A picture is often described as worth a thousand words and that idiom has never been truer than the image shared by Polish cyclist Pawel Poljanski.

A thesis could be written on the rigours of the Tour de France, but Poljanski's photo, showing legs riven with veins that look poised to burst and skin frazzled by the sun, says it all.

"After sixteen stages I think my legs look little tired," the cyclist wrote on Instagram alongside the picture.