CHARTRES, France — The Tour de France brings out the lightest and fastest bikes, and sometimes the best-looking. We visited the 22 teams to check out each squad's line.

We didn't consider weight, price, or tech; instead, if the bike looked thoughtfully put together, had attractive paint, was mated to a stylish wheelset, and had fine touches that made us drool a little, the better it did.

We considered only the regular bikes, so we excluded those with custom paint and one-offs, like the race leader's yellow BMC. Also, many teams have two or three types of bikes — a climbing bike, an aero bike, and a time-trial bike. We went with the bikes we saw the riders racing most often.

Here are the best-looking bikes at the Tour de France, ranked from meh to ooh!

SEE ALSO: Up close with the Tour leader's yellow Teammachine

DON'T MISS: The fastest bike at the Tour? An American-born $13,000 hyper-aero machine

No. 22 — Team Sky's Pinarello Dogma

Chris Froome is the most successful three-week stage racer of this era, but his bike feels uninspired. All-black bicycles have peaked — or at least they should have. The Dogma is terrific, but looks-wise, meh.

No. 21 — Dimension Data's Cervélo R5

Again, another stealthy black bike. Bor-ing. We ranked this one just ahead of Sky's Dogma only because we liked the bits of green, the type, and that blingy chain. But really, this bike could do with some color.

No. 20 — Katusha-Alpecin's Canyon Aeroad

At least it's not all black! But still, kind of plain and uninspired. The Canyon type is cool, and this is a fast bike, but overall there's not much to thrill the senses.

DREUX, France — The Tour de France riders who head to the official energy-bar provider each day really like the chocolate-nut protein bar, the vegan cacao-crunch bar, and the cola-flavored gel shots, according to the PowerBar representative working the station.

She told Business Insider those three are the most popular items she sees the riders pack into their jersey pockets each day before racing. She the photos below from the Tour's "free fuel" energy station:

SEE ALSO: The Tour de France bikes, ranked

DON'T MISS: See the Tour de France leader's custom-painted yellow BMC Timemachine

Welcome to the Tour de France.

Every day of the three-week Tour de France, there's a PowerBar station set up just near the sign-on area. PowerBar is the official nutrition supplier of the Tour.

Bar food.

The are a variety of energy bars available to the riders looking for "free fuel."

Liquid lunch.

And there are energy gels of different varieties.

On July 7 cyclists from around the world will begin the Tour de France, the prestigious three-week stage race — or "grand tour" — that happens to be the world's largest annual sporting event. All told, that's 2,087 miles of pedaling for this year's race.

Each day participants ride, on average, about 110 miles and burn some 6,071 calories, according to Inside Science.

To give you a better idea of just how many calories that is, we've teamed up with the folks at Inside Science, which originally calculated how many jelly donuts you'd have to eat to generate enough energy to keep up with a Tour de France cyclist on race day. Turns out it's 32!

Here are some more popular foods, and how many of each you'd have to eat to compete. Of course, this is not what Tour de France cyclists actually eat while competing!

SEE ALSO: Scientists just discovered a simple way to eat healthier and potentially curb cravings, no diet required

DON'T MISS: Take this quiz to figure out what you should be eating on a daily basis

Join the conversation about this story »

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AMIENS, France — Sunday's stage nine of the Tour de France has been the most talked-about, and most feared, day of the race.

On the nearly 100-mile stage in northern France the riders will tackle 13.5 miles of punishing cobblestones. It promises to be can't-miss racing.

The tricky bit is that most of the riders looking to win the Tour overall almost never ride the cobbles, so everyone will be watching the likes of Team Sky's Chris Froome, EF Education First–Drapac's Rigoberto Urán, and AG2R-La Mondiale's Romain Bardet, among other favorites, to see how they handle cycling's most feared roads.

Dedicated to helping Urán get through the stage safely and quickly are Colorado's Taylor Phinney and his fellow EF-Drapac teammates.

Urán looks to be in good hands: Phinney rode to eighth in April's Paris-Roubaix classic, two places behind teammate Sep Vanmarcke of Belgium, in a race with many more miles of brutal cobbles, seen here:

The US-registered team has special bikes built up for Sunday, too, including Phinney's Synapse.

See the photos below:

SEE ALSO: Tour de France bikes, ranked

DON'T MISS: Who will win the Tour de France?

This is Phinney's main race bike for Sunday. It's the Cannondale Synapse, the company's most compliant and forgiving road bike.

At 6-foot-5 and 187 pounds, Phinney rides a big, 60 cm frame.

Distinctive features are the wider tires and lower tire pressure, which make riding over rough cobbles a little less hellish.

BREST, France — On July 7, 176 of the world's best cyclists started this 105th edition of the Tour de France. Six still have a realistic shot at winning.

That's according to Jonathan Vaughters, boss of the American EF Education First–Drapac p/b Cannondale team.

"Fewer than 10 guys can win, for sure, but probably that number is three or four, realistically," Vaughters told Business Insider on Wednesday. But why?

"Cycling teams are built like an American football team or baseball team. We have different positions for different riders. There are very few riders who can, day by day, take the position of gaining time or not losing time. That's sort of your key guy, who for us is Rigoberto Urán and for Sky is Chris Froome.

"But the other guys on the team, they don't have the capacity to do that, which has been proved over years of their racing career. Yet they do have the capacity to fill a lot of other very valuable roles in helping Rigo get to the finish line. So it's Taylor Phinney or Tom Scully, these big strong guys who are way too heavy to go well in the high mountains but are actually a little stronger than Rigo on the flat stages. So their job is, basically, to drag him around and make sure that he doesn't lose any time relative to the others. It's just different positions for different riders.

"It's like, a linebacker isn't going to throw a perfect quarterback pass, and a quarterback isn't going to be able to snap the ball perfectly under pressure. It's the same thing in cycling."

There are more contenders this year, Vaughters added.

"I don't really know why," he said. "You have some years where guys get sick or injured. Or a lot of guys decide to do the Vuelta or Giro instead. This year a lot of guys stayed healthy, and a lot of guys want to do the Tour de France."

