1987 Tour de France

Lore & Background

By the time the 1987 Tour began, Stephen Roche had already made history. His victory in the Giro d'Italia that spring had set the stage for what many considered an impossible follow-up: defending the most prestigious race in cycling while still having the Vuelta to chase. The 1987 Tour thus carried an air of inevitability and tension simultaneously—Roche was the man to beat, yet the three-week grind of the French peloton had a way of exposing cracks in any lead. The race became a study in endurance, tactical patience, and the sheer will required to hold a GC position across twenty-one stages of flat sprints, intermediate sprints, and the brutal climbs of the Pyrenees and the Alps.

Greg LeMond, the 1986 champion and a rising American star, was the most prominent challenger. The rivalry between the two—Roche's smooth, calculated Irishman's ride against LeMond's aggressive, power-driven American style—gave the 1987 edition a narrative spine that fans still discuss decades later. The general classification swung on key mountain days, and the final weeks saw both riders trading attacks and chasing each other across the French countryside, knowing that a single bad day could cost the yellow jersey.

The 1987 Tour also sits in a broader historical context: it was the last year of a transitional era in cycling, just before the sport entered the more commercially driven, media-saturated decade of the late 1980s and 1990s. Roche's treble would never be matched, and the 1987 race remains a touchstone for fans who remember a time when the Tour felt like a pure, three-week war of attrition decided on the mountains and the road to Paris.

In Their Own Story

The morning of the final mountain stage, the air smelled of wet tarmac and diesel from the team cars idling in the valley below. Roche sat on the back of the peloton, his FDC-Lampre jersey damp with sweat, watching the gradient climb. He did not need to look at his rivals—he could feel them, the way a sailor feels wind shift. Somewhere ahead, LeMond was breathing hard, his American lungs burning on the sustained effort. Roche shifted up a gear, found his rhythm, and let the road do the talking. Behind them, the crowd on the roadside barriers waved flags they would never see again, and the mountains stood indifferent and eternal, as they always had.

Reader's Guide

The 1987 Tour de France was unforgettable for one overriding reason: Stephen Roche walked into it as the reigning Giro champion and walked out of it as the first rider in history to collect all three Grand Tours in a single year. From the opening flat stages, the race carried the weight of that narrative. The peloton was deep, the sprinters quick, and the intermediate sprints provided early tests of form, but it was the mountains that told the real story.

In the Pyrenees, the GC began to crystallize. Roche, riding with the calm, economical style that defined his career, held his position through the first major climbs without ever appearing to strain. Greg LeMond, the 1986 champion and the race's most dangerous challenger, pushed hard on the key days, trying to force errors and break the Irishman's rhythm. The two traded blows across the high passes, and the general classification tightened to a margin that kept fans on the edge of their seats.

The Alps brought the decisive battles. Stage after stage of sustained climbing tested every rider's reserves, and the team cars in the valley became a blur of color and shouting. Roche's FDC-Lampre squad worked relentlessly to control the pace, while LeMond's team looked for the moment to strike. The final week was a masterclass in GC management—no single stage decided it, but the accumulation of small margins across the mountain days told the tale.

When the race rolled into Paris for the ceremonial final lap on the Champs-Élysées, Roche wore the yellow jersey with the quiet confidence of a man who had already rewritten the record books. The 1987 Tour was not the most dramatic or controversial edition, but it was, in the eyes of many fans, the purest: a three-week war of will decided on the roads and ridges of France.

Did You Know?

• Stephen Roche was the first Irish rider ever to win the Tour de France, a national milestone that made the 1987 victory a source of immense pride back home.
• Roche's 1987 Grand Tour treble—Giro d'Italia, Tour de France, and Vuelta a España in the same calendar year—remains a unique achievement in the sport's history.
• Greg LeMond, who won the Tour in both 1986 and 1988, was Roche's principal challenger in 1987, making the American-Irish rivalry one of the defining GC battles of the era.
• The 1987 Tour took place in the final year before the sport entered the more commercially driven, television-saturated decade of the late 1980s and 1990s.