From the Tour to Your Ride: How the Pros Set Up Their Tyres

Talk with Hannah Ferle, Road Product Manager at Continental, hosted by Jez Cox. She takes you behind the scenes of how the pros really find their perfect tyre set-up: which tyre for which stage, what pressure for rain, heat or wind and why the smallest details can decide a race.

Hannah gives real insights into the process. Every set-up starts in the lab, where tyres spin on steel drums while sensors measure rolling resistance, grip and durability. Then the race takes over: feedback from riders on rough tarmac, in fast corners, in scorching heat and pouring rain shows what no test bench can. And there’s always a trade-off to solve: lower rolling resistance usually costs grip, more puncture protection adds weight. Hannah explains how the pros balance it all and what you can take straight to your own rides.

And she knows what she’s talking about. At the 2026 Tour de France, six teams rode on Conti: UAE Team Emirates XRG, Groupama-FDJ United, Movistar, Bahrain-Victorious, Decathlon CMA CGM and Uno-X Mobility. That’s more than a quarter of the peloton, with over 1,000 tyres from Korbach covering 3,333 kilometres from Barcelona to Paris.