The Tour de France has always been linked to commercial brands. From its beginnings, its cyclists were personally sponsored, but Henri Desgrange's desire for the carrera to be a great individual challenge meant that the history of Tour teams, structured around a leader and working collectively towards goals, did not begin until 1930, then with the formula of national teams. After that period, commercial teams took over and brands found the ideal springboard to make themselves known, by appearing on the jerseys of great champions. We have selected ten of the squads that have most marked the Tour de France throughout its history, both for their track record and for earning a place in the memory of fans.
👉 If you also want to feel like a champion on your rides, don't hesitate to visit our section of Elite Bicycles for Demanding Cyclists
Peugeot
The Peugeot cycling team holds the distinction of being the longest-running and most decorated in the history of the Tour de France, with a trajectory spanning from 1904 to 1989. It participated in a total of 36 editions and its riders won the general classification ten times, amassing a total of 123 stage victories, a record in keeping with what the lion brand represented in cycling, even before the Tour was born. Its founder, Armand Peugeot, began manufacturing bicycles and tricycles in 1886, and ten years later production already exceeded 9,000 units annually, a figure that kept growing to the point of making the brand the main supplier of bicycles to the French army and the large number of cycling races that were already being organized in France at the end of the 19th century. With these credentials, Peugeot was a brand that left its mark on the Tour de France from its very beginnings in 1903, understanding that the promotion of its products necessarily had to involve sponsoring races and riders, which led to the creation of a competition team starting in 1904. Since in those early Tours teams were not allowed to compete—following the idea of patron Henri Desgrange to make the carrera an individual challenge stripped of all external help—Peugeot began by sponsoring cyclists individually, and from that roster came several of the champions who dominated the Tour de France's record books until World War I: Louis Trosellier (1905); René Pottier (1906); Lucien Petit Breton (1907 and 1908) and Philippe Thys (1913 and 1914) won the Tour for the lion brand, in a dominance that was especially overwhelming in 1908, when its riders won each and every one of the 14 stages of that edition, led by Petit Breton (5) and François Faber (4). The dominance of Peugeot riders reappeared after the hiatus of World War I, with the climber Firmin Lambot's victory in 1922, and a haul of 18 stage wins between that edition and 1923. It was the way to overcome the postwar crisis, in which the brand had to form a consortium for three years with other teams to survive, under the name La Sportive. When in 1930 the Tour de France decided to open the competition to teams, it did so through national selections, so the visibility of commercial brands as we know it today did not arrive until 1962. From that year, Peugeot began a second golden era, in which the brand revolutionized its image with the creation of the legendary black-and-white checkered jersey, a design that was also applied to its bicycles. The great Eddy Merckx rode with Peugeot in 1966 and 1967, achieving prestigious victories such as two Milan–San Remo, La Flèche Wallonne, and Gent–Wevelgem, as well as stages in the Giro d'Italia and Paris–Nice, among many other races.
Nevertheless, the Belgian did not get to race the Tour de France with the team, since his debut would end up coming in 1968 with Faema. To see Peugeot win again in Paris, it was necessary to wait for Bernard Thévenet's two victories in 1975 and 1977, which not only returned the team to the top of the record books, but also led the lion brand to skyrocket its bicycle sales, reaching almost half a million units. The Peugeot team continued winning stages and secondary classifications in the Tour de France with riders such as the Australian Phil Anderson or the Scot Robert Millar, until in 1989 the historic company decided to withdraw its sponsorship and the structure was taken over by Z, the children's clothing brand with which it had begun collaborating in 1987 to form the memorable Z-Peugeot.
Saint Raphaël - BIC
Saint Raphaël was the first French cycling team to receive sponsorship from a company not related to the world of sports, in its case a brand of aperitifs. It began its journey in 1954, with Raphael Géminiani in its ranks as a rider and co-sponsor, through his own bicycle brand. The surname Géminiani was the first of several the structure would have, before Bic, the famous disposable products brand, took over the sponsorship until 1974. In its 20 years of history, the French team became one of the undisputed references of the Tour de France: it achieved five victories in the general classification, three with its great standard-bearer, Jacques Anquetil, and two others with Lucien Aimar and Luis Ocaña. Other figures of the time also rode for the team, such as the Briton Tom Simpson, the German Rudi Altig, the Frenchman Jean Stablinski, the Dutchman Jean Janssen, the Spaniard Julio Jiménez, or the Portuguese Joaquim Agostinho. This high-level cast brought the team up to 35 stage wins in the Tour de France—12 signed by Anquetil—and four team general victories, in addition to wins such as Julio Jiménez's in the Mountain classification (1966), or Rudi Altig's in the Points classification (1962). Its best year in the Tour de France came in 1973, when Luis Ocaña achieved a sweeping victory in the general classification and the team won eight stages, six of them by the Spanish champion, and two by José Catieu and Joaquim Agostinho.
