[7] The teams entering the race were:[3] The 1984 Tour de France started on 29 June, and had one rest day, in Grenoble.

[8] The highest point of elevation in the race was 2,642 m (8,668 ft) at the summit of the Col du Galibier mountain pass on stage 18.

Questions had been raised about the strength of Fignon's 1983 win due to Hinault's absence and Pascal Simon's withdrawal after breaking his shoulder whilst wearing the yellow jersey.

He beat the peloton by over a minute to claim the stage win as Van Der Poel moved into yellow.

Stage seven was an individual time trial which would provide a bit of clarity as to who the major contenders were going to be and it was won by Laurent Fignon.

The three breakaway riders from stage five still made up the top three but as far as the general classification was concerned, Fignon was the highest placed contender, with Anderson, Hinault, Veldscholten, LeMond, Visentini and Roche all within 3:00 of him.

Stage eight was won by Pascal Jules who beat Ludo Peeters and Bruno Leali to the finish by nine seconds.

More importantly in the overall standings the once seventeen minute gap held by Ferreira, Le Guilloux and Barteau was being considerably cut into and the race hadn't even reached the first set of high mountains in the Pyrenees, which began in stage eleven.

In stage eleven Robert Millar won the first day in the mountains on a solo attack, with the Colombian climber Lucho Herrera coming in 2nd 0:41 behind him.

The stage win by De Wolf was rather astonishing in that it was a solo breakaway in which he beat the favorites to the line by nearly 18:00, actually jumped ahead of Hinault in the overall standings and came within 1:32 of Fignon.

[16] The energy exerted in this stage proved to be very costly however, as de Wolf lost considerable time the following day and faded back in with the Domestiques for the remainder of the Tour.

Hinault trailed him by 2:13, Veldscholten by 2:15, Anderson by 3:04 and the young American LeMond was thus far proving he could ride with the best of the best in the biggest race of them all being just 4:10 behind the defending champion.

[18] Hinault made up his mind to strike during this first Alpine stage, which included the Alpe d'Huez and Côte de Laffrey and he attacked Fignon over and over again, but was not able to break the young Parisian.

[19] Lucho Herrera won the stage and Fignon crossed in 2nd after dropping the Badger and taking considerable time out of him.

Stage twenty was the last chance for riders to gain time in the mountains, but the only one who won time was the leader Fignon, who put his stamp of authority on the 1984 Tour by winning the stage eleven seconds ahead of Arroyo and seventeen seconds ahead of Pablo Wilches all while adding another 1:17 to his lead over Hinault.

Instead it was the Belgian rider Eric Vanderaerden (who along with Marc Demeyer, Freddy Maertens, Michel Pollentier, Johan De Muynck and Fons de Wolf was given the impossible to live up to task of following the legend Eddy Merckx) who won the day clinching his second stage win of the Tour, and one of the highlight wins of his entire career.

Hinault meanwhile, would sign LeMond to his La Vie Claire team in the offseason by visiting him at his home in the Sierra Nevadas, and win his fifth Tour the following year.

This was decided the same way as the general classification, but only riders that rode the Tour for the first time were eligible, and the leader wore a white jersey.