The naming of ten British riders for the 2015 Tour de France is set to give British fans more to cheer about than ever before.

With bona-fide stage and overall winners across a variety of terrains, we take a quick look at the riders flying the Union Jack in 2015.

Mark Cavendish

Team: Etixx - Quick Step
Age: 30
Number of previous participations: 8

The flying Manxman’s first Tour de France participation came in 2007 when he rode for T-Mobile. Since then Cavendish has amassed an astonishing 25 stage wins, putting him amid the race’s all-time great stage winners. Cavendish will hope to climb further up the rankings with an Etixx - Quick Step team built around the sprint lead-out.

Steve Cummings

Team: MTN - Qhubeka
Age: 34
Number of previous participations: 2

The experienced Cummings will have a long overdue chance to carve for himself in 2015. After four years of working for a GC contender at Team Sky and BMC Racing Team. Cummings now resides at MTN-Qhubeka and the African team has an opportunistic remit for the 2015 Tour. Expect the powerhouse from Wirral to excel on the flat, in the break and in the ITT.

Alex Dowsett

Team: Movistar Team
Age: 26
Number of previous participations: Debut

Alex Dowsett’s annus mirabilis continues – first the hour record in May, followed by his first stage race overall win at Bayern Rundfahrt. A fourth British time-trial title came just days before the news that the 26-year-old from Maldon gains his first Tour de France selection, riding in support of yellow-jersey contender Nairo Quintana. In terms of individual ambition, Dowsett will be firmly focussed on the opening day’s time-trial in Utrecht.

Chris Froome

Team: Team Sky
Age: 30
Number of previous participations: 4

The 2013 Tour de France winner returns in superlative form after a convincing and gutsy victory in June’s Criterium du Dauphine. It will be Froome’s fifth Tour start, his first coming back in 2008. Last year’s campaign ended ignominiously on a wet roundabout in northern France on stage five – an injured wrist curtailing his chances of back-to-back wins.

Peter Kennaugh

Team: Team Sky
Age: 26
Number of previous participations: 1

Kennaugh was a key lieutenant from Chris Froome on his successful 2013 yellow jersey campaign –the 26-year-old Manxman’s debut Tour. His non-selection for the 2014 event was a bitter pill to swallow for Kennaugh. However a stage win at Criterium du Dauphine and a successful British title defence show that the Team Sky man is more than ready for his second Tour.

Luke Rowe

Team: Team Sky
Age: 25
Number of previous participations: Debut

One of three British Tour debutantes, Rowe has impressed all year as a tireless worker for the team, with top ten finishes at Paris-Roubaix and Omloop Het Nieuwsblad Elite indicators of the 25-year-old Welshman’s burgeoning talent. Rowe, alongside Ian Stannard, is likely to be a key guardian for Froome on the nervous stages of the opening week, as well as the engine room of the team time trial.

Ian Stannard

Team: Team Sky
Age: 28
Number of previous participations: 1

Ian Stannard supported Chris Froome to his 2013 win and like Kennaugh it was the rider’s debut year at Le Tour. A classics man by DNA, the big man from Essex is right at home driving the peloton over the flatlands, Stannard’s recent bronze medal performance at the British championships a vivid demonstration of his ability to rip a race apart.

Geraint Thomas

Team: Team Sky
Age: 29
Number of previous participations: 5

Thomas has built his brand around dogged determination, evidenced by his five previous starts, and finishes, since his debut for Barloworld in 2007. Thomas best finish was in 2014, when the 29-year-old Welshman finished 22nd, as the last Brit standing in an attritional edition. Second overall at a gruelling Tour de Suisse in June shows Thomas’ stellar pre-Tour form.

Adam Yates

Team: Orica GreenEDGE
Age: 22
Number of previous participations: Debut

Adam Yates, along with brother Simon, was the last of the ten Brits to be confirmed for 2015 Tour duty, the 22-year-old identical twin from Bury taking third place in the youth classification at the Criterium du Dauphine. Debutante Yates gives Orica – a team without GC ambitions this year – options to attack in the mountains as well as challenge for the youth prize.

Simon Yates

Team: Orica GreenEDGE
Age: 22
Number of previous participations: 1

Simon Yates got a last minute call-up for the 2014 Tour and was deliberately pulled after two weeks by Orica GreenEDGE management – the intention to blood the neo-pro without burning him out. Fast forward 12 months and Yates approaches his second Tour on the back of a white jersey win at the Criterium du Dauphine, in which he also claimed fifth on general classification.