Two of things I like so much about the Tour are the foreign names (very exotic sounding) and captures the international flavour of the event) and the interesting teams and logos (usually brands unknown in the UK).

In the late 80s my favourite name was Jon-Paul Van Poppel (Dutch sprinter) whose name just tripped off the tongue nicely. But the best ever has to be Djamoladine Abdoujaparov. A classic.

As for the teams, I liked Carrera because of Stephen Roche and their denim-look shorts, the bright Mecatone Uno jerseys, ONCE's great logo, Systeme U's simplicity, Polti with its exploding thumb and many others, but my favourite was Kelme from the early 90s with the bear paw and pale green and blue lines - simple and classic.

Anyone else as nerdy as me about these things?

Lauren Fignon was the best Le Tour rider I ever did see.  Being English, I hate the French , but Fignon was a great Le Tour cyclist.

Nick

P.S. Great to see some brief interviews with him on ITV4 too over the last three weeks.

I like Levi Leipheimer.

I forgot to mention, in more recent years my favourite name was Jaan Kirsipuu.

Commundad Valenciana anybody :) I saw them at the T o B a few years ago and you could easily spot them because apart from lime green and blue kit, they all had extremely brown legs,coffee-coloured.

Malcolm Elliot has always been a favourite and still is. He`s still riding an all. I sometimes think, I wish he would have had the discipline of today, 'yesterday'. When you think how many years ago he rode the tour with ANC...given a second shot, I think he could have won stages. Such a fluid sprinter, with loads of talent.   

my favourite rider was freddy maertens he was so fast , could pass anything but a chemist

Jens Voight for me, i especially enjoyed his comments during the problems of last years tour.

Vladimir Karpets is a totally groovy name if ever there was one.

 

Totally agree yellowfever! Karpets is a great name - shame he didn't add to his early promise and it was a shame he wasn't there this year.

Ah some great old names here!

I loved saying "Claude Criquielion" and Abdoujaparov, of course! Saying Lauren Jalabert made you sound French even if that was all you could manage.

As for jerseys, I used to have a "Z" jersey - Greg Lemond's old team. It was great - very cartoonish, which as it was a kids' clothing line, worked pretty good. The old Carrera jersey was a classic as was Sean Kelly's Stihl team - real old school.

"M. Boogerd" !!   - At the end of a stage, that was exactly how he looked.

I think he had a team-mate called "U. Bolts". - at Deutch Telecom.

Joop Zoetemelk. You can never forget a name like that. Good rider, too.

Toshiba Look La Vie Claire. Sounded really continental, great jerseys & my favourite rider ( LeMond! )

I see my favourite rider mentioned already 

 

Greg Lemond

 

As for the team, well it has to be the Peugeot team of the 60's and 70's with Tom Simpson and Robert Millar

which in years to come transposed into the 'Z' Team, with their awesome looking kit.

 

If you have ever used the 'z' kit to ride in you will know that people deride you for wearing it. Great ... cos that means they have seen you .... and keep their distance if they are driving wagons and cars .... a good move from the clothing manufactures Z

 

The Major

Clean in the Z kit.

 

I was amazed how many of the riders share the same first name, this is most noticable when listening to the excellent Paul Sherwen commentate. The riders with the same first name i've noticed so far are;

'BIG' George Hincappie

'BIG' Jens Voight

'BIG' Stuart O'Grady

I am sure there are others