Who is the best men's Tour de France rider of the last 15 years? The Cyclingnews editors weigh in

If there's one thing we as cycling journalists – and as fans – like to do, it's debate. Whether it's a way to while away hours in a car at a Grand Tour, or to entertain ourselves on the roadside whilst we wait for the peloton to pass, chewing over arbitrary questions is always a fun activity.

Some favourites that always spark debate: which riders are really in the Big 3? Is Tadej Pogačar as good as Eddy Merckx? Is it boring when one person wins all the time? The discussions can be endless, and are one of the best things about being a sports fan.

So, before the 2025 Tour de France stirs up even more debates and debacles, we at Cyclingnews wanted to have a little debate of our own. Don't worry, we didn't pick the kind of controversial question that would make this story 6,000 words long, but instead got thinking about a reflection on the current era of pro cycling, and who could be named the best Tour de France rider since 2010.

You may already have someone in mind, reading that question, and you may think it's obvious, but actually, there's a whole host of riders who could be put forward for that accolade (no, we didn't all say Tadej Pogačar).

We gathered around our virtual CN roundtable, and here are our picks. What do you think? Did we forget anyone? Is anyone painfully wrong, or magically spot on? Do let us know your thoughts down in the comments, and join in our discussion as we patiently wait for the Tour to get underway.

Mark Cavendish – Tom (Tech Writer)

Mark Cavendish is the best Tour de France rider of the last fifteen years for me. Due to a spectacular relationship with the Tour that saw him win 35 stages from 2008 through to 2024, ultimately breaking Eddy Merckx's outright Tour de France individual stage wins record. It’s a staggering achievement, riders dream of winning a single Tour stage, to win 35 is completely off the charts.

Cavendish drew criticism at times during his career, especially as a fiery young sprinter. But the passion, commitment and talent it takes to consistently win at the world's hardest race for that amount of time is incredible. Only a very special cyclist would ever have been able to do it; it’s an achievement that I don’t think cycling fans should underestimate.

When Cavendish won his final, record-breaking Tour stage last year, many riders patted him on the back or offered congratulations after the finish line. The peloton showed its respect to the outright stage record holder. The Tour is over 100 years old, but Cavendish made history over the last fifteen years and did something that no rider before him has been able to do.

Peter Sagan – Dani (Senior News Writer)

Looking at the very recent history of the Tour, Tadej Pogačar is the obvious pick with three overall wins and 17 stages, but, reaching back to 2010, I'm going to pick a rider who has made an impact on a larger number of Tours.

That man is Peter Sagan, who won 12 stages and picked up a record-breaking seven green jerseys between 2012 and 2019. The Slovakian was unbeatable in the battle for the points classification during that time, usually having the green jersey in the bag well before the race reached Paris.

Sagan, who was also a cobbled Classics star, was more versatile than the other top sprinters of that period, a precursor to current versatile sprinters including Mathieu van der Poel, Wout van Aert, and Mads Pedersen. On tough stages when his rivals were stuck in the gruppetto, he was able to strike out in the breakaway and add vital intermediate sprint points to his tally.

With 130 stages spent in green – 41 more than any other rider in history – Sagan relegated the likes of Mark Cavendish, André Greipel, Marcel Kittel, and Alexander Kristoff into second place on numerous occasions. The only blot on his record was in 2017, when he was disqualified after causing a multi-rider crash late on stage 4.

Since Sagan's last green five years ago, no other rider has won more than one, and it certainly doesn't look like any riders will get close to his seven jerseys anytime soon.

Wout van Aert – Matilda (Assistant Features Editor)

For me, Wout van Aert is the best Tour rider in recent memory. No, he's never won the race, but he's had a breadth of success that really no one can compare to. Not many riders have won a Ventoux stage, a time trial and the Champs-Élysées sprint, but Van Aert has – all in one Tour!

As well as winning nine stages and the green jersey, Van Aert has also helped Jonas Vingegaard to two overall victories and, despite what a certain Netflix documentary might want to convince you of, he's an incredibly committed and proud teammate, who can go from winning one day to giving it all for his leader the next.

