Alongside mountain biking, Bernal had begun to gain success in junior road racing both in Colombia and Italy, winning the Clasica Juventudes Cajica and the Sognando Il Giro delle Fiandre in 2015.
2016–2017 Bernal was signed by
Gianni Savio to the team on a four-year contract, partly on the evidence of a
VO2 max reading of 88.8ml/kg/min provided by his agent, Paolo Alberati. He began racing among seniors right away, bypassing the usual U23 career route. 2017 saw top ten finishes for Bernal in the
Vuelta a San Juan and the
Tour de Langkawi. He later finished third overall in the
Settimana Internazionale di Coppi e Bartali, second in the
Giro dell'Appennino, and ninth in the
Tour of the Alps. He also won two stages and the overall title at the
Tour de l'Avenir. Bernal signed a five-year deal with from the 2018 season. He completed his time in
Savio's team with fifth in the
Giro della Toscana and top twenty places in
Giro dell'Emilia,
Milano–Torino and his first
monument,
Il Lombardia. in which he won the young rider classification and finished sixth in the overall standings. In February 2018, Bernal won the
Colombian National Time Trial Championships. He went on to win the first edition of the
Tour Colombia (then called Colombia Oro y Paz), through an attack on the final climb on the last day. Bernal's next race was the
Volta a Catalunya, in which he was second on general classification when he fell on a wet descent in the final stage, fracturing his
clavicle and
scapula. The following month, Bernal competed in the
Tour de Romandie, winning stage three of the race, an
individual time trial and finishing second overall behind
Primož Roglič. In May, Bernal achieved his first
UCI World Tour win in the
Tour of California, finishing over a minute ahead of
Tejay van Garderen, and winning two stages. In July, he rode the
Tour de France as a
domestique for team leaders
Chris Froome and
Geraint Thomas. He was the youngest participant in the race, and was still able to drop many contenders in the mountains.
2019 Bernal started his 2019 season in Colombia. He rode in the national championships and in his home stage race, the
Tour Colombia. Bernal, however, was unable to defend his title in the race, finishing fourth overall. Bernal later went to Europe to compete in
Paris–Nice. The Colombian impressed in the crosswinds, the individual time trial, and in the mountains, claiming the overall victory ahead of
Nairo Quintana. Bernal next finished third in the
Volta a Catalunya, and was scheduled to lead Team Ineos at the
Giro d'Italia until he broke a collarbone in a training injury in Andorra. He returned to racing for the
Tour de Suisse, in which he won the overall classification and the queen stage.
Tour de France victory Bernal was elevated to be co-leader of the team with defending champion Thomas for the
Tour de France, because of the absence through injury of Froome. After the stage 2 team time trial he had a top ten position in the general classification, which he retained, despite an unimpressive individual time trial performance, into the three decisive alpine stages. An attack on the last climb of stage 18 saw him move into second place overall, ahead of Thomas, and he took the yellow jersey as race leader on stage 19 after an attack on the
Col de l'Iseran. The stage was shortened because of landslides and a severe hail storm with 38 km remaining. Although the stage positions were considered null, times were taken at the top of the Iseran, putting Bernal in the lead with margins of forty five seconds over previous leader
Julian Alaphilippe and one minute and eleven seconds over Thomas. He defended his lead on stage 20, another mountain stage, and confirmed his victory with the largely ceremonial ride onto the
Champs-Élysées in Paris. He thus became the first Colombian or South American rider, and second from the Americas, to win the Tour de France, and also won the best young rider competition. At the time he was the youngest General Classification winner since
1909 and the third youngest ever at 22 years, 196 days. "It's incredible, I don't know what to say", Bernal said. "I've won the Tour but I don't manage to believe it. I need a couple of days to assimilate all this. It's for my family and I just want to hug them. It's a feeling of happiness that I don't know how to describe it." The young champion cyclist went on to say the victory was also for his home country of Colombia. "This is not only my triumph", Bernal said. "It's the triumph of a whole country."
2020 In early 2020, Bernal finished fourth at the
Tour Colombia. After the coronavirus break, he won the
Route d'Occitanie, and finished second at the
Tour de l'Ain. At the Colombian Road Race Championships, he claimed podiums in both the road race and time trial. At the
Tour de France, Bernal was in the top ten of the general classification from stage 2 to stage 14, and led the young rider classification for five stages, but having been 59 seconds behind the leader after stage 14 he lost considerable time on the next two days, after which he withdrew from the race with back pain.
