Despite losing his podium place in the final week, Bardet still attacked on downhill sections to potentially gain seconds on his rivals.

He gained a minute on the technical descent, then climbed up to the ski resort of Pra-Loup to win the stage solo, 36 seconds ahead of second-placed Tejay van Garderen.

Bardet and Thibaut Pinot were part of a breakaway and led over the top of the final Côte de la Croix Neuve climb of Stage 14.

[12] On Stage 19 of the Tour de France, Bardet and his team mate Mikaël Cherel attacked together on a wet descent before the penultimate climb.

Bardet caught the breakaway survivor Rui Costa with 7 kilometres (4.3 miles) to go, dropped him on the steepest pitches of the final climb with 3.2 kilometres (2.0 miles) remaining and won the stage by 23 seconds over second-placed Joaquim Rodríguez; ultimately, he was the only Frenchman to win a stage in the 2016 Tour de France.

He finished the Tour in second position in the final general classification, 4:05 behind Chris Froome,[13] becoming the sixth Frenchman to finish in the top three in the final general classification over the previous 30 editions; the other five were Pinot and Jean-Christophe Péraud (both 2014), Richard Virenque (1996, 1997), Laurent Fignon (1989) and Jean-François Bernard (1987).

[18] Bardet dropped from second to third in the general classification going into the final stage, with a one-second lead over fourth-placed Mikel Landa.

In March, Bardet rode the Strade Bianche one day classic, held partly on gravel roads in torrential rain.

He was later joined by Chris Froome, Geraint Thomas and Tom Dumoulin, but decided to test the contenders with numerous accelerations.

[22] With Bardet only being 8th in the general classification before stage 19, he and several other contenders attacked on the Col du Tourmalet with almost 100 kilometres (62 miles) to the finish line.

He moved up to a final placing of sixth overall after the penultimate stage, an individual time trial – his fifth consecutive top-ten finish at the race.

Valverde started the sprint with almost 200 metres (660 feet) to the finish line but Bardet never looked like a serious challenge and had to settle with 2nd place.

[27] At the Tour de France, Bardet lost more than 20 minutes on stage 14 – which finished at the Col du Tourmalet – which removed him from overall contention.

[33] He ran as high as fourth overall in the Tour de France, but withdrew ahead of the fourteenth stage following a crash, which left him with a concussion and a "small haemorrhage".

[38] However, he fell to seventh in the general classification during the final-day individual time trial, dropping behind Daniel Martínez and João Almeida.

In spite of his crash on the descent of the Picón Blanco climb, he won the third stage solo to Espinosa de los Monteros, his first in over three years.

He then rode solo to the summit finish at Pico Villuercas to claim the stage win, 44 seconds ahead of Jesús Herrada.

He lost more than three minutes on stage sixteen,[51] dropping to ninth overall; he yo-yoed around the lower half of the top-ten placings for the remainder of the race, finishing seventh overall on the road, before being promoted to sixth with Nairo Quintana's disqualification.

In late June, Bardet won his fourth career Tour de France stage on the first day of the race, holding off the chasing peloton by five seconds with teammate Frank van den Broek.

[57] Alongside his professional cycling career, he began business studies in 2011, in the grande école program adapted to high-level athletes in Grenoble School of Management.