Adam Yates ponders a question about his brother and Tour de France rival Simon Yates.

If identical twins swapped kits, would anyone on their respective teams, UAE Team Emirates and Jayco Alura, know?

"Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh," Adam ponders.

"Maybe. He's a little skinnier than me now, so maybe, I don't know."

In Jayco Alula, former Paris-Roubaix winner turned sports director Matthew Heyman seems equally unsure if he can tell Simon and Adam apart.

"We often start talking about when we raced together, and Adam says, 'No, that's my brother,'" says Heyman.

"I think it's difficult. I have twins, but one is a boy and the other is a girl, so I can tell them apart."

Ironically, you could call it a potential marginal gain, although neither needed it, as Adam and Simon are both on the verge of career-best results on this tour.

The Yates brothers will finish as close as they started in Paris on Sunday, with Adam in third overall and Simon in fourth overall. The pair battled for the win on the first stage, with Adam taking the win and the race's first yellow jersey.

On the mountains of the various stages, despite their contrasting team strategies, the two managed to find each other and roll into the paddock together amid the throngs of media, fans, team staff, bikes, cameras, and cars at the finish line.

On Saturday's final stage in Vosges, the Yates twins again appeared on the road together, almost to bridge to the lead group that included Adam's teammates Tadej Pogacar, Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo Visma), and Felix Gall (AG2R Citroen). They ran in unison.

They got out of the saddle at the same moment and shifted left, right, left, right, as if pulled by the same length of string operated by the same puppeteer. Even at the stage's biggest moments, they were identical twins.

Simon's focus was on a stage win and a move into fourth place overall, while Adam's focus was on a stage win, a Tour runner-up finish, and support for Pogacar, who was defending his third place.

There was business on the road, but there was also brotherly love, not sibling rivalry.

When Simon dismounted his bike outside the team bus at the finish, his face was covered in light brown mud and an airway strip was still fixed to the bridge of his nose.

He was shivering slightly, but it could have been from the day's effort, or the effort of three weeks of hard, fast racing, or the cooler breeze.

"I couldn't have closed the gap to the guys in front of me on my own, so having him [Adam] there helped.

"Then I had a chance to stage.

When they found each other on the street, there wasn't much chatter between them.

"It was just a wink, just go, don't mess around," Simon added, explaining that the twins instantly understood each other's thoughts.

Adam elaborated on their symbiosis.

"In the first stage we ran away together and managed to drive him to the line. He was one of the few riders I had to mark along with Bilbao, Hindley, and Carlos Rodriguez."

"When he went, I had to jump over. I had to hang on and I wasn't that far off the top, so he asked me to help him. That's just the way it is."

Simon missed out on the stage win and moved up one place in the overall standings, although he was no match for Pogacar's blistering speed.

"I had a lot of bad luck in the Grand Tours, injuries and illnesses. "It wasn't a grand tour completely free of bad luck, but I'm happy because I did my best every day."

For Adam, it was around this time last year that he began talking about a move with the management of UAE Team Emirates after two seasons with Ineos Grenadiers

The move brought him his first podium finish in the Grand Tour, the 12th of his career.

Adam Yates insisted that he was always at the Tour to support Pogacar, even though the team considered him a co-leader, given the Slovenian's wrist injury that interrupted his preparations.

"The team's idea for me was to come to the Tour and be the last man with Taddeji. It worked out well this year and I got a podium. It's not up to me to decide if I can compete in the Grand Tours elsewhere.

"I didn't have to pull too hard. I think that was always the goal."

"Working with Taddeji is always a pleasure. He's very calm.

"For me, it was the most fun Grand Tour ever. I'll be back next year even stronger."

Andrea Agostini, chief operating officer of UAE Team Emirates, was as impressed with the new contingent's performance, which has improved with each passing year like the bottle of fine red wine the Yates brothers will share after the Tour.

"He has shown that he can fight for the eventual win and will be a co-leader in some of the big Tours next season," Agostini said.

"Adam is a great rider. Adam is a great rider. He followed all of our staff's instructions in terms of performance, training, and nutrition.

"Since the beginning of the year his level of performance has been really high and he has never left the podium. He won the Tour de Romandie, won the first stage here, took the yellow jersey, and is fighting for the podium. Adam is a good bet for us and I am really happy for him.

"He fits in well with Taddej and the team, he's a great rider and a great human being. He might be a little shy, but he humors everyone and the mood on the bus is great.

"One of our strengths is our team atmosphere, and he fits in well."