Here are the riders who can realistically hope to win this Tour, according to Vaughters:

DON'T MISS: What it's like to ride a $13,000 Tour de France road bike

SEE ALSO: Inside SRAM, Chicago's high-tech bicycle-components company that last year raked in $700 million and is up 15%

Vincenzo Nibali, Team Bahrain-Merida

Nationality: Italian

Age: 33

Major results: Winner of the Tour de France, the Tour of Italy, the Tour of Spain, the Tour of Lombardy, and Milan-San Remo.

Chris Froome, Team Sky

Nationality: Kenyan-born Briton

Age: 33

Major results: Four-time winner of the Tour de France; winner of the Tour of Italy; winner of the Tour of Spain; three-time winner of the Critérium du Dauphiné.

Romain Bardet, AG2R La Mondiale

Nationality: French

Age: 27

Major results: Three-time stage winner of the Tour de France; second and third overall in two Tours de France; third at Liège-Bastogne-Liège.

A bicyclist on Tuesday jumped over Tour de France riders as they raced on stage 10.

It's not the first time this has happened in a big pro bike race, but it's always kind of surprising when it does.

Thankfully the rider, who appeared to be Alexis Bosson, pulled off the stunt clean and didn't interfere with the race — or the riders' safety.

Watch the little stunt here:

Update: You can see what appears to be the rider's point of view here:

SEE ALSO: The Tour de France bikes, ranked

DON'T MISS: I just went inside America's coolest Tour de France team's critical race recon — here's what I saw

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Here's why the US Men's team sucks at soccer

DREUX, France — For the Tour de France cyclists, the team bus is a sanctuary. Outside their hotel rooms, it's the only place the riders can enjoy some semblance of privacy. There are no fans in their faces badgering them for selfies, no journalists peppering them with the same questions day after day.

For an hour or so before and after each stage, the athletes get to relax in the air-conditioned coaches, with their covered windows, reclining seats, Spotify playlists, TVs, showers, espresso machine, and refrigerators packed with fresh food and cold drinks. And no matter how sultry it is outside, inside it's always cool and dark.

But the bus is also a working office, and as in any job there's a time to get down to business, to talk strategy and how to get results. The 22 Tour teams show up to win, after all, be it individual stages or the race overall. And they do need results — their jobs and sponsorship depend on it.

Success in the world's biggest bike race often comes down to executing a winning plan, and it's on the bus that each day's plan is reviewed in detail, or redrawn depending on how the race unfolds. The American outfit EF Education First–Drapac p/b Cannondale invited Business Insider inside its team bus for one of its daily meetings.

Here's what we saw:

SEE ALSO: The Tour de France bikes, ranked

DON'T MISS: Inside SRAM, Chicago's high-tech bicycle-components company that last year raked in $700 million and is up 15%

As we've learned, the job of a professional bike racer is not unlike that of many other jobs. There are responsibilities, goals, challenges, opportunities, and even performance reviews (very public ones). They show up for work every day and are expected to perform their best. It's just that they get paid to ride bikes.

Each day of the three-week Tour, the riders wake up early and eat breakfast in their team hotel before boarding the bus and driving to the start. Once the bus is parked, the window blinds are pulled down, the music is turned off, the rider chatter stops, and the space becomes quiet, the only sound being that of the big motor humming in the belly of the bus and the AC blowing through the vents. EF-Drapac's head sports director, Charly Wegelius, stands at the front of the bus to begin the meeting. A former pro rider himself, Wegelius brings decades of experience to the team.

The meetings typically don't feature many slides, but the ones Wegelius does use help communicate visually what he believes is the important information to know. He lists in bullet points the "keys to the game" and goes over each. It helps the riders get their head in the race and prepared for what's to come.

The day we visited the bus was not a very complex stage, but on days in the mountains things do get more complicated in terms of planning and strategy.

LES HERBIERS, France — Last August we reported that one of the US's top pro cycling teams was in danger of folding unless it came up with $7 million within a week, which was kind of crazy considering its star rider had just finished second in the world's preeminent bicycle race. It wasn't fake news, though: Without the extra dough, team boss Jonathan Vaughters said, it really would've shut down.

But as The Wall Street Journal reported in early September, the green came, and with it not just a big new sponsor but a new owner, one that many American cycling fans had never heard of: EF Education First.

EF is a privately owned company that calls itself "the world leader in international education." It was founded in 1965, in Lund, Sweden, and today it has 580 schools and offices in 52 countries. Think of it as the biggest education-travel company you've never heard of until now.

Recently at the Tour de France, CEO Edward Hult spoke with Business Insider about why EF bought a cycling team, why he's not losing sleep over the sport's rampant-doping past, and why a YouTube video can only show you so much about the world.

Interview condensed and edited for clarity.

Daniel McMahon: We're sitting here at the Tour, which is viewed by hundreds of thousands on the roadside and millions more on TV worldwide. This year your company, EF, not only took on title sponsorship of the Cannondale-Drapac team but bought the naming rights. Yet before that I'd never heard of EF, as I presume was the case for many Americans. In your words, what is EF Education First?

Edward Hult: We're experiential education. We're about teaching people different cultures and getting people exposure to different beliefs and different ways of looking at things. We do that through language, we do that through travel, and we do it through cultural-exchange programs, and even some academic programs. We try to incorporate an educational component and a cultural-education component, so a travel component that has some sort of cultural exchange to it, as well as education. Education can be language training, it can be about the cultures, or it can be formal degree programs.

McMahon: So it's like curated travel for people who want to learn a language.

Hult: Yes, it's mostly curated. We try to make it experiential because the last thing we want to do is bring people abroad and stand there and lecture at them. You can take a lecture anywhere. So it's really like, let's get them out there, let's make it a safe environment, but get them to experience the countries and the places they go to.

McMahon: So if I wanted to travel in, say, Asia and learn a language there, can I do it short term and long term?

