Updated July 26, 2026 08:16AM
Quinn Simmons didn’t win a stage, however his red-white-and-blue Tour de France ends with a becoming prize.
The American headed into Paris on Sunday resplendent in a full Ricky Bobby tracksuit. Huh?
On Saturday, Simmons noticed a fan ready exterior the Lidl-Trek bus and traded his U.S. nationwide champion’s jersey, full together with his Tour race bib, for the duplicate impressed by the NASCAR comedy Talladega Nights.
Simmons even ditched his team-issue package and proudly wore it aboard the TGV carrying the Tour de France peloton to Sunday’s closing stage in Paris.
Stage win or not, Simmons received over loads of followers through the previous three weeks.
Simmons drew enormous cheers throughout this Tour as biking followers embraced the high-fiving, flag-waving “Captain America.”
The former junior world champion is wrapping up his fourth Tour, and in three of these he’s worn the celebrities and stripes as U.S. nationwide champion.
That makes Simmons — sporting lengthy crimson hair and a Hulk Hogan-style mustache and beard — even simpler to identify.
“They love the American jersey, it seems,” Simmons stated. “Part 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.”
Earlier this week exterior the Lidl-Trek bus, one fan even confirmed up dressed as a Quinn Simmons doppelgänger, replete with nationwide champion’s jersey, flowing hair and beard.
Simmons has often stirred the pot on social media, however Europeans appear to like his all-out racing fashion and larger-than-life WWE persona.
The flamboyant Simmons — one in all five American starters in this year’s Tour — all the time races like he’d reasonably blow up making an attempt than safely sit on the wheel.
“If you ain’t first, you’re last,” he posted on Instagram throughout this Tour, including his trademark #americanmuscle and American flag signature.
Simmons raised eyebrows in the center of this Tour when he claimed that Lidl-Trek cared more about helping Mads Pedersen win green than chasing a stage victory with him.
That didn’t cease Simmons from doing his job.
He barreled into seven breakaways, matched his career-best second place in stage 4 behind Pedersen’s win, helped the Dane safe the inexperienced factors jersey, and paced struggling GC man Juan Ayuso up Alpe d’Huez.
And there’s Sunday’s finale with 4 laps over Montmartre nonetheless to go.
All that attacking wasn’t sufficient to sway the Tour jury. Officials as an alternative awarded Richard Carapaz, winner of two levels and the King of the Mountains jersey, the distinguished super-combativity prize.
Tour officers did award him the “best teammate” prize for the 2026 Tour.
‘The Tour de France is why you want to be a rider’
It hasn’t all the time been clean crusing for Simmons.
He battled sickness and accidents, watched fellow junior world champion Remco Evenepoel blast previous him, and even instructed Velo he nearly walked away from the sport after witnessing Gino Mäder’s deadly crash on the 2023 Tour de Suisse.
He turned professional at Lidl-Trek in 2020, and 7 years into his profession, he’s solely 25.
This season has been one in all his greatest, with a 3rd U.S. title, second at GP Miguel Indurain, and a stage win on the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes in June.
And, after all, attacking like a banshee all throughout France.
One of the Tour’s feel-good moments got here in stage 12, when his mother and father, Scott and Holly, flew in from the United States. They posted up alongside the course close to to the end, and the scene went viral of Simmons high-fiving his father as he pedaled previous.
“I thought to myself, ‘if Quinn is going to attack, he’ll probably do it right around here,” he told Velo of the quick hill, about 35 kilometers from the end in Chalon-sur-Saône. “Sure enough, I’m standing there and see him coming up. Attacking, hauling everyone. I was like ‘whoa!’”
The Tour has fascinated Simmons since childhood rising up in Colorado, even when he wasn’t initially satisfied.
“My 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,” Simmons stated. “Probably 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.”
Simmons’ Tour ends Sunday in Paris. You can virtually assure that he’ll assault on the tough closing circuit.
“Especially for an American rider, it’s the only time cycling is really a sport,” Simmons stated of the Tour. “That’s why we’re here. That’s why you want to be a rider.”
Last 12 months, Simmons dropped to 1 knee on the Champs-Élysées to suggest to his girlfriend.
This 12 months, he’s rocking into Paris together with his Ricky Bobby tracksuit.
Simmons has all the time raced proud and loud.