Other riders may have won more, or on a bigger scale, but in my eyes, no one has been more impressive on such a variety of stages. And all whilst being one of the best Classics riders of a generation, too. Wout van Aert can do everything, and in an era where the cycling world celebrates multi-discipline success so highly, Van Aert is surely the best at being good in any situation or stage you throw at him.

Thibaut Pinot – Will (Senior Tech Writer)

The last 15 years basically encompass my full tenure as a full-blown road cycling fan. Looking back, I thought about who I was most excited to watch at the time, but if I’m being totally honest, I was never really that fussed about who won, either on a particular stage or the race as a whole.

Yes, Cav was brilliant, and I adored watching Thomas Voeckler try and cling onto the yellow jersey, but on reflection, it was Pinot who I missed most upon his retirement, and his was perhaps the only career I genuinely mourned the loss of.

A heady mix of hope and sadness that cut through the formulaic, scientific race scene like a dagger to the heart. He made me feel things as a fan that no other rider did, not because he won, but because maybe he could have. Sport is ultimately entertainment, and for cycling fans, there is simply no better storyline than a lovely, plucky Frenchman who very nearly made it.

Geraint Thomas – Alasdair (Senior Staff Writer)

To be honest, my first choice was to pick out a team domestique at random and call them 'the best Tour rider'. That was purely because even if we do have live TV coverage from start to finish now, in the first two-thirds of the stage, these team workers are still the ones who put in the mostly unrecognised hard yards, ministering to the leader's every need and so on. A crucial role, but they rarely garner more than a few words of suspiciously generic thanks from the winner – and that's when the team win. Every day that happens, there are 20 or so teams with nothing to celebrate, and the team workers still have to clock on as usual. Yet without them, the Tour wouldn't happen.

Then I remembered about Geraint Thomas.

For years since his first Tour in 2007, he did all that kind of grunt work and more and then – as we all know – he did quite well on GC on his account. Not to mention complete the 2013 Tour with a busted pelvis. So Thomas might get my vote as 'best rider' for all the obvious reasons like winning the Tour (and not getting stuck up about it, either, which doesn't always happen), but even more so for what he was and did for his team for years beforehand.

Julian Alaphilippe – James (Staff Writer)

Realistically, this should just say Tadej Pogačar, but the Tour de France is about more than just winning the yellow jersey. Attacking, courage, occasional recklessness, and daredevil descending all make up part of racing with the romantic attribute of panache, something that has played a crucial part in making the Tour and its protagonists great for 122 years. No one, I think, has embodied or personified panache better than Julian Alaphilippe since 2010, so he gets my vote.

A true showman, Alaphilippe has been applying his swashbuckling trade to home roads at the Tour since 2016. A wearer of all four Tour jerseys, and six times a stage winner, often from opportunistic moves or punchy brilliance, Alaphilippe always had you on the edge of your seat when the goatee, rainbow jersey or flamboyant style on the bike appeared at the front of the action.

On that initial point of yellow, too, his quite unbelievable run in the lead of the 2019 Tour, when he gave the French hope for their first home maillot jaune triumph in 34 years, was perhaps the most enthralling that racing got in the 2010s. He ultimately came up short, but not winning too much, and his propensity to attack instead of save energy for a GC run never wavered, only adding to the panache, and his allure as an iconic Tour de France racer.

Thomas Voeckler – Jackie (NA Production Editor)

Watching the Tour de France on a live US broadcast each year has been a ritual for my family, what we considered to be a travel documentary wrapped around 21 consecutive days of reality sports competition. No one made it more fun to watch in the last 15 years than Thomas Voeckler.

The Frenchman's relentless attacking style, first shown in the 2004 Tour when he earned the maillot jaune from a fearless attack with four others, was elevated by his demonstrative physical display of anguish – his face contorted with a mix of pain and passion that begged for us to scream at the TV either 'allez, allez' or 'what are you doing?'