Hult: Yes. You can enroll for a week; you can enroll for a year. You can travel, and in some places we have local schools. We encourage you, if you can, to take the travel ones, because it's always better to learn a language immersed in it, I believe. We also have online English training.

McMahon: How did the company get started?

Hult: The very first product we had was taking mainly high-school kids from Sweden during their summer break to study English in the UK. That was EF day one. And that really came about because of my father. I'm dyslexic, and he's very dyslexic. He struggled in school, and then he worked as a mail-delivery boy at a bank in the UK for a summer, and that's where his English really got better. And he was like, "Wow, it was so much easier learning English that way."

McMahon: So what are some of EF's most popular programs today?

Hult: It depends on where you are in the world. You can go to Asia, as you said, for instance, where we have a lot of local language schools. In Europe it's mainly language travel, so you travel to the country and study. And in North America it's mainly what we call some of our tours business, which is you go on a tour and we show you part of the world for a week or two. And then we've got a high-school program. We're associated with the Hult International Business School. And then we've got the high-school exchange and the au pair program.

So it really depends on where you are and what you're looking for, but if you take the tours business — what I operationally oversee day to day — our most popular tours are London, Paris, and Rome, and you do that for 11 days. For many of our travelers, they've never been outside of their own town before, so for them it's huge.

You know, a couple of years ago I was on a tour, and London was the first day. Everyone arrived, and it was five different groups from five parts of the US, small towns of just a few thousand people, and almost none of them had been outside their town before. So for them to come to London and go on a subway and see all the people — and when we got to Paris they had gained confidence, and the students were running around: "We want to go there!""We want to see that!" And you see it over the 11 days how it transforms the kids and their confidence level and just their understanding of things.

McMahon: Who are your competitors?

Hult: EF in itself as a global company doesn't really have a direct competitor, but within the products there are tons of competitors. If you take EF Go Ahead Tours, it has a lot of competitors — Trafalgar, for example. Then there's a lot of local language training in different countries.

But generally I think competition is healthy. I'm quite competitive, so it makes it kind of fun. And if companies didn't have competitors you'd all get fat and lazy, and the consumer would end up on the losing side even more, because then you have higher costs and poor service, where if you have competitors you keep your products and your services top notch, and that's what you should be providing. And that's how we're going to have any sort of impact — not through crappy services. You're going to have an impact by having great services.

McMahon: So why buy a pro cycling team?

Hult: Well, for one, cycling is awesome. But it really sort of started a couple of years ago, with me and my oldest brother, who works in the London office.

EF has generally been bad at PR and brand awareness. We grew up being really strong at sales, and sales have been the driver of how we built EF from the ground. We've done very little marketing and almost no PR and no branding. So as we keep growing, we keep hearing we're the best-kept secret and that no one knows who we are, though we're around the world. And so me and my brother started talking about it. "Should we try to do a global sort of brand campaign?" And so we started looking into it because we thought it might be worth a try, to see if we could become a little bit more known for everything we do.

So we started looking into media agencies. But if you want to do a global brand campaign, one, it's super expensive, and, two, there are a lot of really good media agencies that specialize within just one or a few countries. We were struggling to find ones that were really good globally. And while we were looking we heard about this cycling team that was about to fold. At first we didn't think twice about it.

The thing is, I'm very passionate about cycling, but I don't follow pro cycling. I love riding a bike — I do amateur events. But if you asked me who all the pro riders were before we got involved, I wouldn't have been able to tell you anyone. But we started looking more closely, and it kind of hit us that there's this group of people from diverse countries and diverse backgrounds who are all coming together, working hard together for a common goal on a global stage. And we were thinking that that, in itself, is a little of what EF is all about too. It's about bringing different cultures together, solving problems, world issues.

A lot of our programs will bring different cultures together to look at problems and get the idea generation you get from different cultures when they share their backgrounds and how to approach it. It's pretty cool. And so here is this pro cycling team that's doing that, and they're being seen and they're being viewed by the world. And while I do understand it's a cycling-fan-based world, cycling is also a really popular sport, especially in Europe, but even more so in other countries.

And so we're like, "Could this be our branding campaign? Instead of a media agency, could we actually use this cycling team? Because they're kind of representing what EF is trying to do." And so we started looking more into it. We also looked at the current sponsors of the team, and we realized, for instance, that it was Drapac, which emphasizes education for the riders, and EF is all about education. There was [the helmet maker] POC, which is all about safety, and Cannondale, which prides itself on being innovative. Our whole big thing is getting out there to the masses. We felt if we do this right, this could actually be really cool.

So not only was this marketing thing going on, there was this whole cycling spirit that we believe in, with bringing all these different cultures together, working together. And it's a really nice way to unite staff around the globe, to cheer on this team and make them be proud of this team.

McMahon: And so even though cycling is cleaner today than it has been in the past, given its history of rampant doping, did you have concerns about the sport's integrity?

Hult: Yes, of course. Natural hesitations there. We clearly had zero tolerance for this, but one of the things that was attractive was Jonathan Vaughters' stance against this too. I think the way he's sort of spearheaded a lot of the internal stuff within cycling — trying to help clean it up — was quite inspirational. And it felt right; it felt like he's 100% on board that there's zero tolerance. And so we feel safe with him at the helm of the day-to-day operations. But yeah, we don't want to be involved in any of the dirty stuff.

Also, it gets easier to get sucked into that if everything is about winning. And of course winning is great, and it's a big plus, but for us that's really not the main objective. We see it as a big added bonus. But really it's about how do we get the message out there that these different people from different nationalities are coming together, working together, and then how can we get them involved in community events and cycling and things like that, rather than "We have to win at all costs." And of course we want to try to win — winning is great — but that's not the end-all, be-all for us by any means.

McMahon: What does EF's growth look like?

Hult: What we usually say is that we double about every five years sort of any way you measure it. There've been years we've taken big hits — 9/11 was an example of that. There was the oil crisis in the '70s, before my time, and that was a big hit as well. So then you sort of reset, and you keep building.

