The Tour gives television plenty of spectacular pictures.
Especially in the Alps and Pyrenees.
Really exciting pictures.
The race started in Belgium three weeks ago and finishes in Paris today.
Last week I was enjoying the highlights on ITV4, while Jan was away in Sussex and Somerset.
Many fans drive up the mountains in cars and camper vans and turn the race into a series of local festivals. There are many cyclists watching as well.
Maybe the behaviour of the fans looks more alarming than it really is.
They run alongside the riders, cheering them on, or stand and applaud and hold their hands out inches from the faces of their heroes, and some crazy people even run in front of the bikes, or suddenly crouch down to take a low-angle photograph, so that the front tyre misses their knee by an inch.
Yesterday I saw a 20something fan standing on a wall screaming as the riders flashed past. There was a deep ravine right behind him.
It’s all pretty edgy, especially some of the descents.
The more you watch, the more often you think, “These guys have bottle.”
You expect more accidents than you see and the only reason you don’t see more crashes is that you’re watching the finest professional cyclists in the whole world.
After a 3,500 km bike race, Team Sky’s Chris Froome is leading by 72 seconds.
Proud Frenchman Thibaut Pinot beat Quintana by 18 seconds on Stage 20, a particulartly thrilling race that lasted over 3 hours 17minutes.
Interviewed, Froome said, several times, that the race been “unreal.”
Last summer Jan suggested we go down to Tower Bridge to see the Tour as it came into London from Essex, so we did that.
We waited between the river and a narrow road protected by steel barriers, near a zebra crossing that was strictly policed.
The Shard, oddly geometric from this angle, pointed up into ruched white clouds. A jumbo jet, never nearer than 10 miles away, glided silently behind the notorious skyscraper as we talked to some jolly Texans. Two were from Austin, one from Dallas.
We waited for the bikes, and kept waiting, and after that we waited a bit more, and I noticed that the highest bits of Tower Bridge are gold-painted.
Rain was forecast so we had brought umbrellas.
A team of banker boys, chatting in their clipped blasé manner, had already turned into their parents.
“What did you do at the weekend?”
“Went to a barbecue that turned into a house party. On Sunday I went to see family in Hastings. It was nice.”
A helicopter appeared and hovered, rather serenely, I thought. A British Airways jet seemed to fly lower than the copter but that was an optical illusion.
Then it began to rain.
Jan was in front against the barrier and I had the bigger umbrella and Jan kept turning round to make sure that a slim brunette, who was with the bankers, was being kept dry by yours truly. Jan could see that the young woman’s garb, an office dress and long black cardigan, was not appropriate for these weather conditions.
Of course any gentleman would have done the same. Checking her Blackberry, the girl told me that the race was now at Stratford.
So the leaders would be coming our way very soon.
Suddenly some cars and motorcycles zoomed past and I saw a man sitting backwards on the motorcycle with his small TV camera flat on the saddle, nestling in his groin, and then the riders swished past at us at 35mph and disappeared.
That was it.
The suits of the bankers were rather wet but the rain had almost stopped and the crowd started to break up.
Black Cardigan smiled graciously and said, “Thank you so much.”
The Palmers walked back slowly in the throng, towards the Jubilee Line station.
“Did you feel a wave of warmth as they went by?” asked Jan.
“No.”
“You were standing behind me, further away.”
That was my Tour De France.
It lasted 15 seconds and I missed the wave of warmth.
Damn! I love warmth.