By 2010, he earned a second stage win at his home Grand Tour, and the next year reclaimed the yellow jersey for a chunk of the race when, from a breakaway, he finished on the podium on stage 9. Not known as a true climber, he even earned the polka-dot KOM jersey for one day at the Tour in 2012, suffering with a knee injury but surviving from a breakaway, with all of us cheering at home, to win atop Col du Grand Colombier.

We were never certain if the strain on Voeckler's face was theatre or pure effort, but he became both a French legend and the face of a breakaway on a world stage.

Chris Froome – Simone (Australian Editor)

I so want to say Cadel Evans, perhaps not a surprising reaction from an Australian, because his win in 2011 was the one that looms the largest for me. There is no underestimating the spotlight and legacy that win delivered in a nation where in normal circumstances, cycling barely graces the sports pages – an Australian wearing yellow in Paris, however, was far from normal circumstances.

Though the ride Evans delivered that year may be the most unforgettable for me, once the initial emotional response passes, I can’t help but pause and examine the question through a different lens. Ever-tainted by my former existence as a finance journalist, I felt compelled to ditch the personal parochial perspective and follow the drag of statistics. Look at the last five years and Tadej Pogačar, already the winner of three editions in the 20s, and with plenty of promise that the run will continue could be considered an obvious choice. Still, as the saying goes, ‘don’t count your chickens before they hatch,’ plus we aren’t just talking about the here and now, but also the decade before Pogačar emerged as a Tour de France force.

So, perhaps the rider who has ended up in yellow in Paris more than any other over the last 15 years deserves the title of best rider. It doesn’t matter if in recent years that rider has had to battle to find a place on the start line, let alone near the top of the results table – that doesn’t change what he did in 2013, 2015, 2016 and 2017. Chris Froome, with his four wins, has a Tour de France record that, based on number of overall victories, delivers a clear and deserved claim on the title of best rider of the last 15 years – I’d say inarguable, in fact, but we all know that’s never really the case…

Biniam Girmay – Kirsten (Deputy Editor)

Mark Cavendish ended his career with a record 35 stage wins, just as Biniam Girmay wrote his name into cycling's history books as the first Black African to win a stage at the Tour de France, winning three stages and the coveted green points jersey in 2024.

He also made his hometown fans even prouder by securing Eritrea's first-ever Tour de France stage win in the process.

Launched into cycling's stardom, Girmay has followed in the footsteps of compatriots Natnael Berhane, Merhawi Kudus, and Daniel Teklehaimanot, who became the first Black African to start the Tour de France in 2015, offering him a glimpse of what he could aspire to become.

Everyone loves a trailblazer, and I'm no exception. Girmay's history-making achievements have sparked celebration, emotion, inspiration and will undoubtedly open the door for more African riders to follow in his success.

Girmay has made a tremendous impact at the tail end of the last 15 years of the Tour de France. However, in a relatively short period, his achievements have been groundbreaking and have resonated far beyond the sport. This sprinter represents the future the world wants to see in professional cycling in the years to come.

Thomas De Gendt – Peter (Editor)

Ever since I first stumbled onto a live broadcast of the Tour de France at the age of 12, I have been rooting for the breakaway.

The breakaway is cycling's eternal underdog, forever in the shadow of the 180-strong peloton beating down on the stage victory ambitions of a select few doomed escapees.

In the recent history of the Tour de France, no rider has embodied the ill-fated bravery of the breakaway like Thomas De Gendt. In his nine editions of the race, he attacked in the mountains, on the dead flat, from the gun and beneath the Flamme Rouge - more often than not in the face of certain defeat.

In 2017, De Gendt spent a startling 1,280km of the Tour de France out front in a breakaway. It's a preoccupation the Belgian is clearly proud of, too, as a social media post after that Tour showed he kept a meticulous diary of his kilometres spent in an escape.

Twice, his efforts bore fruit: first in 2016, with an iconic victory atop Mount Ventoux (somewhat overshadowed by Chris Froome's now-infamous jog) and again in 2019 on stage 8 – cheered on by millions of breakaway believers.

De Gendt's attacks have always represented more than stage ambitions. These were acts of defiance against the authority of the peloton's natural order. In the age of ever-more control in a more competitive landscape of our sport, it's a riding style we may not see again.