McMahon: How sensitive is EF's business to the global political climate, with things like Brexit and the current administration in the US?

Hult: It's not as sensitive as people think. People still want to learn. With technology you're somehow interacting on a global scale today even if you're not meaning to. We've found that people are still interested in learning about different cultures. They want to know. They want to get out there and see. Not 100% of the population, absolutely not, but a large, large part. Education will never go away. People are still going to need face-to-face stuff, to actually be able to talk to someone. But people are going to want to travel. They're going to want to see these cultures and meet different people and learn about how they see the world.

McMahon: What's the big thing you'd like people to know about EF?

Hult: If you're interested in learning something new about any culture or any people, or the history or arts, and you want to do it in an experiential way, that's what we provide — rather than reading about it or seeing it in a YouTube video. I love YouTube, but a video can only show so much. And not really until you're immersed within a situation can you have your biases and your truth challenged, where you feel you're challenging your own truths yourself, because you're learning and hearing something.

DON'T MISS: Vaughters blasts 'arrogant' juggernaut Sky at Tour de France

SEE ALSO: What really goes on inside a Tour de France bus during those closed-door meetings

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: This controversial Supercross star has 20 minutes to make $1 million

• Protesters interrupted Stage 16 of the Tour de France when they blocked the road with bales of hay.
• The protesters were identified by many as local farmers.
• Police eventually moved the bales and combatted the protesters with pepper spray.
• Many of the riders appeared to be affected by the pepper spray and one video showed a police officer using the spray just as riders were passing.

BAGNERES DE-LUCHON, France (AP) — Four-time champion Chris Froome was among riders whose eyes needed treatment for tear gas when a farmers' protest interrupted the 16th stage of the Tour de France on Tuesday.

Bales of hay blocked the road 30 kilometers into the 218-kilometer leg from Carcassonne to Bagneres De-Luchon. Tour organizers said police used tear gas to disperse the protesters as the peloton approached.

Froome, race leader Geraint Thomas, and world champion Peter Sagan appeared to be among those affected by the chemical and were treated with eye drops.

Reuters photographer Stephane Mahe captures these photos of (from left to right) Daniel Felipe Martinez of Colombia, Thomas, and Sonny Colbrelli of Italy.

One video appeared to show a police officer using pepper spray on a protester within feet of the riders (look for the puff of spray between the red tractor and the white truck).

The stage resumed after a 15-minute delay.

This Tour has been marred by incidents.

Race organizers have struggled to deal with angry fans protesting Froome's participation. After fans threw flares at riders in the climb to the ski resort of Alpe d'Huez, Tour organizers banned the use of smoke flares for the rest of the race.

Froome raced all season under the cloud of a potential ban for using twice the permitted level of salbutamol during his victory at the Spanish Vuelta in September. He was cleared only just before the Tour. He said he has been repeatedly spat at since the race started, and spectators have punched him and tried to make him fall off his bike.

Froome sits second in the general classification, 1 minute, 39 seconds behind Sky teammate Thomas.

___

AP Sports writer Andrew Dampf and Associated Press photographer Peter Dejong contributed to this story

___

More Tour de France coverage: https://apnews.com/tag/TourdeFrance

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DREUX, France — There's no shortage of tech talk when the Tour de France rolls around, and it invariably has something to do with hyper-aero frames, ultralight wheels, nonround chainrings, slippery apparel, and even powdered chains. Teams will try just about anything to go faster. So it's refreshing to see a more analog innovation taking hold in the world's preeminent bicycle race: wider tires and lower tire pressure.

As we wrote in a recent review of one Tour-worthy bike, there's been a trend toward riding wider tires with lower pressure, and for good reason: It's essentially faster and more comfortable in non-lab, real-world conditions. That's been backed by an increasing number of research studies, including a report by VeloNews. That flies in the face of conventional wisdom that said to go faster you needed narrower tires with higher pressure. Think rock-hard, 22mm tubulars.

Last week at the Tour, Business Insider spoke with Geoff Brown, the head mechanic of the EF Education First–Drapac p/b Cannondale team. This is Brown's 21st Tour, so he's seen his share of trends. (He used to wrench for one Lance Armstrong.)

We asked Brown about the trend to embrace wider tires and lower tire pressure, something that once seemed counterintuitive in pro cycling but has become a standard of sorts among the very top teams.

"It depends on the road surface, but 10 years ago the standard was 23mm tires at 8 or 8.5 bar, or 115, 120 psi," Brown said. "And now it's 25mm for regular road racing and 7 to 7.5 bar for front and rear, so a little less than 100 to 110 max on the bikes." So what's the deal?

"There seems to be a lot more real science behind cycling now," Brown explained. "A lower tire pressure with more surface contact translates to lower rolling resistance, which is one of the main factors. And the bikes are much stiffer these days, with the carbon-fiber frames, especially the aero frames, and the aero rims — like when you're running like a 50mm-section rim, which is quite deep — all that stuff is stiff, so the lower pressure helps provide more comfort for the rider."

For what it's worth, we didn't see any 23mm tires at the Tour this year — we did look at a lot of tires — though of course we may have just missed them. By far the most common widths were 25mm and 26mm. And while it's difficult to compare Tour speeds based on tire width and pressure, the growing research and the massive push across teams to wider tires and lower pressure speak volumes.

Could we see road tires at the Tour as wide as 27mm or 28mm anytime soon?

"Things are moving along quite quickly here in our sport," Brown said. "The disc-brake thing has gained real momentum, so on those frames you can certainly run wider tires because there's the clearance for it. I could see it evolving to 26mm or 27 mm as the standard road-racing tire, sure. Why not."

Even bigger riders — like the 6-foot-5, 187-pound Taylor Phinney— run tire pressure as low as the lighter, more compact climbers, such as Rigoberto Urán.

"As far as pressure goes, they all stay the same because it's still a team sport, and if Phinney is riding alongside Rigo and he gets a flat, he'll need a new wheel quickly," Brown said. "Everything is sort of centered around what the leader uses, so if the leader has 7 in his wheels, everyone has to have 7 in their wheels."

