Quinn Simmons didn\u2019t win a stage, but his red-white-and-blue Tour de France ends with a fitting prize.<\/p>\n
The American headed into Paris on Sunday resplendent in a full Ricky Bobby tracksuit. Huh?<\/em><\/p>\n On Saturday, Simmons spotted a fan waiting outside the Lidl-Trek bus and traded his U.S. national champion\u2019s jersey, complete with his Tour race bib, for the replica inspired by the NASCAR comedy Talladega Nights<\/em>.<\/p>\n Simmons even ditched his team-issue kit and proudly wore it aboard the TGV carrying the Tour de France peloton to Sunday\u2019s final stage in Paris.<\/p>\n Stage win or not, Simmons won over plenty of fans during the past three weeks.<\/p>\n Simmons drew huge cheers across this Tour as cycling fans embraced the high-fiving, flag-waving \u201cCaptain America.\u201d<\/p>\n The former junior world champion is wrapping up his fourth Tour, and in three of those he\u2019s worn the stars and stripes as U.S. national champion.<\/p>\n That makes Simmons \u2014 sporting long red hair and a Hulk Hogan-style mustache and beard \u2014 even easier to spot.<\/p>\n \u201cThey love the American jersey, it seems,\u201d Simmons said. \u201cPart of that also comes from the way we raced last year. I had quite a good Tour and with performances also come the fans. And if you can do it in a nice way, people like that.\u201d<\/p>\n Earlier this week outside the Lidl-Trek bus, one fan even showed up dressed as a Quinn Simmons doppelg\u00e4nger<\/em>, replete with national champion\u2019s jersey, flowing hair and beard.<\/p>\n Simmons has occasionally stirred the pot on social media, but Europeans seem to love his all-out racing style and larger-than-life WWE persona.<\/p>\n The flamboyant Simmons \u2014 one of five American starters in this year\u2019s Tour \u2014 always races like he\u2019d rather blow up trying than safely sit on the wheel.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you ain\u2019t first, you\u2019re last,\u201d he posted on Instagram during this Tour, adding his trademark #americanmuscle and American flag signature.<\/p>\n Simmons raised eyebrows in the middle of this Tour when he claimed that Lidl-Trek cared more about helping Mads Pedersen win green than chasing a stage victory with him.<\/p>\n That didn\u2019t stop Simmons from doing his job.<\/p>\n He barreled into seven breakaways, matched his career-best second place in stage 4 behind Pedersen\u2019s win, helped the Dane secure the green points jersey, and paced struggling GC man Juan Ayuso up Alpe d\u2019Huez.<\/p>\n And there\u2019s Sunday\u2019s finale with four laps over Montmartre still to go.<\/p>\n All that attacking wasn\u2019t enough to sway the Tour jury. Officials instead awarded Richard Carapaz, winner of two stages and the King of the Mountains jersey, the prestigious super-combativity prize.<\/p>\n Tour officials did award him the \u201cbest teammate\u201d prize for the 2026 Tour.<\/p>\n It hasn\u2019t always been smooth sailing for Simmons.<\/p>\n He battled illness and injuries, watched fellow junior world champion Remco Evenepoel blast past him, and even told Velo<\/em> he nearly walked away from the sport after witnessing Gino M\u00e4der\u2019s fatal crash at the 2023 Tour de Suisse.<\/p>\n He turned pro at Lidl-Trek in 2020, and seven years into his career, he is only 25.<\/p>\n This season has been one of his best, with a third U.S. title, second at GP Miguel Indurain, and a stage win at the Tour Auvergne-Rh\u00f4ne-Alpes in June.<\/p>\n And, of course, attacking like a banshee all across France.<\/p>\n One of the Tour\u2019s feel-good moments came in stage 12, when his parents, Scott and Holly, flew in from the United States. They posted up alongside the course near to the finish, and the scene went viral of Simmons high-fiving his father as he pedaled past.<\/p>\n \u201cI thought to myself, \u2018if Quinn is going to attack, he\u2019ll probably do it right around here,\u201d he told Velo<\/em> of the short hill, about 35 kilometers from the finish in Chalon-sur-Sa\u00f4ne. \u201cSure enough, I\u2019m standing there and see him coming up. Attacking, hauling everyone. I was like \u2018whoa!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n The Tour has fascinated Simmons since childhood growing up in Colorado, even if he wasn\u2019t initially convinced.<\/p>\n \u201cMy earliest memories of the Tour were when my dad would put it on TV in the summer, and my brother and I were mad that we had to turn off our cartoons,\u201d Simmons said. \u201cProbably the first time it really caught my attention was watching Sagan, some cool uphill finish or something like that, and just feeling the hype around it.\u201d<\/p>\n Simmons\u2019 Tour ends Sunday in Paris. You can almost guarantee that he will attack on the tricky final circuit.<\/p>\n \u201cEspecially for an American rider, it\u2019s the only time cycling is really a sport,\u201d Simmons said of the Tour. \u201cThat\u2019s why we\u2019re here. That\u2019s why you want to be a rider.\u201d<\/p>\n Last year, Simmons dropped to one knee on the Champs-\u00c9lys\u00e9es to propose to his girlfriend.<\/p>\n This year, he\u2019s rocking into Paris with his Ricky Bobby tracksuit.<\/p>\n Simmons has always raced proud and loud.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/velo.outsideonline.com\/road\/road-racing\/tour-de-france\/quinn-simmons-didnt-win-a-stage-but-won-over-tour-de-france-fans-in-ricky-bobby-style\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/simmons-quinn-tour-de-france.jpg”] Andrew Hood Updated July 26, 2026 08:16AM Quinn Simmons didn\u2019t win a stage, but his red-white-and-blue Tour de France ends with a fitting prize. The American headed into Paris on Sunday resplendent in a full Ricky Bobby tracksuit. Huh? On Saturday, Simmons spotted a fan waiting outside the Lidl-Trek bus and traded […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[226,71],"class_list":["post-2062886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-crawlmanager","tag-velo-outsideonline-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2062886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2062886"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2062886\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2062886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2062886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2062886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\u2018The Tour de France is why you want to be a rider\u2019<\/h2>\n
![\"Quinn](\"https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/GettyImages-2287498288-1-720x480.jpg?width=1920&auto=webp&quality=75&fit=cover\")