Alberto Contador – Laura (Managing Editor)

'El Pistolero' might not be everyone's favourite Tour de France rider but there is no mistaking the aggression, excitement and controversy that Alberto Contador brought to the table during his 10 appearances in the race.

His first Tour victory came in 2007 when race leader Michael Rasmussen was pulled from the race over skipped doping controls. Thrust into the maillot jaune after stage 16, Contador won by a slim 23 seconds over Cadel Evans.

In 2009, Contador had to fight teammate Lance Armstrong for team leadership, but won the Tour in a commanding fashion despite being bullied by Armstrong loyalists in the team.

In 2010, Contador ignited a heated debate on cycling's unwritten rules when he attacked as rival Andy Schleck dropped his chain. The Spaniard won the race by 39 seconds only to have his victory overturned after he tested positive for minute quantities of clenbuterol.

Although drama and doping scandals hounded Contador throughout his career, his eight Grand Tour and two Tour victories make him one of the greatest stage racers of the age.

Romain Bardet – Stephen (Head of News)

Romain Bardet's best result at the Tour de France was second behind Chris Froome in 2016 but his 14-year career, his frequent Tour heartbreak and his decision not to ride this year's Tour as his 'last dance' epitomises his and France's love-hate relationship with the race.

The Tour made Bardet famous and respected as a rider but also hurt him physically and mentally each July, as the pressure mounted on his skinny shoulders to step-up and end France's 40-year spell without a win. Sadly there was never a fairytale ending but Bardet is intelligent enough to accept the cruelty of professional cycling.

At his swash blucking best Bardet could win mountain stages, usually from a breakaway and his last win and the yellow jersey in Rimini in 2024 arguably made up for all his previous Tour disappointment and pain.

Bardet retired after the Critérium du Dauphiné, not as a snub to the Tour but out of respect to the effort needed to compete with the best rather than consider it a three-week farewell ride.

Bardet will be at the 2025 Tour de France, reporting from a motorbike for Eurosport and TNT for a week. Some are even tipping him as future race director when Christian Prudhomme retires. He can't escape the emotions of the Tour, it will always be part of his life.

Tadej Pogačar – Josh (Associate Editor)

I'll take the obvious one then, shall I? In every sense of the word, Tadej Pogačar is the best Tour rider in the modern era. He's immensely talented, driven, likeable, engaging for sponsors, and inspiring for young riders across the world.

He has ridden five Tours de France, won three of them, and has never finished lower than 2nd on GC. After five Tours and 105 stages, he's spent just two nights outside the top 10 – both of which came on his debut in 2020, a race he went on to win.

In that winning debut, he joined an elite list of all-time greats to have achieved the feat, including Anquetil, Merckx, Fignon and Hinault. He's also the youngest rider to win the race in the modern era; a feat he achieved a day shy of his 22nd birthday.

Since then, he's gone on to clock 17 stages. His closest Tour de France rival, Jonas Vingegaard, has just four stages in an equal number of starts. Cavendish's total of 35 stages is impressive, but Pogačar is almost halfway there after five editions. Cavendish rode fifteen.

And he wins everywhere. He challenges the likes of Filippo Ganna in time trials on Monday and then goes and destroys the pure climbers in the mountains on Tuesday. Come spring, he goes head-to-head with Mathieu van der Poel and Wout van Aert in one-day races too.

His pure talent is undeniable, but he's also an exciting racer, not robotic like Froome at his peak or like Vingegaard is often perceived today. I'm sure, behind the scenes, he's just as meticulous and process-driven but come race day he doesn't ignore his racing instinct. He attacks when it feels right, and he sometimes makes mistakes, but he'll still talk to the press when he's beaten with a smile on his face and an 'it's just a bike race' nonchalance.

He somehow does it all with a modesty and humility that befalls most successful athletes, too. He jokes with his competitors on social media, replies to DMs from fans, engages with his sponsors at events, has time for young fans at race starts and, more than anything, he simply enjoys racing.