Are you a secret Tour de France winning DS? Enter the IDL Pro Cycling Fantasy league and find out!

The 2026 Tour de France is upon us, which means fantasy cycling fans get their chance to show off their knowledge of the race. For 2026, IDL Pro Cycling has created a fantasy Tour de France league. We challenge you to build a team, join the league, and battle it out against like-minded fans, stage-by-stage, all the way to Paris. Here's how to build your squad, spend your budget, and enter the IDL Pro Cycling League.

The game is free and runs alongside the race, which starts in Barcelona on 4 July. We will be using the TNT Sports Cycling Challenge game, as it’s easy to use and free. Click on the link and sign up for free, then build a squad of 16 riders from a virtual budget of £100 million. Once your squad is set, you can join the IDL Pro Cycling league to pit your team against the community. Invite your friends and you can fight it out with them too.

The Tour de France teams are now set, so you can pick your team with confidence. And if you’re still unsure about who to pick, you can still adjust your team up until the first stage. And if you need some inspiration, head to our Tour de France fantasy top picks below.

Every rider carries a price, and the biggest names cost the most. You have £100 million to spend on your team, so balancing out superstars and domestiques is the aim of the game.

Load up on the superstars and you will quickly run out of road. Pogačar, Vingegaard, Evenepoel and Seixas together cost £52 million — over half your budget — before you have added a single sprinter. The smart play is balance: a marquee leader or two, then value riders who score steadily. Our GC favourites guide can help you weigh up where the money is worth spending.

Your 16-man squad does not all race each day.. Before each stage you choose 12 riders to score — the other four stay on the bus — and nominate one as your leader. Get the leader right and you bank bonus points; get it wrong and you have wasted your best card.

You can change your leader each day based on the terrain. Remember your leader can score you the most points, so setting the right leader for the right day is crucial for success. There’s nothing worse than watching one of your riders win a stage, then realising you’d forgotten to make them leader that morning!

Points go to your riders based on their finishing position. A stage win is worth 100 points, scaling down to two points for 25th. The opening team time trial scores differently, rewarding riders by their team's position.

The bonuses are where teams are won and lost. The yellow jersey wearer earns an extra 10 points a stage, and the points, mountains and young rider jerseys five each. If your leader lands in the stage's top five, they collect a bonus of 25 points down to five. Every team-mate of the stage winner picks up five. And at the finish in Paris, big bonuses are handed out to riders who end up high in the general, points, mountains and young rider classifications. You can find the full breakdown on the game's rules page.

No manager gets every pick right. You get three transfers on each of the Tour's two rest days — Monday 13 July and Monday 20 July — to patch up injuries and react to surprises. The window opens after Sunday's deadline and closes at the start of Tuesday's stage.

This year we are running our own ‘mini-league’ to allow the IDL community to fight it out for ‘best DS’. It's just for fun and prestige, and to be able to say you are the best IDL DS on our facebook page.

In order to join the league just follow the below steps:

We will keep an update of the league table on the IDL Pro Cycling website and facebook page, so the whole world can see how your perfectly balanced team is getting on!

Any questions about the fantasy league email us on the contact details below. Good luck to you and your team!