The TV series was officially announced in Weekly Shōnen Champion magazine in its combined issue 4+5 of 2013.

From the 3rd season (NEW GENERATION) onwards, the animation studio changed, resulting in a major modification of the graphic style, and the fictional advertising billboards present along the courses were replaced by real brands from actual companies.

The beverages shown on screen in seasons 1 to 4 were products from the Otsuka Pharmaceutical brand, although this was never credited in the opening credits; from the 5th season (LIMIT BREAK) onwards, they were replaced by fictional beverages and the real company billboards became fictional again.

The cumulative number of copies sold of the manga increased from 4.15 million in December 2012 to over 7 million by December 2013, only two months after the start of the first season's broadcast.

A Real Sound critic estimates that the repeated success of Yowamushi Pedal allowed the previously underexploited genre of cycling anime to gain visibility, with many fans being inspired to take up road cycling after watching the series.

For the film Gekijōban Yowamushi Pedal released in 2015, actor Mamoru Miyano was announced as the voice of an original character created especially for the film, Shin Yoshimoto, a high school student from Kumamoto Daiichi.

For the promotion of the 2015 film, a train dressed in the colors of the Sōhoku and Hakone Gakuen cycling teams ran on the Suruga Line of Izuhakone Railway from April 18 to the end of September 2015.

Kumamoto's official mascot, Kumamon, made a guest appearance in the 2015 film, whose plot takes place in Kumamoto.