The world’s most famous bicycle race, the Tour de France, has named its winner for 2022.
While the race has seen its share of controversies over the years, what’s not in question is the impressive engineering that has transformed the event since the first edition in 1903.
Over nearly 120 years, engineers have contributed to making the bikes lighter, the outfits tighter and the times quicker.
Check out the infographic we produced for this year’s race that shows just how engineering has helped shape the Tour de France.
For more interesting engineering facts sign-up to create’s weekly newsletter.
This infographic was first published in 2020 and updated in July 2022.
It’s hard to look at performance improvement in cycling without thinking of how prevalent doping was, especially during the late 1990’s and 2000’s. I’d be curious to understand the proportion of performance improvements due to engineering and due to human capabilities (either legitimate with training methods or not with doping) in the last 25 years.