Mercier
The French bicycle brand Cycles Mercier began sponsoring from 1935 one of the most legendary teams of the Tour de France, and the longest-running after Peugeot, with a trajectory that lasted until 1984 under different names. Mercier was the team where Cyrille Guimard, the legendary director of Hinault and Fignon at Renault, began to race, and also the team of figures such as Roger Lapébie, Antonin Magne, Louison Bobet, Raymond Poulidor, or Joop Zoetemelk. These five cyclists achieved a total of 25 podiums and seven overall victories in Paris, although much of that harvest does not belong exclusively to the French squad: Magne, who would later manage the team for 17 years, achieved his Tour successes with the French national team, as he could not race with Mercier, and the same happened with Roger Lapèbie in 1937 and with Bobet's three wins in the fifties. With Joop Zoetemelk, something even more curious happened: the Dutchman climbed the Paris podium four times wearing the Mercier jersey, but when he won the Tour de France in 1980, he did so with the TI-Raleigh team, during a two-year stint in which he raced for the British.
Then, in 1982, Zoetemelk returned to Mercier and was again second in the Tour. These cases, together with the eight podiums without overall victories of Raymond Poulidor, explain why in the record of the French squad there is no individual victory in the Tour, although they can boast five victories in the team time classification, and three more in the points classification. The merger with the Spanish Fagor team in 1970 made Mercier the second sponsor of the structure, later opening sponsorship to brands such as Hutchinson, Gan, Miko, and Coop. The latter took over the roster of cyclists in 1984, when Mercier ended its nearly half-century cycle as a sponsor.
Molteni
Molteni was not only the team with which Eddy Merckx won three of his five Tours de France, in 1971, 1972, and 1974, as well as three Giros d'Italia and a Vuelta a España, but it was also the most powerful cycling squad of its time, with 663 victories between 1958 and 1976. Created by Pietro and Renato Molteni to promote the Italian salami brand bearing the family name, the team began its path to major victories in the Giro d'Italia, thanks to the likes of Guido de Rosso and Gianni Motta. The latter opened the team's record in the Tour de France with a third place in 1965, followed by his victory in the 1966 Corsa Rosa. Motta contributed a total of 48 victories, the best individual mark in the early years of Molteni. A year earlier, in 1965, the team had signed the German Rudi Altig, one of the stars of the moment in track cycling, who would later become world road champion. However, the great boost came when Molteni signed Eddy Merckx in 1971, coming from Faemino - Faema, with whom he had already won the Tour twice. The arrival of The Cannibal He facilitated the signing of other Belgian riders who had already been his domestiques, such as Julien Stevens or Herman Van Springel, a transfer that also initially included the prestigious sports director Guillaume Driessenss, with whom Merckx had triumphed at Faema. Molteni went on to win 37 stages of the Tour de France in eight participations, between 1965 and 1975. A total of 20 bore the signature of Eddy Merckx, eight of them achieved in his overwhelming overall victory in 1974. The Belgian's triumphs, combined with the overall quality of the team, made the orange (or pink) jersey with the blue stripe of Molteni iconic, still today a coveted piece for vintage sportswear collectors.
KAS
The Basque team Kas was one of the most powerful in the international peloton in the sixties and seventies, from its founding in Vitoria in 1958 until the end of its glorious first stage in 1979. The famous soft drink brand relaunched it in 1985, achieving a significant number of victories with the Irishman Sean Kelly, as well as two stages in the Tour de France with the Portuguese rider Acácio da Silva, but without reaching the splendor of the first era. Kas had in its ranks Bahamontes, Julio Jiménez, and José Manuel Fuente El Tarangu, three of the greatest climbers in the history of cycling. Bahamontes was on the team when he won the Tour de France in 1959, but the legendary yellow Kas jersey could not be worn in that victory because the man from Toledo raced with the Spanish national team. Those who did get to wear it in the Tour were Julio Jiménez and Fuente: the rider from Ávila won six stages in the 1964 and 1965 editions, as well as the Mountain classification; and the Asturian climbed the Paris podium as third place in 1973, after having taken two stage wins in 1971. Beyond these three great climbers, Kas gathered the best Spanish riders of the time, in addition to expanding its structure with riders of other nationalities, especially French.
