Champagne, Parties and Criteriums: How Tour de France Riders Celebrate After Paris

What really happens after the Tour de France? Well, things can get weird, wild, and sometimes downright wacky.

The Tour is the most demanding sporting event on earth.

For three weeks, it’s relentless racing, high-speed crashes, strict diets, early bedtimes, and constant pressure to perform in the only bike race that goes global.

Then, almost in an instant, it’s over.

The finish line in Paris marks the end of months of monk-like sacrifice in what was the fastest Tour de France on the books. No wonder these guys just want to have fun.

The finish line vibes on the Champs-Élysées are unique in sport.

With the roads of France serving as the Tour’s outdoor stadium, perhaps it’s appropriate that it ends with the biggest street party in Europe.

7:45 p.m. The finish on the Champs-Élysées

Unless you’re Mathieu van der Poel and the handful of riders still racing for the stage, the celebration begins long before the finish line.

Even with the new thrilling Montmartre circuit, most of the peloton can finally chill once they roll into Paris.

By the final lap, riders were high-fiving fans, popping wheelies and soaking in the atmosphere. The 2026 Tour de France was almost over.

Of the 184 starters who left Barcelona, some 158 of them arrived in Paris. Another Grande Boucle — the big loop — was in the bags.

For one night at least, they can be 20-somethings again. Family, friends, wives, kids and even a few pets flood onto the Champs Élysées.

Everyone poses for team photos and selfies on cycling’s most famous finishing straight.

Brandon McNulty, who abandoned the Tour due to exhaustion and illness in the Alps, was back to celebrate with this UAE Emirate-XRG teammates. Hair dyed yellow (or Eminem blond, we’re not sure).

The Tour peloton can finally cut loose.

8:30 p.m.: Pizza time

The Champs erupts into celebration of champagne, hugs, and backslaps.

There’s the official podium, team photos, celebratory laps on the Champs, and toasts around the team bus. A few final interviews remain, but the riders are ready to let the pundits make sense of it all.

They just want a beer.

YouTube stars Tour de Tietema once again handed out loads of pizzas to the peloton outside the team buses.

Nobody was happier than Quinn Simmons.

Last year, he dropped to one knee on the Champs Élysées to propose to his girlfriend. This year, he rocked into Paris wearing the “Ricky Bobby” tracksuit he’d swapped with a fan for his Lidl-Trek jersey and race number.

After five breakaways and following team orders, Simmons looked more interested in pepperoni than podiums. He happily rode into the night balancing several pizza boxes and his wife on his bike.

Tour de Tietema also delivered two pizzas to Remco Evenepoel as a reward for finishing second overall.

“Does Tadej only get one?” Evenepoel joked.

For at least one night, they can celebrate the magic of racing in cycling’s biggest bike race.

10 p.m.: Team dinners

It’s amazing how fast the Tour is dismantled, packed up, and stored away for another year.

The scaffolding and finish line podium infrastructure is gone within hours. Crews sweep up any trash and the Tour is already a memory by the morning rush hour traffic on Monday morning.

Mechanics have one more long night packing up bikes and storing gear. The team buses head to the hotels, and by Monday, they’re either back to the service course or off to the next races.

The riders head to the team hotels for a quick shower and change into civilian clothes for the first time in nearly a month.

It’s one last night together inside the Tour bubble before everyone scatters across Europe and beyond. Families join the celebrations, sponsors make toasts, and soigneurs, mechanics and staff finally get to chill alongside the riders.

Tadej Pogačar celebrated his fifth Tour win with his UAE Emirates-XRG teammates with a dinner overlooking the Eiffel Tower, joined by members of the Emirati royal family.

That scene repeated itself across dozens of hotels and restaurants across Paris late into the night.

Midnight: Paris finally lets loose

After weeks and months of discipline, team dinners inevitably morph into parties.

There is one disco in central Paris where many of the riders congregate — we won’t mention the name to protect the innocent — and the party runs until the sun comes up. It’s quite something to see sunburned, 57-kilo riders trying to dance to reggaeton.

Even Pogačar — already cool after the most relaxed Tour of his five wins — was ready to unplug.

“I can’t wait to get home. I go to Slovenia for ‘Pogi Crit’ and Urška goes to the Tour de France Femmes,” he said. “Dancing on the tables, yes!”

2:30 a.m.: Finally bed

Evenepoel pulled back the curtain on his post-Tour hijinks by posting a series of Instagram photos.

“En détente,” he wrote, relaxing.

Evenepoel and wife Oumi stayed in the iconic Le Meurice hotel after celebrating with the Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe team. Second place was better than anyone could have expected.

Cost for one night? Between 1,650 and 7,700 euros, depending on the room.

“We had another party with the team, with some food and drinks. A small celebration,” Evenepoel said.

“In the end, I was in my bed at 2:30. But it’s not too bad.”

It went later than that for some.

Less than 24 hours later: Racing a crit

Evenepoel barely had time to sleep off the hangover, if he had one. He was up early the next morning (check his Instagram feed for the sumptuous breakfast spread).

On Monday evening, barely 24 hours after finishing the Tour, Evenepoel was already back racing, lining up before roughly 70,000 fans at a criterium in Aalst.

On Tuesday he repeated the routine with another “victory” in Roeselare ahead of another dozen big-name Tour pros.

By Thursday, he’s back training.

On Saturday he races the Clásica San Sebastián. What a beast.

The tradition is changing

Post-Tour critériums, however, are quickly becoming a page from cycling’s past. There are still a dozen or so crits this week , but nothing like the booming circuit of the Merckx-Hinault eras.

According to L’Équipe, Van der Poel is skipping the criterium circuit this year, and Pogačar is expected to do the same.

Decades ago, Tour winners spent weeks touring Belgium, the Netherlands, and northern France stuffing their jerseys full of cash that could round out their meager salaries.

Today, top stars earn well into seven figures with salaries and sponsorship deals, so perhaps the extra paydays are just not worth the hassle of another week of caravanning around France.

Still, big names like Pogačar can draw six figures for an appearance, and podium finishers such as Evenepoel or Carapaz reportedly collect around $25,000 to $50,000 per event.

Back to reality

Not everyone celebrated the same way.

Nineteen-year-old Paul Seixas kept things considerably quieter. According to the French media, he celebrated with a team dinner. No word if he ended up dancing on the tables in some Paris disco.

“Childhood dream. Hard work. Determination. And an incredible team by my side,” he wrote after finishing fourth overall.

Victor Campenaerts perhaps summed up best the strange emotional disconnect that comes after three weeks inside the Tour bubble.

“The Tour de France is over,” he said in his last Tour vlog. “It’s very strange for me now. I will have to carry my own luggage and drive my own car.”