2021 during the final time trial of the
2021 Giro d'Italia After some early season stage races, including the
Tour de la Provence where he took third place, he finished third in
Strade Bianche, and in the
Tirreno–Adriatico he managed one top five stage finish, and finished in fourth place, 4'13" behind winner
Tadej Pogačar. Bernal entered the
2021 Giro d'Italia as one of the favourites for the race. On the race's ninth stage, Bernal took the first Grand Tour stage win of his career as well as the
pink jersey with an attack on the gravel section at the end of the final climb to
Campo Felice, emerging with a 15 second lead in the general classification over
Remco Evenepoel. Bernal extended his lead on the second stage of the race with gravel sectors, stage 11 to
Montalcino, where several of his general classification rivals lost time, including Evenepoel, giving Bernal a 45 second lead over
Aleksander Vlasov. He took more time out of his rivals on stage 14, latching onto an attack by
Simon Yates on the final climb up
Monte Zoncolan before overhauling him to finish the stage in fourth and take a lead of over one and a half minutes in the general classification over Yates, who moved into the runner-up position. Bernal took his second stage win of the race on the sixteenth stage to
Cortina d'Ampezzo, which was shortened due to poor weather, crossing the finish line 27 seconds in front of
Romain Bardet and
Damiano Caruso and opening up a lead in the overall standings of almost two and a half minutes over the latter going into the second rest day. and Yates again attacking on stage 19's final ascent up
Alpe di Mera with about six and a half kilometres to go, going on to win the stage with Bernal almost half a minute behind. On the final mountain stage, Caruso and his teammate
Pello Bilbao distanced Bernal on the descent of the
San Bernardino Pass 50 km from the finish in pursuit of a group of riders from including Bardet before working with riders from an earlier breakaway to extend their lead over Bernal to 50 seconds up the penultimate climb of the
Splügen Pass. Bernal and his teammates were able to reduce the gap to less than half a minute by the time Caruso crossed the finish line on the Alpe Motta to win the stage, reducing Bernal's general classification lead to just under two minutes. Bernal secured the pink jersey on the final time trial in Milan, conceding another 30 seconds to Caruso to win by a one and a half minute margin. He became the fourth rider to win both the Tour and the Giro before reaching the age of 25, after
Gino Bartali,
Felice Gimondi and
Eddy Merckx, and also the fourth rider to win both the overall and
youth classifications in the same Giro, alongside
Evgeni Berzin, countryman
Nairo Quintana and teammate
Tao Geoghegan Hart. Bernal entered the
2021 Vuelta a España with a very strong team that also included
Richard Carapaz and
Adam Yates. By his own standards he rode poorly early in the race and was not happy with his own performance. Despite this he took over the young rider classification after stage 3 and was in a top 10 position among the general classification riders for most of the race. On stage 17 which included the climb to the
Lagos de Covadonga he launched an attack with 61 kilometers to go. Days later, on a training ride in
Gachancipá with Ineos Grenadiers teammates on 24 January, Bernal hit the back of a stopped
passenger bus at a speed of about . Bernal was on his time-trial bike and had not been attentive to the stopped bus according to the transit police. Ineos team later released a statement stating Bernal had sustained "[...]a fractured vertebrae, a fractured right
femur, a fractured right
patella,
chest trauma, a
punctured lung and several
rib fractures". Bernal was taken to Clinica
Universidad de La Sabana in Bogotá for treatment. He underwent two surgeries, both of which were successful in the immediate sense; the long term impacts were less certain. By 25 January he was stabilized, although still in intensive care as the doctors moved to treating less serious injuries. He began to recover quickly, and by early March was sharing his progress with friends, family and fans on social media. His coach, Xabier Artexte, did not rule out a return to cycling by the end of the 2022 season. There was a rumor that Bernal would possibly make his return at the
2022 Vuelta a España, however Vuelta Director Javier Guillén stated this was not true. Instead Bernal was intending to ride in the
2022 Vuelta a Burgos. The plan was changed again with his new return being the
Danmark Rundt.
2023–present Bernal finished 8th at the
2023 Tour de Romandie. He also rode in the
2023 Tour de France and the
2023 Vuelta a España. In 2024, he finished fourth at the
Volta a Catalunya. In 2025, he finished seventh at the
Giro d'Italia, his first top-ten finish in a Grand Tour since 2022. He rode the
2025 Vuelta a España, where he won the sixteenth stage. he finished eight in that season's Giro di Lombardia, his first monument top-ten since he finished third at the same race in 2019. ==Major results==