A common focus on both car tyres and bicycle tyres – at this year’s Tour of France, the Continental brand, in its dual function as a supplier and one of the five main sponsors, attracted the highest media attention worldwide.
Tour de France 2020 involved 1 800 accredited journalists, 100 TV stations and 7 000 broadcast hours. Approximately 1.4-billion people followed this year’s event on TV and, despite the coronavirus, up to 12-million viewers were watching live along the route – almost every single one of them wearing a mask. Between 29 August and 20 September, 176 professional cyclists battled for points, time credits and stage wins.
With Sunweb, Groupama-FDJ, Bahrain McLaren, Arkéa-Samsic as well as the INEOS team and with Movistar as the team that delivered the best team performance last year, six of the teams in the world’s toughest bike race again benefited from the quality and reliability of the handmade tyres from Korbach in Hesse.
A total of three of the 10 best-placed riders took part in the race on Continental tyres. In the end, after 3 470 kilometres through all five mountain ranges in the country, Slovenian rider Tadej Pogacar, from UAE Team Emirates, was victorious ahead of its compatriot Primož Roglič (Team Jumbo-Visma) and Richie Porte from Australia (Team Trek-Segafredo). As in the previous year, the team ranking was won by the Movistar team equipped by Continental. In total, four of the 21 stages were won on Continental tyres.
However, Continental doesn’t only supply bicycle tyres for this prestigious event but is also the official tyre sponsor of the Tour de France. As the “Tour of Suffering” regularly pushes not only the athletes and their equipment to the limits of their endurance, but also the many assistants – from timekeepers to material suppliers and medical professionals, Continental fits the official service cars on the Tour as well as the support vehicles in individual teams (including FDJ) with its PremiumContact 6 tyre.
This high-tech product for mid-range and premium-class vehicles with speed ratings of up to 300 km/h combines the characteristics of a comfortable saloon tyre and a tyre for sports models of passenger cars. It provides comfort, precise steering response, maximum safety and positive environmental qualities. This means that the PremiumContact 6 is equally ideal for the requirements of accompanying vehicles winding downhill on rain-soaked roads as it is on extended flat stages or in sweltering heat on the way up to mountain summits.
