You can read a bike race off the riders' backs. The colours aren't decoration — each one marks the leader of a different contest happening inside the same race. Learn the four, and a blur of a bunch turns into a story you can follow at a glance.
There are three Grand Tours — the Tour de France, the Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta a España — and they run the same four contests. Each one just dresses them in its own colours.
(If you're new to how a Grand Tour works, start with the primer — What is a Grand Tour? → — then come back for the jerseys.)
| The contest | Tour de France | Giro d'Italia | Vuelta a España |
|---|---|---|---|
| Overall (lowest total time) | Yellow(maillot jaune) | Pink(maglia rosa) | Red(la roja) |
| Points (the sprinters) | Green | Purple(ciclamino) | Green |
| Mountains (the climbers) | Polka dot | Blue(azzurra) | Polka dot |
| Young rider (under 26) | White | White(bianca) | White |
The leader's jersey - the one history remembers
Whoever has spent the least time on the road across every stage so far wears it, and the rider in it on the final morning wins the whole race. This is the big one — the overall, the General Classification, the prize the sport measures careers by.
Each Grand Tour borrowed its colour from the newspaper that founded it. The Tour's yellow came from the pages of L'Auto; the Giro's pink from La Gazzetta dello Sport — both printed on coloured paper to stand out on the newsstand, both worn now by the race leader. The Vuelta went its own way: its leader has worn red only since 2010, after years in gold.
First pulled on in 1919, the maillot jaune is the most famous shirt in cycling. Eddy Merckx wore it for 96 days across his career — a record that has stood for fifty years.
""It never gets easier; you just go faster." - Greg LeMond
The points jersey - for the fast finishers
Points are handed out at every stage finish and at intermediate sprints along the way, weighted towards the flatter days — so this one usually ends up on the back of a sprinter, the riders built for a flat-out dash to the line. Consistency counts as much as raw speed: you score by placing well, day after day, not just by winning.
At the Tour it's green, first awarded in 1953. At the Vuelta, green too. The Giro is the outlier — its points leader wears the ciclamino, a deep purple-pink named after the cyclamen flower, which is about as Italian a detail as a bike race offers.
The mountains jersey - King of the Mountains
Points sit at the top of every categorised climb, the hardest ranked highest, so this contest rewards the riders who go uphill fastest — the pure climbers, and the brave breakaway rider clever enough to get over the top first before the favourites arrive.
The Tour's version is the most recognisable in sport: white with red polka dots. The mountains contest itself dates to 1933, but the dotted jersey didn't appear until 1975 — the story goes that the sponsor of the day, the chocolate maker Poulain, had polka dots on its wrapper. The Giro dresses its best climber in blue, the maglia azzurra; the Vuelta, like the Tour, in polka dots.
The white jersey - the best of the young
Same rules as the overall — lowest total time — but only riders aged 25 or under are counted. It's the jersey that tells you who's coming: win the white and you're usually a favourite for the yellow within a few years.
The Tour and the Vuelta both use white; the Giro calls its version the maglia bianca. It arrived at the Tour in 1975, the same year as the polka dots.
The quiet honours
Not every prize is a jersey. Each day a jury names the day's most combative rider — the one who attacked, animated, refused to sit in — and the next day they ride with a red number on their back instead of the usual black. There's a team contest too, decided on the combined times of each squad's best three riders; at the Tour, the leading team rides with yellow race numbers.
Now you can read the race
That's the whole language. Next time you watch, look at the bunch and read it straight off their backs - who leads overall, who's the fastest finisher, who's the best climber, who's the best of the young. Four colours, four stories, one race.
Pick your Grand Tour
-
Giro d'Italia
Read the guide -
Tour de France
Read the guide -
La Vuelta
LaVuelta.es
Grand Tour FAQs.
Why is the Tour de France jersey yellow?
The overall leader wears yellow because L'Auto, the newspaper that founded the Tour, was printed on yellow paper. The leader has worn it since 1919.
What are the four Tour de France jerseys?
Yellow for the overall leader, green for the points leader (the sprinters), polka dot for the mountains leader (the climbers), and white for the best young rider, aged 25 or under.
What is the polka dot jersey?
It's the mountains jersey — worn by the rider with the most points from the tops of categorised climbs. The Tour's version has been white with red polka dots since 1975.
What colour is the leader's jersey at the Giro and Vuelta?
Pink at the Giro d'Italia (the maglia rosa) and red at the Vuelta a España (la roja). Only the Tour de France uses yellow.