Miguel Mari Lasa, Vicente López Carril, Paco Galdós, José Antonio González Linares, José Pérez Francés, Patxi Gabica, Txomin Perurena or José Pesarrodona were some of the cyclists capable of maintaining the high level of victories that Kas displayed in the three grand tours, with the support of riders like the Belgian Claude Criquelion, the Dutchman Lucien Van Impe, or the Portuguese Joaquim Agostinho. The numbers of the Alava-based squad were spectacular in the Vuelta a España: six overall wins, with José Manuel Fuente (2), Patxi Gabica, José Presarrodona, Eric Caritoux and Sean Kelly; and a total of 66 stage victories. Those statistics dropped in the Tour de France, as they participated in fewer editions (17 compared to 25), but even so, Kas rounded off a very important record, in addition to having a great influence in the carrera. They never managed to win the individual General Classification, but they did win the team classification of the Tour four times (1965, 1966, 1974 and 1976), claimed 16 stage wins and managed to reach the podium with Enrique Martínez Heredia as best young rider in the 1976 edition. When it disappeared in 1979, Kas had marked an era and came to be considered one of the best teams in the history of Spanish cycling.
Renault
Bernard Hinault won four Tours, two Giros and two Vueltas a España with the Renault team (Dutch National Archives, Creative Commons)[/caption]. The great French car brand entered cycling when it acquired the Gitane bicycle factory in 1974, the brand that Jacques Anquetil had used in two of his victorious Tours de France and which had allied with the Campagnolo firm to create a successful competition team. When Renault took over that structure in 1978, the record already included 16 stage wins in the Tour de France and the overall victory in Paris by Lucien Van Impe. The Renault - Gitane team marked an era of dominance during its eight years of history, thanks to figures such as Bernard Hinault, Laurent Fignon and Greg LeMond, and the wise direction of Cyrille Guimard, whose figure is key to understanding the astonishing chain of victories they achieved between 1978 and 1985. Bernard Hinault won four Tours de France, two Giros d'Italia and two Vueltas a España with Renault. And Laurent Fignon added the Tours of 1983 and 1984 to close the brightest cycle. Between the two champions, they won 28 of Renault's 36 Tour stages, in addition to leading their two victories in the team classifications in 1979 and 1984. To those triumphs were added the three white jerseys for the young rider classification, won by Jean René Bernaudeau (1979), Laurent Fignon (1983) and Greg LeMond (1984). That first podium in Paris by the American cyclist was one of the last achievements of the diamond brand, since Renault decided to withdraw as team sponsor at the end of 1985, after Bernard Hinault and Greg LeMond went to La Vie Claire, the millionaire project with which businessman Bernard Tapie entered cycling. Cyrille Guimard still continued the structure, creating Système-U, then Castorama and later Cofidis, but the legendary Renault jersey never appeared again in the Tour de France.
La Vie Claire
1985 was the last year of Renault, with Laurent Fignon at the helm and Guimard in the car trying to stand up to the team that would dominate the Tour de France in the following years: La Vie Claire. The creation of Bernard Tapie, based on the sponsorship of a healthy food brand, marked its territory from the beginning, with the millionaire signing of Bernard Hinault and his clear objective of achieving his fifth victory in Paris, which he could not achieve in his debut with the team in 1984, and that of Greg LeMond, who arrived in 1985 already as a world road champion and a potential Tour winner. The duel between both squads was one-sided in that edition: with Fignon absent due to injury, the best Renault in the general classification was the Frenchman Marc Madiot, more than half an hour behind the Hinault - LeMond tandem. The Breton won his fifth Tour and LeMond was second, after La Vie Claire exercised broad dominance of the carrera. The order was reversed the following year, with victory for the American and the last podium in a Grand Tour for Hinault, who retired that year. Both champions shone under the direction of the Swiss Paul Köchli, a former professional cyclist with a short career who, however, introduced very innovative methods in the preparation and control of athletes, earning the respect even of Cyrille Guimard. La Vie Claire gave way in 1987 to Toshiba, still with Köchli in charge. But LeMond’s hunting accident at the start of the year and its subsequent consequences kept him away from the top spot in the Tour. His last podium bore the signature of the Frenchman Jean François Bernard, who finished third that year behind Stephen Roche and Perico Delgado. From there to its end in 1991, Toshiba never returned to the top positions, given that LeMond’s triumphant comeback in 1989 took place wearing the AD Renting jersey.
