expected their young Pole to crack at some point but Kwiatkowski kept going and ended the race in 11th overall after having worn the white jersey for much of the race.

 

Those results were all great but they are not even comparable with his achievements of 2014. He came out with all guns blazing, winning the hardest race of Challenge Mallorca before he beat Contador and Rui Costa in the Volta ao Algarve after having taken two stage wins along the way. A few weeks later he did what most had thought to be impossible when he beat Peter Sagan in the Strade Bianche. That created massive expectations for Tirreno-Adriatico but he cracked in the final mountain stage and dropped from 1st to finish outside the top 15.

 

He was back at his best in the Vuelta al Pais Vasco where he used a great time trial to finish 2nd overall but his real standout performance came in the classics. He finished on the podium in both Fleche Wallonne and Liege-Bastogne-Liege and was 5th in the Amstel Gold Race. Only Alejandro Valverde showed a similar consistency and it was now evident that Kwiatkowski is among the very best one-day riders in the world. He almost seemed unstoppable when he won the Tour de Romandie prologue just two days after Liege but finally paid the price for his heavy racing schedule in the mountains and ended up abandoning the race.

 

The early season has proved that Kwiatkowski’s potential is almost unlimited and no one can say how far he can get. His time trialling skills and solid climbing make him an obvious grand tour prospect but despite his excellent results, a few doubts surround him when it comes to his stage racing capabilities.

 

While he is obviously very gifted in hilly terrain, Kwiatkowski seems to struggle in the high mountains. In last year’s Tour, he rode solidly in the intermediate stages but when the going got really tough in the biggest stages, he was far off the mark. This year he cracked in the Tirreno mountains and in the Vuelta al Pais Vasco he suffered on the only stage that had a long climb in the finale.

 

Furthermore, Kwiatkowski is not very consistent. On his best days, he is flying but when he starts to suffer from fatigue, he performs pretty poorly. That was put on show in the Tour de Romandie and was evident at the end of last season where he failed to reach his best level after he had finished his first Tour de France. Last year he managed to keep going for three weeks in France but it is an obvious question whether he will be able to perform at the real top level from start to finish in a grand tour.

 

Finally, Kwiatkowski goes into the race with doubt in his mind. When he returned to competition in the Criterium du Dauphiné, he performed very poorly and he ended up abandoning the race. As there was no explanation for his showing, his team even let him undergo medical checks to make sure that he was not suffering from a virus. Nothing was found and he managed to win the Polish TT championships last week. Three days later, however, he failed to defend his road race title.

 

Lots of factors suggest that it will be very hard for Kwiatkowski to even crack the top 10 but the past year has clearly shown that it is hard to overestimate his potential. It may be that he will have to settle for a career as a very classy classics rider and he has the potential to completely dominate the Ardennes classics in the coming years. Whether he will also develop into a grand tour contender remains to be seen and in any case this year’s Tour de France may be coming a bit too early for him. Nonetheless, history shows that it can be dangerous to rule out Kwiatkowski and we certainly aren’t the ones to rule out another surprise performance by one of the greatest talents in the current peloton.

 

Chris Horner (*)

When asked to explain what he had learnt from his defeat in the 2013 Vuelta a Espana, Vincenzo Nibali said that he now knew that you should never underestimate any rider. The rider that had taught him the lesson in the most brutal way was a 41-year-old American who had just broken the record of being the oldest winner of a grand tour with a big margin.

 

Going into the Spanish grand tour, very few were mentioning Chris Horner as one of the favourites for the race. In fact, CyclingQuotes was one of the select media to include the American on our 15-rider list of men to watch but we had only assigned him a 1-star rating, believing that a podium spot would be the maximum achievable for the veteran. However, Horner defied all expectations and went on to take a deserved victory in a race where he was clearly the strongest rider.

 

Horner won a stage and took the leader’s jersey already on the third day but one day later he lost it due to a split in the peloton. At the time, he seemed to be pretty unfazed by the loss, claiming that the important thing was to have the jersey at the finish in Madrid. The statement brought about a few laughs as very few expected him to contend for the overall victory but Horner took it back when he won his second stage on the brutally steep Alto de Hazallanas. A poor time trial saw him drop down in the overall standings but the American kept taking back time in the mountains until he could finally achieve what is by far his best ever grand tour result.

 

What made Horner’s result remarkable was not only his age. The fact that he had been injured almost all season and only arrived at the start with the Tour of Utah in his legs made the performance even more noteworthy. Given the sport’s dark past, it was only natural for it to cause some suspicion but Horner released all the data from his biological passport in a quest to prove that he was clean.

 

Going into this year’s Tour, it is hard not to have a feeling of dèjà vu. Again Horner lines up for a grand tour with very little racing in his legs after a horrific crash left him with multiple injuries. Injury forced him out of both Tirreno-Adriatico and the Volta a Catalunya but he seemed to be back on track for his big goal at the Giro when he hit the deck during training and for a moment it seemed that his injuries could even have had much more severe consequences. However, Horner has made a remarkable comeback and on June 19 he returned to competition in the Tour de Slovenie where he rode to a solid 14th place.

 

That result proved that he is already back at a decent level and it was enough to convince the Lampre-Merida management to include him on the Tour roster. Horner has done nothing to hide that his big goal remains his Vuelta title defence but both he and his team have made it clear that he would only go to the Tour if they believed that he could challenge for a top spot in the overall standings.