SEE ALSO: The Tour de France bikes, ranked

DON'T MISS: The CEO of an 'experiential education' company explains why he bought one of America's top Tour de France teams

Join the conversation about this story »

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LA BAULE, France — In the modern era of the Tour de France, the race leader's team often gives him a custom-painted yellow bike to ride, and sometimes, frankly, teams go overboard with yellow handlebar tape, yellow wheels, a yellow saddle, and even a full yellow kit for the rider. Thankfully the US-registered BMC Racing Team of Greg van Avermaet is keeping it classy with a simple, elegant yellow frame and fork. It's befitting of the classy Belgian, who took over the race lead on Monday after his squad won the team time trial in Cholet.

Before stage four of the Tour got underway on Tuesday, BMC let Business Insider have a quick close-up look of the race leader's Teammachine SLR01.

See the photos below:

NEXT UP: The Tour de France bikes, ranked

DON'T MISS: Inside a Tour team's critical race recon

SEE ALSO: Phinney's hyper-aero Cannondale SystemSix at the Tour

Van Avermaet, 33, is a veteran pro who has won many of the world's biggest races, including Paris-Roubaix. He's also the reigning Olympic road-race champion.

The saddle is a nod to the Olympic champ, known as GvA, who won gold in Rio.

This is the Teammachine SLR01, BMC's flagship road-race bike.

Chris Froome, the best stage racer in cycling, suddenly can't get a break at the Tour de France, a race he's won four times.

After Wednesday's stage 17, Froome was riding his bike back down the finishing climb to his bus when a police officer apparently mistook him for a spectator and, in a moment of confusion, knocked the champ to the ground.

Froome was visibly upset, yelling "F--- you!" at the cop:

There were photos on Twitter of Froome's bike on the ground, as well as his personal bodyguard's:

"It was a misunderstanding — Chris is fine," a Team Sky representative said, according to the AFP.

Earlier, Froome's teammate and the Tour leader Geraint Thomas had his own trouble when a spectator appeared to reach his arm out directly into the race leader's way:

There have been a number of similar incidents happening to Froome and his team at this Tour. As the AFP reported, "a mid a general feeling of suspicion surrounding Sky and their sheer domination of the Tour, Froome has been spat at and manhandled, Thomas has been booed off the podium, and some of Sky's staff have also faced abuse."

But Froome's troubles began long before the Tour started.

He almost didn't get to race because of a leaked positive test result revealed he'd been over the allowed limit for the asthma drug salbutamol at last year's Vuelta a España. At the last minute, after months of waiting, he was cleared.

The matter seemed to put a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths, and it's been wreaking a fair bit of havoc on him and his Sky team on the roads around France.

As the AFP also reported, the world cycling chief David Lappartient called on Sky boss Dave Brailsford to stop fanning the flames after he blamed abuse of his team and riders on a "French cultural thing."

This week, the US Anti-Doping Agency's Travis Tygart, the same guy who took down Lance Armstrong, told the BBC that the handling of Froome's asthma drug case has been a "blow" to the World Anti-Doping Agency's credibility.

Jonathan Vaughters, the boss of the EF-Drapac team, told Business Insider at the Tour that Sky was "opaque, arrogant, abusive"

The defending Tour champ came into cycling's biggest race on July 7 as the hot favorite, but after a less-than-stellar performance in the Alps and Pyrenees, he is sitting in third place, 2 minutes and 31 seconds behind teammate Thomas, who looks virtually set to win the race on Sunday.

SEE ALSO: The Tour de France bikes, ranked

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Here's why the US Men's team sucks at soccer

• Lance Armstrong sat down for a lengthy interview with Freakonomics Radio.
• Armstrong admits that he was not contrite during his infamous interview with Oprah Winfrey but that a recent private conversation "rocked [him] to the core."
• He also told a great story about how he is no longer combative and even paid for all the tabs at a bar after they chanted "F--- you!" at him.

Unlike Alex Rodriguez, the redemption of Lance Armstrong has been a slow and painful process that may never come to fruition, but it does sound like he is finally coming to grips with everything that has happened and is finally contrite.

Armstrong sat down for an hour-long interview on Freakonomics Radio and discussed everything that has happened in the six years since the 7-time Tour de France champion was banned from the sport for life because of doping.

In the interview, Armstrong revealed that his infamous interview with Oprah Winfrey in 2013 was a strategic move and that he had not yet reached a place of contrition. However, he told two stories from the past 18 months that show he may finally have reached that one spot most people have been waiting for.

The first was a conversation Armstrong had a with a longtime Livestrong employee who "absolutely hated [his] guts." According to Armstrong, she said the Livestrong people felt "complicit" in his actions, something he had never considered.

"Betrayal is a very heavy word. Complicit is 100 times [worse]," Armstrong said. "For me, I had already started to get my mind and my heart around the fact that people had suffered this tremendous amount of betrayal, and then I was hit with complicit. And it just — it rocked me to the core."

The second story shows that Armstrong may actually be acting on his newfound contrition.

Armstrong explained how he was waiting for an Uber in Denver when a group of people at a patio bar across the street noticed him. The Uber pulled up in front of the bar and Armstrong had to cross the street to get in. As Armstrong passed the crowd, he acknowledged one person who called to him and then the entire crowd eventually was chanting "F--- you!" at him. 

According to Armstrong, ten years ago he would have started throwing punches. Instead, he paid for all their tabs and merely said, "I understand."

"I’m getting in my Uber and there’s one guy goes, 'Hey Lance,' and I fully expected him to go, 'What’s up, dude?' and you know, 'Right on man, love you,' you know? And I go 'Hey what’s up?' He goes 'F— you. F— you! F— you!' and he wouldn’t stop. And the next thing you know, the entire patio is screaming 'F— you, f— you, f—.' I’ve never had that happen. I was like, 'Oh.' I was shaking.

