'As soon as I closed my eyes, I was in the peloton' - Former Tour rider on the side of the Tour de France no one sees

In a long interview with French triathlete Yannick Matejicek on his YouTube channel, reported this week by La Dépêche du Midi, Perez gave one of the more candid accounts of life at the WorldTour level to emerge from the French peloton in recent years. 

The Toulouse native, who turned pro with Cofidis in 2016 and made six Tour de France starts in his career, used most of the interview talking about what it took to survive at the top level rather than what he had won.

"At the highest level, it's a daily lifestyle," he told Matejicek. The shift from amateur ranks, where Perez had been used to riding out on an empty stomach and a light body, was harder than he had anticipated.

The mental side of the job is what wore him down most. WorldTour careers, in Perez's account, run on a contract-to-contract basis.

"There isn't much management involved because you have to renew contracts. Yes, you get butterflies in your stomach."

Perez spoke about the Tour of the Basque Country as one of the races that exposed him most as a young pro. His coach had prescribed an hour-a-day block of motor-pacing in preparation. The race itself was something else.

"I got absolutely wrecked. He told me, 'You know what you're going to do there? You're going to ride, you're going to spend an hour behind a scooter every day.' But that race was awful. I spent all my time replacing other guys."

The Tour de France was where it showed up most. Perez described it as relentless in a way no other race in his career had been.

"The Tour de France is so traumatic. You hear people yelling at you for five, six hours. The only time you can breathe a little is on the descents from the mountain passes."

The sleep was where the damage really sat. "As soon as I closed my eyes, I was in the peloton."

Perez retired at the end of the 2025 season after his final race at the Tour de Vendée on 11 October 2025, telling La Dépêche du Midi at the time that the decision came as "a relief." He spent his entire career at Cofidis, taking five wins along the way, with his best remembered being the Faun Drôme Classic in 2023 from a 40km solo move.