Quinn Simmons has shaved his beard off, confusing everybody

Quinn Simmons (Trek-Segafredo) has been a regular sight at the front of the Tour de France for the last week. The young American drove the pace trying to set the team up for the win into Carcassonne, got in the break on the way to Mende, and tweeted afterward that “if ya bang your head into the door enough times it’s gotta open eventually, right?”

On today’s stage 16, he was at it again, but this time there was widespread confusion. A ripple of “Who’s that?!” went through the press room in Foix, as sweaty tables full of tired journalists in a big shed tried to identify the mystery man bridging across the breakaway. “It’s not Toms [Skujiņš], is it?”

It wasn’t. It was Quinn Simmons with a bald face. It was very confusing.

The Colorado native has had a big blondey-ginger beard since he broke onto the radar of the cycling world in 2019 winning the Junior World Championships, and it has only expanded in the years since. Clearly, a hot rest day in Carcassonne was enough to prompt a radical change for the Trek-Segafredo rider.

Neither good nor bad, Beardless Quinn Simmons will require some remapping of neural pathways. We wish his former beard well in its future endeavours.

This is a developing story. Trek-Segafredo has been approached for comment.