Culture
Tour de France: Unchained. Out now on Netflix.
The beautifully shot show from the makers of Formula 1: Drive to Survive provides the most intimate look at our sport yet
June 8, 2023
The moment that we have all been waiting for is here.
Tour de France: Unchained is out now on Netflix. The eight-episode show, made by the producers of Formula 1: Drive to Survive, takes you into the heart of peloton at the world’s hardest bike race.
Unflinching, ambitious, and beautifully shot, it provides the most intimate look at our sport that you have ever seen. Settle down in front of the biggest screen you have got and relive the trials and triumphs of our 2022 Tour.
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Neilson Powless
When Neilson Powless started racing X-Terra triathlons with his sister back home in Northern California, he just wanted to spend time outside and rip around the trails near his house. His first love was mountain-biking. It was his best discipline in those off-road triathlons, and when he got to high-school, there were all sorts of chances for him to compete in California’s mountain-bike league. Soon, he was travelling with the US national team, racing junior world cups and championships against the world’s most talented mountain-bikers. Race in and race out, Neilson proved he was one of them.
Then he decided he wanted to have a go on the road.
Neilson has progressed steadily since he turned pro in 2018, thanks to his hard-work and diligent approach to training. In 2020, Neilson Powless became the first tribally recognized Native North American to race the Tour de France. The next year, our rising American star won Spain’s greatest one-day race, the Clásica San Sebastián, and finished fifth at the world championships in Belgium. Neilson was stellar in 2022. After a strong campaign in the Ardennes, he finished fourth on GC at the Tour de Suisse and lit up the Tour de France. He finished the year off with a victory at the Japan Cup.
This year has been his best yet. Neilson won his first race of 2023: the Grand Prix Cycliste de Marseille. He then won the overall at Étoile de Bèsseges and stormed the Flemish classics, finishing third at Dwars door Vlaanderen and fifth at De Ronde in his debut campaign on the cobbles. Neilson now has his sights set on the Tour de France.
Neilson lives in Nice, France with his wife during the racing season. He enjoys exploring their new city and relaxing on the beach after hard rides through the Alps.
If he can find time in his schedule, Neilson would like to get back to his roots, and do some off-road alternative racing in 2023.
Rigoberto Urán
There will soon be a Colombian show about Rigoberto Urán’s life. It will be about more than Olympic medals and grand tour podiums, fashion shoots, and appearances in the celebrity pages of newspapers.
Rigoberto’s dad was killed by a paramilitary group three months after he introduced Rigo to cycling. Rigo was 14. All of a sudden, he had to work to support his mom and his sister. He took over his dad’s job, selling lottery tickets to support his family, while going to school and trying to race. He still won a lot.
At 16, it was too much. Rigo told his cycling team that he would either have to turn pro or quit and go back to selling lottery tickets. Technically, he was too young to become a professional. To get around that fact, the team offered his mother the contract. Three years later, Rigo traveled to Europe for the first time to race for a small Italian team.
He has never looked back. An Olympic silver medal and podium finishes at the Giro d’Italia and the Tour de France are highlights from his illustrious career. Rigo is still a contender. Last year he won stage 17 of the Vuelta, completing his trifecta of stage wins in each of the grand tours, and was a force in the autumn classics.
Rigo continues to inspire his teammates and a whole generation of cyclists with his laid-back, fun-loving approach to the sport.
Stefan Bissegger
When Stefan Bissegger was ten, he signed up for a bike race in his home village in Switzerland. He just didn’t know that he needed a racing bike. The organizer, an old pro, called him and said he could borrow one. He is still Stefan’s coach.
Stefan had fun at the race. Soon he was dreaming of winning classics like Paris-Roubaix and the Tour of Flanders. He was good at time-trials and long solos and wanted to become the kind of racer who could ride away from all of his rivals on the Oude Kwaremont.
After a stellar few years in the juniors, Stefan came to our team in 2020. He had a breakthrough season in 2021, with time-trial victories at Paris-Nice and the Benelux Tour and an outstanding solo stage win at his home race: the Tour de Suisse. To cap it all off, he participated in his first Olympics on the track with the Swiss team-pursuit squad.
Last year, Stefan won the European time trial championships, the TT at the UAE Tour, and a rainbow jersey in the mixed relay at the world championships.
He had a difficult start to this season, breaking his wrist right before his favorite race of the year: Paris-Roubaix. He is back on his bike though. And he is only going to get faster.
If Stefan wasn’t a racer, he would be a bike mechanic. He likes tinkering with the set-up of his SuperSlice and testing his position until it is as aero as possible.
Magnus Cort
Magnus Cort is one of cycling’s most respected professionals—a ruthless finisher who can climb and time trial. His rivals know he can win on almost any terrain and will push himself to great lengths when he sees an uncrossed finish line. At the end of a long, hard race, no one in the peloton wants to sprint against Magnus.
Magnus’s competitive spirit thrust him away from home when he was only 16. He had only been racing for a few years, when he moved from Bornholm, the windswept Danish island in the Baltic Sea where he was born and raised, to the Danish mainland to try to turn pro. Now in his ninth World Tour season, Magnus’ will to win is as strong as ever. In 2022, he won a stage of the Tour de France and led the King of the Mountains competition for seven stages. He started 2023 right where he left off. First he won two stages and the points competition at the Volta ao Algarve. Then, he won a stage at the Giro and completed his trifecta, with stage wins in all three grand tours. In all, Magnus has 26 victories to his name, including six stages of the Vuelta, two from the Tour de France, and now one from the Giro.
But cycling has always been about more than winning to Magnus. Ever since he was a kid, he has used his bike to explore. On Bornholm, Magnus would roam the dunes and rocky cliffs by the coast and explore the woods inland. His favourite rides are still long spins through the forest. When he has time off, Magnus will go hiking or ski touring in the mountains near his home in Andorra. Magnus has climbed Kilimanjaro with his mom and dad and his brother and sister. He goes back to Bornholm whenever he can and enjoys trekking across the island. Before long, he yearns to go racing again though.
To Magnus, nothing compares to sprinting across a finish line and throwing up his arms.