Curious things at the Tour de France: Flowing hair, short socks, sign thief

There are style rules and knowledge about aerodynamics. We have discovered two curious situations that skilfully ignore this.

White, long socks are a must for every road cyclist. Right?

On stage 12, Primož Roglič (Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe) broke a style rule - and socks can also make sense aerodynamically. He rode with sneaker socks (see photo). Why? To counteract the typical cyclist tanlines, he said jokingly.

We say with a wink: Were the short socks the reason why he let Florian Lipowitz go on the final climb?

Sign thief

The 14th stage took us over the Col du Tourmalet. It was foggy and cold. Not all riders had access to a team vehicle from which they could get rain jackets or similar. Julian Alaphilippe didn't know what else to do: He ripped a cardboard sign out of a spectator's hand - part of the sign to be precise, only to tear it up again immediately afterwards. The owner of the sign could no longer see what he did with it. He slipped the sign under his jersey to arm himself for the descent from the Tourmalet. In other words, in the traditional way that the front section was protected from the wind many years ago.

But that's not the end of the story. Sign thief Alaphilippe apologised to the woman, gave her his race number and allowed her to take a photo with Wout van Aert. There was also a photo of the three of them.

Stage winner? But not

Let's stay with Alaphilippe, but at the end of stage 15, when he crossed the finish line, he was jubilant. He thought he had won the sprint across the finish line in Carcassonne until a fellow rider enlightened him: two were further ahead. He is third. Relatively at the beginning of the stage, he was involved in a fall in which he dislocated his shoulder, which he repositioned himself. Since the crash, however, his radio had stopped working. Alaphilippe knows how to cheer falsely, as this has happened to him several times in the past. You can find all the details here: "Like an idiot": Alaphilippe celebrates supposed victory.

Into the mountain time trial with your hair down

Let's start with a fun fact: Simmons is the only US-American on the American Lidl-Trek team. Before he got into cycling, he was a ski mountaineer. In 2018, he was the US junior champion both on the road and in cross-country mountain biking.

Simmons already took part in the Tour de France in 2022 and 2023. The first time he took part, he finished 66th, in 2023 it was DNF (did not finish). How it will look in 2025 remains to be seen. He is currently in 64th place overall, 34:15 minutes behind the leader.

In the photo, he is celebrated by the Tour de France fans in the middle of the mountain time trial of the 13th stage of the Tour de France 2025.

He seemed to take a more relaxed approach to the stage - at least with a less aerodynamic hairstyle. He left his long blonde hair loose. Or did he prefer to save weight and therefore do without the hair tie? Or do the aero socks make up for the aerodynamic losses due to the loose hair?