The winner of the 1986 Tour de France, Greg LeMond was unable to defend his title following a shooting accident in April.

Following Stage 1, Poland's Lech Piasecki became the first rider from the Eastern Bloc to lead the Tour de France.

[4] The average age of riders in the race was 27.05 years,[5] ranging from the 20-year-old Jean-Claude Colotti (RMO–Cycles Méral–Mavic) to the 36-year-old Gerrie Knetemann (PDM–Ultima–Concorde).

[7] The teams entering the race were:[3] Shortly before the Tour, on 20 April 1987, the defending champion Greg LeMond was accidentally shot by his brother-in-law while hunting turkeys.

In the recent Tours, Pedro Delgado had shown improving results, and he had some talented helpers in his PDM team, so he was also considered a contender.

[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 21.

It was won with a great margin by Jean-François Bernard, who became the new leader of the general classification, and the new hope of the French cycling fans.

He had a flat tire just before the top of a climb, and lost contact with the other riders while he had to wait for repairs, and had to spend energy to get back.

His rivals Mottet and Roche had made a plan to attack in the feed zone, where cyclists could get their lunch.

Mottet and Roche had packed extra food at the start of the stage, and attacked while Bernard was at the back of the peloton.

Bernard chased them, but was not able to get back to them, and lost four minutes in that stage, which made Roche the new leader, closely followed by Mottet and Delgado.

Roche, Delgado and Mottet decided to work together to get rid of the Colombian cyclists on the descent of the Galibier, out of fear that Herrera and Parra would leave them behind in the next climbs.

That stage included the last serious climb of the Tour, so Delgado had his final opportunity to gain time on Roche, and he attacked.

[1] Being a talented time-trialist, he knew that he could easily make up for it on the penultimate stage (an individual time trial at Dijon).

This time trial was won by Jean-François Bernard finished the Tour in third place after losing four minutes after the flat tire in the nineteenth stage.

[8] Bontempi was originally declared winner of the 7th stage, but a few days later, his doping test came back positive for testosterone.

Bontempi was set back to the last place of the stage, was penalised with 10 minutes in the general classification, and received a provisional suspension of one month.

The cyclist with the most points lead the classification, and wore a white jersey with red polka dots.

This was decided the same way as the general classification, but only riders under 26 years were eligible, and the leader wore a white jersey.

[30][11] After the Giro-Tour double victory, Roche would complete the Triple Crown of Cycling by winning the 1987 road race world championship.

[8] Jeff Pierce winning the final stage on the Champs-Élysées is thought to have impressed the presence of United States cycling in the European circuit.