Movistar (Reynolds / Banesto / Caisse d’Epargne)
The Navarrese structure is currently the dean of the international peloton, surpassing 40 seasons of history since its creation in 1980 under the name Reynolds. Since then, it has won the Tour de France seven times: five with Miguel Induráin (1991-1995), one with Pedro Delgado (1988), and another with Óscar Pereiro (2006). Moreover, it is the cycling team that has most often won the team classification, with seven victories—two of them under the sponsorship of Banesto and five with Movistar—and in its four decades in the Tour, it has achieved 34 stage wins. The team was created thanks to the sponsorship of the Navarrese aluminum company INASA, which had already been involved with grassroots cycling in the Foral Community since 1974, with youth and amateur teams. From there emerged the figure of José Miguel Echávarri, who was the first sports director of the new professional team. Riders such as Ángel Arroyo, Julián Gorospe, and Pedro Delgado joined the structure, capable of leading Reynolds to contend for the grand tours: Arroyo was second in the 1983 Tour de France, in which Delgado also began to stand out. The rider from Segovia gave the structure its first yellow jersey in 1988, in addition to adding two more podiums, with second place in 1987 and third in 1989. From that last year, the Banesto bank took over sponsorship, and the team entered its most glorious era, with the historic streak of Miguel Induráin's five Tours. In those nineties, Banesto also won the team classification twice and reached number 1 in the UCI (International Cycling Union) ranking, thanks to an important harvest of victories in other races, such as those achieved by Induráin in the Giro d'Italia. That collective success would be repeated up to four consecutive times, now with Movistar as sponsor. After the Navarrese champion, leadership passed to the Gipuzkoan Abraham Olano and the man from Ávila, José María El Chava Jiménez, two cyclists who, without reaching Induráin's excellence—Olano never got past fourth place in the Tour—still left their mark on Spanish cycling with different styles, with stage and overall victories in the Vuelta and, in the Basque's case, in the Road World Championships in Colombia. The last victory of the Navarrese team in the Tour de France came in 2006, already under the sponsorship of the French banking group Caisse d’Epargne, and was achieved by the Galician Óscar Pereiro, although it was necessary to wait for the disqualification of the American Floyd Landis to celebrate it. Pereiro collected that yellow jersey four months after stepping onto the Paris podium as runner-up.
By then, Alejandro Valverde was already on the team, having arrived from Kelme, backed by excellent results in all kinds of races. The Murcian champion has since achieved up to seven podium finishes wearing the team's jersey in the three Grand Tours, highlighting his victory in the 2009 Vuelta a España and third place in the 2015 Tour de France. To those successes, Valverde added in 2018 the rainbow jersey of world champion, the greatest international triumph by a team member in recent seasons. However, the team's greatest chances in the Tour de France came thanks to Colombian Nairo Quintana, with his two second places in 2013 and 2015, and the third place achieved in 2016. The eighth victory in Paris still remains elusive.
Telekom / T-Mobile
Telekom went down in the history of the Tour de France for putting an end to the era of Miguel Induráin, exercising great dominance in the carrera during its two victorious years in Paris, first with the Dane Bjarne Rijs in 1996, and the following year with the young German Jan Ullrich, who would later add four more podium finishes. The team was founded in 1988 by former world road champion Hernnie Kuiper, who secured the sponsorship of the city of Stuttgart to form an entirely German squad, initially led by Udo Bölts, who would later become a key domestique in Telekom. The German telecommunications company began its sponsorship in 1991 and took the decisive step toward success a year later with the hiring of Walter Godefroot, a classics specialist with a great track record who had moved into management with teams such as Capri, Lotto, or Weinmann. With Godefroot came the best German cyclists, including Erik Zabel and Jan Ullrich, as well as the Dane Bjarne Rijs, who had finished third in the 1995 Tour de France. By 1996, the qualitative leap was spectacular: Rijs won the Tour de France and Ullrich emerged as the great promise of world cycling, winning the young rider's jersey and finishing second overall. Along the way, Erik Zabel took two stage wins and the green Points jersey, while Telekom achieved second place in the team classification, which they would later win twice. All expectations about Telekom's dominance were confirmed in the 1997 Tour de France, in which Jan Ullrich dominated, finishing more than nine minutes ahead of the runner-up, Frenchman Richard Virenque. Of course, the cyclist from Rostock once again donned the white young rider's jersey, as well as finishing second in the Mountains classification. Had he taken the polka-dot jersey from Virenque, Telekom would have swept all, as Erik