The Wirral rider supported Bradley Wiggins in Team Sky's inaugural Tour and defending champion Cadel Evans three years' later when Wiggins won the yellow jersey.

British talent has been projected into the limelight of Grand Tours in recent seasons, as riders from these isles have dominated the podiums of three week races.As we head into the biggest race of the year, the Tour de France, the Brits will be high on the watch list for any rivals after all three major tours were won by three different riders from the nation – Chris Froome in the Giro d’Italia, Geraint Thomas at the Tour, and finally Simon Yates at the Vuelta a España.With this recent success in mind, we look at all of the Brits currently expected to rider the 2019 Geraint Thomas during stage three of the Tour de Suisse 2019 (Photo by Tim de Waele/Getty Images)The most obvious Brit to keep a firm eye on during But that all changed for Thomas last year, when he won the Benefiting from his own glowing performances and the ailing form of pre-race favourite and team-mate Chris Froome, who had ridden to a staggering victory at the Giro just weeks earlier.Thomas’s preparation for this year’s Tour has been heavily hindered, abandoning Tirreno-Adriatico in March due to stomach problems, heading home from a training camp in Tenerife due to snow later that month, and most recently crashing out of the Tour de Suisse in June.It has been a quiet 2019 so far for the 33-year-old, whose best finish was a third place overall at the Tour de Romandie in May, but he enters the race as favourite with a formidable cast of Team Ineos support riders behind him.Adam Yates on stage seven of the Critérium du Dauphiné 2019 (Photo by Tim de Waele/Getty Images)Another of the British Grand Tour hopes is Adam Yates, who continues his pursuit of a podium finish in France.On paper it was almost impossible to separate Adam and his twin brother Simon until last season when Simon emphatically won the Vuelta a España, his first and (so far) only general classification victory.Both have been consistently strong in week-long stage races, between them finishing second overall in the Critérium du Dauphiné, Tirreno-Adriatico, Volta a Catalunya, the Tour de Romandie and Paris-Nice.But Adam has yet to find his opportunity to join Simon in the history books as a British Grand Tour winner.His closest attempt so far was the 2016 Tour where he finished fourth overall and won the young rider’s classification, and followed up with a ninth-place at the Giro the following year.After a disappointing Tour in 2018, finishing 29th overall and only managing a third place stage finish, Yates will be hungry to prove himself this season.The signs are looking good for the 26-year-old, who rode into the lead of the Critérium du Dauphine during the stage four time trial, but slipped to second before abandoning the race on the final stage due to stomach problems.With improved time trial abilities and an ever-strong climbing pedigree, Yates goes into the race fourth favourite in the eyes of the bookmakers.Simon Yates riding stage 15 of the Giro d’Italia 2019 (Luk Benies/AFP/Getty Images)He’ll be deployed as a key helper for his Mitchelton-Scott team-mate and twin brother Adam in the mountains, Yates has had a light racing schedule this year as he targetted the Giro overall having come so close in 2018. Every team and rider at the Tour de France. Jens Debusschere and Rick Zabel will likely be the riders going for sprints for the Swiss team at this year’s race, while Ilnur Zakarin will aim for a high overall placing.Dowsett will also play a key part in the team time trial on stage two in Brussels, while he will have personal ambition to deliver a decent result in the race’s only individual time trial around Pau on stage 13.Possibly the most unexpected pick for the Tour, Steve Cummings heads to the race as part of Cummings, a two-time stage winner, has had a relatively quiet year by his standards, but will race in a squad built for hunting stage wins from breakaways.A broken collarbone from a crash at the Tour of Basque Country this year has had the 38-year-old on the back-foot somewhat, and he hasn’t finished a stage race since Tirreno-Adriatico in March.He showed that he has got some form however, riding to third place at the British Road National Championships time trial in June.Cummings has finished every one of his previous five editions of the Tour – in fact he’s never failed to finish a Grand Tour in his entire career. Vitus has started launching its 2021 bikes, starting with the Vitus Energie Evo cyclocross race bike

He started the year with a a stage win at the Ruta del Sol before an unexpected time trial win at Paris-Nice. Now, 15 months later, he heads to the world's biggest race in support of one of the world's biggest riders, For Swift, his debut Grand Tour will likely be quite simple: do as much as you possibly can to help Quintana, then just survive.This means getting plenty of bottles, musettes and whatever else from the team car in the opening exchanges of each stage before settling in for a world of pain to reach the finish of each stage only to do it all again the next day.Swift, a former National Champion, is classy however so we are certain he has more than what it takes to make it to Paris.

Four-time winner Chris Froome and Ineos team …

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