So I got in the car and it was a very short drive to the race. But I’m sitting there, and I’m not saying a word, but I’m saying to myself, 'You’re Lance Armstrong. You have to do something. You can’t take that.' So I called the bar. I said, 'Put the manager on the phone.' Manager gets on the phone. I explained to him everything that happened. And he said, 'Oh man, I’m so sorry. Dude that’s really regrettable. Hope it doesn’t happen again.' I said, 'Okay, I need you to do me a favor. Here’s my credit card number. I want you to walk out there and you buy everything they’re eating and drinking. And tell them that I understand.'

Me of 10 years ago, I would have jumped across the railing and start throwing punches. But this is 2017 in summer, sitting in the car saying 'I have to act. I got to do something.' And that’s the best thing that I could come up with. And just to say to those people 'Look, I get it.'"

You can listen to the entire interview here.

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PARIS — Think Tour de France and you think bikes, but what keeps things moving behind the scenes for the teams in the world's preeminent two-wheeled event are the countless cars, trucks, and buses following the race.

La Grande Boucle — the Great Loop — is often a grueling three-week slog, so the vehicles need to be versatile and reliable and always ready to go, over the bone-jarring cobblestones of Roubaix, up the steepest Pyrenean climbs, and down the superfast, twisty Alpine descents.

The EF Education–Drapac p/b Cannondale team invited Business Insider to check out its fleet at the Tour. Take a look at the vehicles up close and in action:

SEE ALSO: The Tour de France bikes, ranked

DON'T MISS: Inside SRAM, Chicago's high-tech bicycle-components company that last year raked in $700 million and is up 15%

Checking out the bikes and Tour tech is neat, but it's also fun to poke around behind the scenes and hop into some of the cars. Above, the lead race car of the EF Education First–Drapac team for the 2018 Tour, the Škoda Superb, which has a 2-liter diesel engine with 180 horsepower — hardly a beast, yet a nimble enough wagon for a grand tour.

This model is a few years old, but the latest version of this car would cost in the neighborhood of £28,500 in the UK (about $37,350 USD).

These EF-Drapac Škodas are basically the same as those sold to the public, but with the Tour cars the suspension is raised after purchase and the cars are rehomologated, or legally recertified. The normal suspension can't cope with the weight of the coolers, bikes, gear, and racks, I'm told — they'd just bottom out.

The Czech carmaker Škoda is a wholly owned subsidiary of the German Volkswagen Group, and the Superb model is one of the most popular choices for Tour teams. Škoda is also the official car of the Tour, supplying 250 vehicles.

This is one of the team's two cars that go in the race and follow the riders for the 21 stages and 2,000 or so miles around France.

• Hövding's airbag collar is allegedly safer than any other bicycle helmet in the world. 
• Hövding is now looking to add the US and Australia to its 16 markets across Europe and Asia. 
• In 2019 a newer version will be even safer, more comfortable, and will also be connected to your smartphone.

Despite its unusual appearance, the Hövding bicycle collar has become somewhat mainstream and no longer raises eyebrows when spotted on the roads of Stockholm, Copenhagen and Berlin.

The Hövding helmet was innovated as a way to circumvent the apparent "nerdiness" of traditional helmets, while preserving the cyclist's safety, vanity, and hairdo. As a bonus, the solution of an airbag worn as a collar — which inflates in 0.1 seconds should an algorithm detect an accident — has proven to be far safer than helmets it was designed to replace.

A study by Stanford University found that the Hövding airbag helmet provided eight times better protection than a conventional bicycle helmet. Similarly, a study by the Swedish insurance company Folksam found that a Hövding reduced the risk of head injury in accidents while travelling at 25 kilometres per hour to just 2%. With a conventional bicycle helmet the risk of head injury was 90% in the same test.

The airbag collars are everywhere — and they're going global

Hövding's collars are now sold in 16 markets in Europe, as well as Japan, and the company is now eyeing up the US market and Australia in the long term. 

In May 2018, the company reached the milestone of 100,000 helmets sold since 2012, 48,000 of which were from the past 12 months. When the company, registered on Nasdaq First North, published its financial for the second quarter of 2018 it could boast a more than 100% increase in sales compared to the same period in 2017. The figures speak for the trajectory of the company's growth. 

SEE ALSO: LEGO launch their first sustainable blocks made from sugarcane

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• A doctor to the Queen has been killed after a collision with a truck while cycling in central London.
• Dr Peter Fisher was fatally injured in the crash, which occurred on Wednesday morning.
• Fisher served as the Queen's homeopathic physician for around 15 years.
• According to the Evening Standard, Fisher was the eighth cyclist killed in London this year.
• The driver involved in the collision has not been arrested and is reportedly "assisting police with their inquiries."

A cyclist who was fatally injured after a collision with a truck in central London has been identified as Dr Peter Fisher, who served as the Queen's homeopathic physician for around 15 years.

The crash occurred on Wednesday morning while the doctor was thought to be commuting to work — bystanders attempted CPR but he was pronounced dead at the scene before 10 am.

Sir Marcus Setchell, Her Majesty's former surgeon-gynaecologist, told the Evening Standard: "He was much respected as a good doctor who saw homeopathy as complementary to medical care. We are all shocked by his tragic loss."

As well as a member of the royal medical household, Fisher was the Clinical Director and Director of Research at the Royal London Hospital for Integrated Medicine.

He was also President of the Faculty of Homeopathy and Editor-in-chief of "Homeopathy" magazine.

Greg White, chief executive of the Faculty of Homeopathy, said: "We have lost a leader, not just for the faculty but for homeopathy in the UK and worldwide.

"It's no exaggeration to say Peter is an irreplaceable talent. He truly was a giant in all his fields of endeavour, which included clinician, researcher and academic."

According to the Standard, Fisher was the eighth cyclist killed in London this year, the fifth in collision with a truck.

The driver involved in the collision has not been arrested and is reportedly "assisting police with their inquiries."

A Scotland Yard spokesman said: "Officers from the Met's Serious Collison Investigation Unit are investigating and are keen to speak to any members of the public who were in the immediate vicinity of High Holborn near to Newton Street and Southampton Place, and who witnessed the collision."

