The 2025 Tour of France (that’s not a typo)

(Part 2)

Part 2 of a 3-part series about a Ritchey Montebello named Aurora and her pilot, Javier García Reboredo, who conceived a plan to ride all three Grand Tours unsupported. The 2025 route for the Tour de France looked as if someone scattered 21 threads of different lengths across a map of France and stitched together a race that would have been unthinkable to Henri Desgrange, who’s credited with founding the Tour in 1903. Hundreds of kilometers separated some stages in the 2025 edition, which worried Javi that this part of his IGARE Challenge might be unattainable. There would be no rest days; no plush transfers between stages; and absolutely no guarantee that anything would go according to plan.

Read Part 1: 3 Grand Tours, a Montebello Named Aurora, and Butterfly Skin

Without thinking twice, on July 4 at 4:55 a.m., Javier García Reboredo threw his leg over his Ritchey Montebello, named Aurora, in Kortrijk, Belgium, and started pedaling. What lay ahead of him was 23 days and eight hours of nearly continuous riding of 265-270 kilometers (165-168 miles) per day. Two of the first three stages sent Javi north to the Strait of Dover, where his stage finishes at Boulogne-sur-Mer and Dunkirk were uneventful turnaround points for him to return south to start the next stage. For someone without Javi’s calm, pensive manner, his route — which can be relived on IGARE.cc — was a maddening jumble of stages and hand drawn routes to connect them. But like some of the climbs of the Tour de France, Javier is himself “hors catégorie,” and can’t be compared to other cyclists riding around France during the Tour.

44 meters (144 feet) beneath street level in Madrid, metro line number 9 passes through its lowest point. It’s down here where Javier spends most of his seven-and-a-half hour shifts as a metro conductor for lines 5 and 9, virtually entombed beneath the streets of Spain’s capital city. He’s the kind of guy you want to drive your train: unflappable. Yet he’s not without his moments of self-doubt, which surfaced before the first pedal stroke.

“I was a little more worried at the beginning because I didn't know if I would be able to finish the Tour,” Javi said. “I had that fear because I had never done this kind of relentless riding and I didn't have total confidence in myself.”

The main driver behind his fear was the many kilometers he’d have to ride in addition to the Tour stages. The total distance of this year’s official Tour de France was 3,302 kilometers (2,052 miles); Javier tallied up 6,300 kilometers (3,915 miles) and still managed to finish on the same day as the pro racers.

The distance is one thing to overcome; the Tour is quite another because it can be a real pain if you get too close to the race. Whereas it was once possible to at least walk your bike along the Tour route in the hours before the racers passed by, now it’s completely prohibited, thanks to a few unruly fans who’ve ruined it for the rest of us.

“During the Tour, they told you that the road would be closed at 10:00 a.m. and would stay closed until 6:00 p.m., and no, they wouldn't let anyone through,” explained Javier. “It happened to me when I was climbing, they told me I’d have to leave my bicycle about six kilometers away at the start. How am I going to leave my bicycle there?”

To put things into perspective, there are thousands of cycling fans lining the road throughout the Tour. It’s probably the greatest collective stretch-test of Lycra in the world, as kitted-up cyclists riding bikes that span the history of cycling show up to witness the parade. A fully loaded Ritchey Montebello, however, didn’t fit the narrative, and Javi stood out.

“A Spanish guy came up to me and said, ‘Are you Spanish?’ I said yes, and he said, ‘Go a little farther ahead — there are no police there — and turn left,’ So I went ahead and I found a dirt road. I looked at the road map and saw that the dirt road went all the way to Albertville.”

Since Javi first mentioned the IGARE Challenge nearly a year ago, several hundred thousand social media users have discovered him. They’ve left hundreds of comments and interactions and have even shown up on the side of the road to cheer him on and fuel his ride with gifts of treats and once in the Pyrenees, some Spanish ham*.

“I always say that my best social network is cycling,” Javi explained. “Cycling opens a lot of doors for me, because in the end, it's a way of traveling and communicating with people.”

About the ham, a Basque guy contacted Javi through Instagram saying, “Look, I'm not going to be able to go, but I've asked a friend of mine — another Basque guy — to wait for you and give you some ham.”

“And he was waiting for me when I was descending Tourmalet,” Javi said. “He was parked four kilometers from the top; there he was with his wife and son, waiting for me to give me the ham.”

As if to foreshadow what’s coming when Javier starts the Vuelta a España — which doesn’t actually start in Spain, but rather 750 kilometers (466 miles) — which he will also have to ride to get to Stage 5 — away in Turin, Italy on August 23, he will have to sort out a strategy to manage his growing fan base. This year’s Vuelta passes through his hometown of Lugo, in Galicia, and of course finishes in his current hometown of Madrid.

Friends and fans are encouraged to ride along with him throughout the Vuelta. To find out where he is, visit igare.cc, and scroll down to “Follow My Challenge.”

If you can’t make the ride but still want to support Javier, consider donating to the DEBRA Butterfly Skin organization. DEBRA exists as the only support organization to help improve the quality of life for families managing butterfly skin disease from birth to end of life care.

Every pedal counts, every euro too.

*To understand Spanish Iberian ham, the taste balances sweet, salty, and rich as if they were each competing for the title of who’s best. Spanish ham is a point of national pride, and it should be, because there’s really nothing else like it in this world.

Follow Javier here: igare.cc/en/the-challenge/