 

The situation may be comparable to last year’s but there are obvious differences as well. Back then, Horner had shown a lot higher level in his warm-up race as he won the queen stage and finished second overall in the Tour of Utah. This year he was a lot further back in Slovenia. Furthermore, the Vuelta a Espana and the Tour de France are two very different races and the former’s mountainous courses and limited time trialling obviously suit the American much more.

 

However, Horner’s Vuelta win didn’t come from nowhere. In fact he has been suffering from a lot of bad luck over the last few years but when he has been injury-free, he has given lots of indications that he is one of the best climbers in the world. In 2009 he seemed to be on track for a great Vuelta when he crashed out of the race and one year later he finished in the top 10 in the Tour de France despite having worked as a domestique for most of the race. That same year he won the Vuelta al Pais Vasco – one of the hardest races on the calendar – overall and in 2011 he took a dominant victory in the Tour of California. In both 2012 and 2013 he climbed with the very best in Tirreno-Adriatico before he was set back by injury.

 

While he is a great climber, Horner is definitely no TT specialist and the Vuelta time trial nearly cost him the win in last year’s Spanish grand tour. He will lose a lot of time on the penultimate time and he needs to take it back in the mountains. Furthermore, he is a very likely victim in the tricky first week where cobbles, wind and narrow roads can set a few GC contenders back.

 

There is a big risk that the race comes too early for Horner after his injury and it will definitely be a surprise if he is up there with the best. On the other hand, the main difficulties are loaded in the final week and so he has some time to ride himself into his best form. With teammate Rui Costa taking the pressure off his shoulders, he has flown under the radar and last year’s Vuelta showed that he thrives in such a situation. Having learnt Nibali’s lesson, it is only fitting to conclude this analysis the way we started: you should never underestimate anyone – especially not Chris Horner.

 

Jean-Christophe Peraud (*)

When he celebrated his 30th birthday, Jean-Christophe Peraud had not even thought about riding a grand tour, let alone contend for the top 5 in one of the biggest races of the world. Back then, the Frenchman was one of the leading mountain bike riders and one year later he won the silver medal at the Beijing Olympics in the cross country race.

 

In 2009, however, he started to do some road racing and when he beat Sylvain Chavanel to claim the French TT championships, it became apparent that he could maybe make a career in a completely different branch of the sport. Later that year he finished 12th at the World Championships and decided to give it a try by signing a WorldTour contract with Omega Pharma-Lotto.

 

His potential became apparent right from the beginning as he finished in the top 10 in first WorldTour races, Paris-Nice and Vuelta al Pais Vasco, and in the latter event he was even only 4 seconds off the podium. All was set for a big Tour de France debut but he crashed out of the Dauphiné and had to postpone his debut in his home grand tour for another year. Instead, he lined up for the Vuelta and nearly took the leader’s jersey by going on the attack in the very hilly stage 9.

 

He signed a contract with Ag2r-La Mondiale and continued his impressive run of success in stage races. Top 10s in the Tour Med, Paris-Nice, Criterium International, Criterium du Dauphiné, Tour de l’Ain, Tour du Poitou-Charentes and Tour of Beijing speaks volumes about a very consistent and gifted rider for the multi-day events. He crowned it all by finishing 9th in his debut Tour de France.

 

He failed to reach the same level in 2012 – partly because he mixed his road racing commitments with a return to mountain biking for the Olympics – but if anyone thought that Father Time had caught up with the Frenchman, the 2013 season proved them wrong. In fact last year was his best yet and he finished in the top 6 in the Tour Med, Paris-Nice, Criterium International and the Tour de Romandie. Furthermore, he was poised for another top 10 result in the Tour but crashed out of the race in a very dramatic way in the final time trial.

 

Remarkably, Peraud has stepped up his level a further notch in 2014. In fact he has gone from being one of those GC riders that you rarely see on TV to being up there with the best on the climbs. In February, he won the Tour Med queen stage and finished second overall but it was his performance in Tireno-Adriatico that really caught the attention. In the hardest stage he dropped Nairo Quintana on the brutally steep Muro di Guardiagrele and ended the race in 4th overall. A few weeks later he took his first major stage race victory at the Criterium International before reaching one of his big career goals by finishing on the podium in the Vuelta al Pais Vasco.

 

One should not expect to see Peraud go on the attack in the mountains. The Frenchman is usually just following wheels but his top level has been gradually raised. He handles long climbs pretty well and being a former mountain biker, he also excels on short, steep ascents. One of his main assets is his solid time trial and even though he is not one of the very best in discipline, he is able to gain time on most of his rivals, especially on hilly course. This year’s Tour TT should suit him pretty well.  Finally, he is very consistent, rarely has a bad day and has proved that he can keep going for three weeks.

 

Peraud enters the race with a few doubts after he failed to perform as expected in the Criterium du Dauphiné. In the past, however, he has performed poorly in his build-up races before being on fire in July and nothing suggests that it will be any different this time around. Peraud will never win the Tour and will never finish on the podium either. After last year’s fine showing, however, he is now a lot stronger and if he can avoid bad luck, Peraud should be able to make his best ever grand tour performance and the ripe age of 37.