Motorbikes and mountains: photographing the 2026 Tour de France – photo essay

Pete Goding has been photographing the Tour de France for 20 years – here he gives an insight into what it’s been like to document this year’s race Twenty Tours de France. It seems faintly ridiculous when I write it down. My first was the year Lance Armstrong’s carefully constructed empire was beginning to wobble. I photographed him circling the Champs-Élysées with a film SLR, blissfully unaware that neither film cameras nor Armstrong’s reputation would age particularly well. Today I’m back…