The Met Police appealed for witnesses to contact police on 0208 991 9555, quoting CAD 899/15AUG.

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Are you up for a ride?

September is not an obvious time for the bicycle industry to trot out its latest, greatest offerings. Casual cyclists have usually hung up their bikes in preparation for the turn to colder weather. But Interbike is not for casual cyclists.

As the largest trade show of its kind in the western hemisphere, this year’s edition of Interbike saw some 15,000 bicycle professionals flock to the Reno-Sparks Convention Center in Reno, Nevada. This was a big change, as the show had been hosted in Las Vegas for the previous 16 years, but attendees seemed undeterred. The sundry crowd included shop owners, gear manufacturers, and bike devotees of all stripes. Packed into 650,000 square feet of convention floor, Interbike once again granted attendees the opportunity to see what their fellow cycling nuts are up to in different corners of the industry.

We attended three days of the week-long show and got to know the convention floor rather well. Here are the coolest gadgets and cycling gear we saw at Interbike 2018.

CBD sports supplements were a major theme of the show.

“CBD” is shorthand for cannabidiol, the non-psychoactive ingredient in marijuana linked to pain relief and post-workout recovery. One of the more popular companies in the space is Floyd's of Leadville, which sells powders that are meant to be added to water as an easy means to get CBD in your system.

The company is backed by Floyd Landis, the former professional cyclist at the center of the 2006 doping scandal that cost him a Tour de France victory. Now Landis is selling “drugs” to cyclists and other athletes in search of legal, natural pain relief.

The other dominant theme of the show was electric bicycles, and German company Riese & Muller makes some of the sharpest-looking models out there.

Their components come from all over the world, but everything is assembled in Germany to the company’s exacting standards.

They offer a number of different form factors for different cycling needs. This pedal-assisted electric cargo bike could carry two small children as easily as it could a load of groceries.

• A team of engineers, including former SpaceX employees, set out to discover why cyclists are so resistant to wearing helmets. 
• After three years of research and development, they are now unveiling a collapsible bike helmet that's safer and more comfortable than the traditional model. 
• The helmet resembles a baseball cap and folds down into the size of a water bottle.

Bike commuters have long been willing to risk their lives to avoid the unpleasantness of wearing a helmet. Park & Diamond, an engineering startup that manufactures portable and stylish helmets for cyclists, want to change that.

The idea came about in 2015, after co-founder David Hall learned that his sister, Rachel, had been involved a hit-and-run cycling accident, which left her in a coma for four months. Hall realized that Rachel was one of 85,000 Americans that year to suffer a traumatic brain injury from a cycling-related accident.

Along with fellow engineering student Jordan Klein, Hall set out to discover why so many cyclists were resistant to wearing helmets. After interviewing thousands of potential customers, they discovered three major pain points: comfort, style, and portability.

People were put off by having to lug a bulky object to and from work — or be seen wearing it in public.

From there, Park & Diamond — named after the intersection where Rachel was hit near Temple University — spent three years researching and developing a product that was safe enough to bring to consumers. They soon found that the problem could not be solved using traditional materials.

"We started from the ground up," said Hall. The company hired an engineering director from SpaceX, who helped them secure free access to ANSYS, an engineering software company worth more than $1 billion. 

While Park & Diamond didn't invent the collapsible bike helmet — companies like Closca and FEND have developed foldable models as well — its style is far less bulky than other products on the market. 

The "secret sauce" of their helmet, which resembles a baseball cap, is material from the aerospace industry. The outer shell features a geometric pattern that is better at absorbing energy than the traditional model. The helmet also folds down into the size of a water bottle and can be personalized for individual wearers.

In September, the company revealed the product on the crowdfunding site Indiegogo, aiming to raise around $50,000. Within 24 hours, they had raised three times that amount, and have since exceeded $500,000. 

"From the very first day, we were blown away by the response," said Hall. Now, he and Klein have their sights set on customizing the design even further, venturing into new styles and designer collaborations. For those who prefer beanies to baseball caps, a new model could soon be on the way. 

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• Geraint Thomas' Tour de France trophy has been stolen, Team Sky said on Wednesday.
• The trophy was on display at a cycle show in Birmingham, UK, when it was stolen.
• "It goes without saying that the trophy is of pretty limited value to whoever took it, but means a lot to me and to the team," Thomas said.
• "Hopefully whoever took it will have the good grace to return it."
• Team Sky said police were investigating the matter.

(Reuters) - The Tour de France trophy won by Team Sky's Geraint Thomas earlier this year has been stolen during a cycle show in Birmingham, the British team said on Wednesday.

The trophy, loaned to bike manufacturer Pinarello, had been on display at venues across the UK along with the team's other grand tour titles but was picked up when left unattended at the NEC in Birmingham recently.

"It is incredibly unfortunate that this has happened," Thomas said in a statement. "It goes without saying that the trophy is of pretty limited value to whoever took it, but means a lot to me and to the team.

"Hopefully whoever took it will have the good grace to return it. A trophy is important, but clearly what matters most are the amazing memories from this incredible summer – and no one can ever take those away."

Pinarello managing director Richard Hemington said he was devastated by the theft.

"We accept full responsibility and have personally apologized to Geraint," Hemington said. "We hope that the trophy can be recovered."

Team Sky said police were investigating the matter and they were liaising with all relevant parties to agree on the best course of action to resolve the issue.

Thomas won the team's sixth Tour de France title in seven years in July.

It was the fourth successive grand tour win for the team after Chris Froome won the Tour and the Vuelta a Espana last year before clinching this year's Giro d'Italia.

SEE ALSO: The Tour de France bikes, ranked

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• Hybrid bikes are designed to have the agility to take on bumps in the road while featuring many mountain bike-like features, such as larger wheels and flat handlebars.
• Last year, REI launched their Co-op Cycles brand, which offers a variety of bike styles and gear.
• I tested the CTY 2.1 hybrid bike and especially liked how light it felt, the excellent maneuverability, and the smooth ride afforded by the front suspension.
• Though the Co-op Cycles CTY 2.1 Bike is maybe slightly more expensive than your average hybrid bike (currently $649 on REI.com), it comes with REI's 100% satisfaction guarantee and a lifetime limited warranty.

