Published February 23, 2026 12:51AM
Where’s Chris Froome?
If only we knew.
The four-time Tour de France champion has gone AWOL, off the grid, vanished.
Froome hasn’t officially retired, but he doesn’t have a contract for 2026 either. His deal with Israel-Premier Tech finally expired, and the grand tour big beast was let out to pasture.
And now, with no contract for 2026 and no bike racing to worry about, the 40-year-old can’t be traced.
His social media accounts are dead, his Strava is barren, and of course, his email account doesn’t seem to work for a nosy bugger like me.
So what’s happened to Chris Froome?
Is he done with bikes? Is he living his dream and building a cycling school in Africa? Or is he just busy in his studio finessing some ASMR?
The typically savvy communicator hasn’t left any clues.
Velo reached out to Froome’s former teammates, trainers, and staffers and couldn’t catch a scent of cycling’s Very Important Enigma.
Froome’s wife and most recent agent, Michelle, has been even quieter. She’s been social media dark ever since she uncorked her shocking rant on Twitter / X in early 2024.
Froome hasn’t raced since last August and hasn’t won since 2018. His time in the peloton is surely done.
There’s a mystery around his wider stake in the world of cycling, too.
His holding in Supersapiens went void when the glucose monitor brand collapsed. His investment in Hammerhead likely became a windfall when the headunit brand was acquired by SRAM.
Velo understands that Froome retained a holding in Factor Bikes when it sold a majority stake to Chinese investors last year, but is awaiting confirmation from business representatives.
And Froome’s ambassadorial role with iGP bike computers? Who knows.
Froome leaves no trace
For now at least, Froome has signed off.
And he did it in his usual quirky style.
His last personal social media post features Primoz Roglič, Tadej Pogačar, the Monte Carlo Rally, and a humblebrag about grand tour wins.
Before that, the last time the cycling public saw Froome was in December, where he struck a slightly anomalous figure as a guest at the 2026 Vuelta a España route presentation.
Reporters attending the Spanish tour’s grand unveiling were, of course, more interested in Froome’s future than his thoughts on this or that summit finish. Sure, he won the race twice, but he’d not ridden a grand tour since 2022.
“I’m not really ready to talk about my plans just yet. But when I am, I’ll be sure to let everyone know,” Froome told Cyclingnews.
A curious conclusion to a rollercoaster career
Froome will no doubt emerge from hiding and share those plans in his own good time.
But for now, it’s a bizarre, unsatisfactory end [or maybe a hiatus?] to one of the most successful cycling careers of the post-EPO era.
As a reminder, Froome won four Tours de France in 5 years, blew up the 2018 Giro d’Italia with a historic raid over the Finestre, and was twice awarded the red jersey of the Vuelta a España.
No currently active rider counts more grand tour wins on their palmarès.
Froome was equally busy off the bike, too. He kept himself front and center with goofy reels, actually-quite-interesting Youtube videos, and countless keynote speeches.
What’s Froome doing now? A thought experiment.
It wouldn’t be surprising if Froome’s thirst for the limelight finally faded and the bullish self-belief that made him a winner burned away.
He was never the same after he sustained devastating injuries in 2019 and metaphorically limped his way through a mega-million contract with Israel-Premier Tech. His salary-to-success ratio with IPT was a cruel running joke amid Couch Peloton.
One source theorized Froome’s shock crash last summer – the second of his career – was the final straw, for both his road career and his aspirations to chase an off-road “alternative calendar.”
And nobody would blame Froome if he had been put off cycling. A “life-threatening” heart injury and a laundry list of broken bones would do that to a person.
Froome surely won’t be seen back in the bunch. Even if he did want to race for longer, not even Unibet Rose Rockets would gamble on his marketability.
But it’s also hard to believe that a character like Froome doesn’t have something new in the works.
Maybe he’s preparing to pivot into Sumo? Training for a “vertical kilometer” foot race? Or taking a course in disc brake maintenance?
The mystery of Chris Froome will solve itself in good time.
Until then, the most successful grand tour racer of the past 15 years is offline.