The race was won by Bernard Hinault (riding for the La Vie Claire team), who equalled the record by Jacques Anquetil and Eddy Merckx of five overall victories.

[6] The riders in the race had an average age of 26.76 years,[7] ranging from the 20-year-old Miguel Induráin (Reynolds) to the 38-year-old Lucien Van Impe (Santini).

[13] In Fignon's absence, Hinault was considered the clear favourite to achieve his fifth overall victory,[14] which would draw him level with Jacques Anquetil and Eddy Merckx for the record number of Tour de France wins.

[19] During that race, La Vie Claire's team owner Bernard Tapie had approached LeMond, offering him the highest-paid contract in cycling history to set him up as a successor to Hinault.

[23] The amount of individual time trials, four stages totaling 159 km (99 mi), was considered in Hinault's favour, since he excelled at the discipline.

[13] Other favourites included Ángel Arroyo (Zor–Gemeaz Cusin), Pedro Muñoz (Fagor), Claude Criquielion (Hitachi–Splendor–Sunair),[13] Stephen Roche (La Redoute), and Sean Kelly (Skil–Sem–Kas–Miko).

[27] His Irish compatriot Roche had displayed good form earlier in the year by winning the Critérium International and the Tour Midi-Pyrénées.

After leaving the high mountains, the route moved north to Bordeaux, before travelling inland, with a time trial at Lac de Vassivière on the penultimate day, followed by a train transfer to Orléans for the final, ceremonial stage into Paris.

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.

[69] Rudy Matthijs (Hitachi–Splendor–Sunair) won the first stage from a bunch sprint, ahead of Vanderaerden, who with the help of time bonuses took over the race leader's yellow jersey.

Their team coach, Paul Köchli, had made the decision to fit faster wheels to the slower riders, balancing out the performance of the squad.

[73] While Vanderaerden held on to the yellow jersey courtesy of the time bonuses he had collected earlier, the eight riders behind him on general classification came from La Vie Claire.

[c] Angry at the decision, Thurau physically attacked the judge who had handed out the penalty, grabbing him by the throat, and was subsequently ejected from the race on stage 10.

[84] Paul Sherwen (La Redoute) was involved in a crash just 1 km (0.62 mi) into the stage and suffered throughout, reaching the finish more than an hour behind Pedersen.

[87][88] Even though stage 12 featured seven categorised climbs, it saw no changes on the top of the general classification,[87] as Parra and Herrera fought out the victory between teammates.

Hinault, who was generally accepted as the patron, meaning the most influential rider, was unhappy with the acceleration in the field, as he wanted the tempo to remain slow.

[90][91][e] Weakened by his attacking riding style over the previous days, Hinault placed only second in the mountain time trial to Villard-de-Lans, about a minute behind Vanderaerden.

Although he crashed on the final descent of the day, he prevailed to reach the finish line first, soaked in blood, 47 seconds ahead of a small group of riders containing LeMond.

As he approached the finish, his advantage decreased significantly, but he won the stage, 3:12 minutes ahead of Mottet and Bontempi, as Hinault remained the leader of the race overall.

The latter heard the conversation between LeMond and his team car and remained alert, leading to both cancelling each other out and allowing other riders to catch back up.

[103][104][105] At the finish, LeMond was visibly angry when interviewed by American television, saying that he felt betrayed by his team of a chance to win the Tour.

Hinault meanwhile maintains that there were no bad feelings inside La Vie Claire during the 1985 Tour and that it was a clear case of not attacking a teammate who has the race lead.

[108] LeMond emerged from the meeting with a different public statement, telling the press that he got carried away after the finish and that he would continue to work for Hinault.

[108][109] Stage 18b in the afternoon was won by Roche's La Redoute teammate Régis Simon, who beat Álvaro Pino (Zor–Gemeaz Cusin) in a two-man sprint to the finish line.

Speaking to journalist Samuel Abt of The New York Times, five-time Tour winner Anquetil declared that he and Merckx would "accept him in our club with pleasure".

[117] In the final sprint, Rudy Matthijs took his third stage victory,[118] with Sean Kelly finishing in second place for the fifth time during this Tour.

[120] During the final stage, Pedro Delgado used the small categorised climbs along the route to move past Robert Millar into second place in the mountains classification, ensuring his team the prize money that went with it.

Following the time trial on the penultimate day, he publicly stated in an interview with French cycling magazine Miroir du Cyclisme: "I'll stir things up to help Greg win, and I'll have fun doing it.

"[130] On the victory podium in Paris, he leaned over to LeMond, telling him: "Next year, it's you", repeating the pledge again during the celebration dinner of La Vie Claire that same evening.

The head of the laboratory at Ghent University, which had administered the analysis, subsequently resigned his post in the Medical Commission of the Belgian Cycling Association (KBWB) in protest.