“I lost sponsors after riding with Lance Armstrong – but it did us more good than bad”: Ex-footballer Geoff Thomas on 20 years of tackling the Tour de France route for charity, tears on the Galibier, and enjoying cycling more than ever

Send us Fan Mail 20 years ago, former England footballer, Crystal Palace captain, and cancer survivor Geoff Thomas first made his mark on the cycling world by completing all 21 stages and 3,593km of the 2005 Tour de France, a day before the Lance Armstrong-led peloton. Since then, Thomas’s Tour 21 has developed into a huge deal, and every year groups of amateurs follow in his wheel tracks and ride the Tour route one week before the pros, raising millions of pounds for Cure Leukaemia. And this summer, Geoff marked two decades since his first French summer by riding his seventh Tour 21. In a wide-ranging chat, Geoff discusses his own cancer story, the origins of his Tour rides, the highs and lows of 20 years of riding a bike around France, his experiences with a certain Texan, his relationship with cycling beyond the Tour, and why cycling in a group isn’t that far removed from being part of a football changing room.