Zabel repeated in Paris with the green jersey and Telekom won the team classification. That overwhelming dominance eventually suffered a serious setback in the 1998 Tour de France, where Jan Ullrich arrived as the clear favorite not only to achieve a second victory, but also to mark an era. However, the Italian Marco Pantani broke all expectations in the historic Galibier stage, where he dethroned the German from the lead and catapulted himself to victory in Paris. Ullrich finished second and never won the Tour again, hampered by the injury in 1999 and the subsequent emergence of Lance Armstrong. Beyond Ullrich's figure, the German team continued to show itself as one of the strongest squads in the Tour, with Zabel dominating the mass sprints, eventually winning six green jerseys, and thanks to new signings like the Kazakh Aleksandr Vinokourov and the German Andreas Klöden, who added three more podiums in the Tour de France. Walter Godefroot's squad managed to win the team classification three consecutive times, already under the name T-Mobile, the Telekom subsidiary that took over from 2004. However, the team's great era began to collapse with Walter Godefroot's departure in 2006 and the doping scandals that affected its stars: Ullrich, involved in Operación Puerto, was fired in July 2006, and Erik Zabel and Bjarne Rijs ended up confessing that they had doped during the team's most glorious period. Telekom took due note and withdrew its sponsorship in 2007, although it committed to covering the 2008 season's budget in exchange for the disappearance of the team's name. company. With that money -it was then said to be 15 million euros-, a new team was created: the Team High Road.
Team Sky / Ineos
The Team Sky was born with deep pockets and a single objective: for a British cyclist to win the Tour de France. So far, they have six: four from Froome, one from Wiggins, and another from Thomas (Depositphotos).[/caption] The Team Sky, now Ineos, is the currently active cycling team with the most Tour de France victories, tied at seven with Movistar, and the team that currently holds the most Grand Tour wins in its record, after adding three Giros d'Italia and two Vueltas a España. The team was created in 2010 through the initiative of former British cyclist Bruno Bazaga, with sponsorship from British Sky Broadcasting, the television network owned by magnate Rupert Murdoch. The goal was to win the Tour de France with a British rider within three years, for which a budget of 30 million pounds was set aside, leaving the sporting direction in the hands of David Brailsford, the Welshman who had been highly successful as the British national track cycling coach. Sky signed several of the best British cyclists, including Bradley Wiggins and Geraint Thomas, as well as outstanding riders from other countries, such as Norwegian Edvald Boasson-Hagen, Colombian Rigoberto Urán, and Spaniard Juan Antonio Flecha. The team began to rack up early victories until, in 2011, they signed the man who would later become their great champion, the British-Kenyan Christopher Froome. After modest performances in his first two Tours de France, Sky's main objective was achieved in 2012, when they won the carrera with Wiggins and placed Froome second overall, who already in that edition was shaping up as a potential carrera champion. David Brailsford, who was still the British track coach at the time, achieved what seemed impossible that year: transforming a track specialist like Wiggins into a Grand Tour rider capable of conquering the mountains and, in the process, giving Great Britain its first yellow jersey. From that edition onwards, Sky exerted broad dominance in the Tour de France: Chris Froome took over from Wiggins and won the carrera in 2013, supported by a cast of domestiques capable of controlling every stage at will. Only the young leader's crash in the fifth stage of the 2014 Tour opened a brief pause in the chain of victories. When Froome returned, he won three more consecutive Tours (2015, 2016, and 2017), and the sequence continued with Geraint Thomas's victory in 2018. Meanwhile, David Brailsford kept recruiting the best of the international peloton, whether the best domestiques or the top prospects. In this last area, the manager signed Pavel Sivakov and Egan Bernal in 2017, winners that year of the under-23 Giro d'Italia and the Tour de l'Avenir, respectively. The Colombian quickly broke through in the British squad and won the 2019 Tour de France at just 22 years old. With the young Colombian star, Brailsford managed to continue Sky's successes, while also passing the torch from the old guard represented by Chris Froome. The severe crash of the four-time Tour champion at the Dauphiné hastened his departure from the team in 2020, opening a new sporting era. The changes were also reflected in the arrival of a new sponsor: the British petrochemical company Ineos, owned by the wealthiest man in the United Kingdom, Jim Ratcliffe. The new brand took over the team's name in 2020 in exchange for maintaining the largest budget in world cycling. Upon their arrival, it was said that the budget would approach 50 million euros per season. More than enough to continue their world supremacy. in cycling.