The announcement of the release caused much anticipation, as it had been 17 years since the group had put out a full album of new studio material (1986's Electric Café, also known as Techno Pop).

Kitty Empire of The Observer labeled Tour de France Soundtracks a techno album.

The lyrics were co-written by Ralf Hütter and Maxime Schmitt, who had previously been manager of the Capitol label at Pathé-Marconi (part of the EMI group, the company that distributed Kraftwerk's music in France) and had been involved with the band since the mid-1970s.

A short jingle was supplied to the television broadcaster Eurosport for use in their coverage of the 2003 Tour de France.

On the tour, they performed the music from four laptop computers running sequencing, sampling, and synthesizer software, also controlling and synchronised with large video displays.