The Tour de France is by turns a daily soap opera, a rolling advertising hoarding and chess on wheels. Much like test cricket, hours can sometimes pass with little of consequence happening followed by bursts of intensity to take the breath away.
But France is huge and by necessity the stages are sometimes long, flat and (whisper it) boring. With the advent of live television coverage the Tour organisers looked for ways to incentivise riders and teams to enliven the race. Enter the Prix Combatif, or 'super-combativity' award, a daily competition to reward the most attacking rider of the stage - with a final prize that rewards the most consistently attacking rider of the whole Tour.
And your reward for being chosen as the day's super-combatif? Around €300 for the team's prize pot... and the chance to wear the iconic red dossard (race number) for the next stage*
A glance back at the history of overall winners of the super-combativity award at the Tour is a who's who of legendary attaquers. Yes, there's the TdF megastars you'd expect - Merckx, Hinault, Fignon - but also cult figures like Dan Martin, Sylvain Chavanel and surely the largest man ever to win atop Mont Ventoux, Eros Poli.
However, in true Handmade Cyclist style we wanted to dig a little deeper. Who, we wondered is the super combatif's super combatif? In short: who is quantitively the most attacking rider in the history of the Tour de France?
Honourable mentions to the aforementioned Chava and - of course - to Jens 'Shut Up Legs!' Voigt, both tied for second with 10 days with red dossards flying, while further down the list lurk the likes of Wout Van Aert (5) and Thomas De Gendt (6). There's distinctly French feel to the top ten with a whopping six riders from la belle France, including perennial airtime botherers Richard Virenque (8) and Thomas Voekler (5). Less charitable folk might suggest that the race jury were using the super combatif award in lieu of actual French success. But not us...
However, the stats don't lie: the rider who was worn the red dossard the most is Jackie 'Mr. Breakaway' Durand, who wore his red number with pride a record 11 times, and won the overall combativity award twice. He won three stages of the Tour (and a Ronde) along the way too, all from the breakaway - though we like to think that the red bib was his true goal. Never change, Jackie.
Now you can be your own breakaway artist. Fresh for spring 2025 we've combined our own legendary Dossard 13 design with an attacking new twist: the Dossard 13 'Super Combatif', on sale now.
Because every breakaway needs a bit of luck on their side.
*ok... so we know there's a new sponsor of the competition and they've changed it to a 'gold' number. But it looks more brown than gold to us - and red's much more iconic, so we're keeping it classic.