Every year, the number of adults who choose to commute to work by bicycle increases by 7.5%. Due to their balance of control and speed, hybrid bikes are growing in popularity among these riders. Hybrid bikes have a flat handlebar, wider tires, and an upright riding position that is more common with mountain bikes. However, the wheel size is usually larger than a mountain bike's to allow for more speed.

In 2017, REI relaunched their bicycle line under the brand Co-op Cycles. The brand offers hybrid, mountain, road, and kids' bikes along with cycling clothing, bike components, and accessories. I recently had the opportunity to try out their CTY 2.1 bicycle for free. Here are some of the highlights of my experience.

My first experiences with the CTY 2.1 Bike

You can get the CTY 2.1 Bike shipped to you for $75, but if at all possible, I strongly recommend picking your new bike up at an REI location. You can still order online, but by going to the store in person, you get the opportunity to learn about the bike from an expert and have it adjusted to fit your body.

This is what I did. I had to drive about an hour to Ann Arbor to get to the closest REI. There, a guy named Sean provided incredibly helpful service. He held the bike while I sat on it so he could ensure the seat was at the right height. He demonstrated how the unique front suspension worked. Though I have decades of cycling experience, I liked that he assumed that I didn't have any experience. I think for most buyers, who are just starting to commute, this will be helpful, especially since it can be intimidating asking questions.

The CTY 2.1 is a unisex bike and comes in small (for heights 5'3" to 5'6"), medium (5'6"-5'9"), large (5'9"-6'), and extra large (6'-6'3"). At 6 feet tall, I went with the extra large in case my 6'4" son needed to borrow it at some point. I found the extra large worked great for me.

I'm going to get into a few specs here, but I won't go overboard. If you want all of the details, check out the CTY 2.1 product page.

The bike has an SR Suntour Nex HLO front suspension fork. There's 63mm of travel to make rough roads less bumpy. But, I thought it was particularly cool that there was a switch that locked the suspension to keep your ride static on smooth roads.

The bike features Joytech 32h front and rear hubs, Kenda Kick-Back 700 x 40mm tires, Shimano M315 hydraulic disc brakes, Shimano 78/38/28 crankset, Shimano FD-M191 front derailleur, Shimano Acera rear derailleur, and Shimano HG41, 11-34, 8-speed cassette.

How the CTY 2.1 Bike performed

I keep the bike in my basement, and the aluminum frame is lightweight enough to easily carry it up and down the stairs. The overall weight of the bike is 32.4 pounds according to my measurements, and of course, the smaller sizes will likely weigh less.

I mainly rode the CTY 2.1 along the Lansing River Trail, a beautiful system of 20-plus miles of paved paths. I tested the bike over the course of three months and would typically ride for about 15 miles at a time, which took about an hour.

Riding was exciting when the path was closed. When one section of the trail was under construction, the city posted a detour, which included riding on the sidewalk. In general, you are not supposed to ride on sidewalks because drivers aren't looking for you there and could pull out in front of you. It also endangers pedestrians. That said, I did have a car pull out right in front of me as I was riding on the sidewalk. Fortunately, the hydraulic disc brakes reacted quickly, and I avoided running into them and didn't go flying over the handlebar.

When the trail was closed and there weren't detours, I would ride on grass or wood chips to a point where the path started up again. The front suspension of the CTY 2.1 smoothed out my off-road jaunts, and the bike was responsive enough to avoid obstacles.

Michigan is a pretty flat state. For the most part, my rides didn't have any major hills. So, I didn't really get to test out the extremes of the 24 gears. However, I did find that changing gears was seamless, and the chain didn't jump to a different gear without me initiating it. I did make a point of adding a couple drops of lube to the chain every week or so, and the only time the chain came loose was when I was lubing it up, but it was easy to put it right back on.

The only other maintenance I performed was checking the tire pressure and maybe adding a few pumps to make sure it was around 60 psi before going for a ride. I did not experience any flats during my test period. REI recommends bringing your new bike into the closest location after 20 hours of use or 6 months after the purchase (whichever comes first) for a free tune-up.

Some concerns about the hybrid bike

After about 400 miles of riding, I noticed that two of the reflectors on the pedals had fallen off and a third was on its way. This is a relatively minor issue and easy enough to replace if you need to. I closely examined the rest of the bike, and the only major wear I found was some rusting on the pedal axle. Again, this is fairly minor and inexpensive to replace if it fails.

I did wipe out twice riding the CTY 2.1. Both times, I was riding on wet boardwalks. This is by no means the fault of the bike or the tires. I only bring this up in the hopes that others will learn from my blood, sweat, and tears: Wet wood is slippery and unsafe at any speed. I recommend walking your bike on wet wood boards. The second accident knocked the handlebars and seat awry, but even I, with my limited mechanical skills, was able to fix this.

REI has amazing service. I've been an REI member for over a decade now. Their products are a little more expensive than what you might find elsewhere, but that's because they believe in quality. Why is this a concern? If you live far away from an REI location and have trouble with your bike, it becomes a hassle to take it back and access this excellent service.

Bottom line

Overall, I love the CTY 2.1. I strongly recommend it to people looking for a commuter bike that will last far into the future. However, I think individuals who live close to an REI will have a better experience since they can easily access their in-person services if something were to go wrong. Also, I suggest test-riding any bike you might consider purchasing.

Though at $649 the Co-op Cycles CTY 2.1 Bike is a little more expensive than your average hybrid, the famous REI satisfaction guarantee and lifetime limited warranty ensure you will be happy with your bike for many years to come.

Buy the Co-op Cycles CTY2.1 Bike from REI for $649 here.

Check out all Co-op Cycles Hybrid Bikes here.

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