SUNDAY
Valence Back in the day, journalists drove from start to finish along the race route, zig-zagging at speed through the publicity caravan as they did so; this is now a rare happening as Tour vehicles are diverted, to avoid the accidents that marred the race in 1998 and 2000. Now, when you drive up behind the “junk train”, you are halted by a control vehicle that hands over a leaflet detailing precise rules on how to overtake the motorised cakes, fizzy drink bottles, giant geckos and lions and the rest of the garish cavalcade that precedes the Tour. It seems only sensible given the madness that afflicts the sanest of spectators when they sense a possible free key ring, phone cleaning rag, floppy shopping bag or cotton casquette.
MONDAY
Gap Last November, there was consternation after a lack of sponsorship seemed to have led to the retirement of the Tour devil - the ageing, bearded German who wears a red suit and runs alongside the riders brandishing a trident - after 21 years on the Tour route, but Didi Senft is back, with a new suit and a new backer in Rockefeller, an office goods supplier. However, he has yet to find a key supplier for a man who spends three weeks sleeping in his car: deodorant.
TUESDAY
Gap Team Sky’s release of data from Chris Froome’s win at La Pierre-Saint-Martin does not please everyone. “Impossible to interpret”‚“incomplete”‚ fulminates L’Equipe, describing the release as “a bone thrown to a group of journalists who don’t know which end to chew”. As Froome says, somewhat forlornly, it won’t please everyone, but it does at least feel like a beginning after two years in which Sky have been asked to make their stats public.
WEDNESDAY
Barcelonnette This Tour was supposed to be about the “fab four” – Froome, Nairo Quintana, Alberto Contador and Vincenzo Nibali –but the battle between the four best Grand Tour specialists never quite happened. Nibali collapsed in the Pyrenees, and today a crash ends Contador’s slender hopes. A ‘fifth Beatle’, Tejay van Garderen, entered the equation after the first week, but he quits with illness. Five become two: Froome and Quintana.
THURSDAY
Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne Time is running out for the Europcar team, a key part of French cycling since 2000, when the former pro Jean-René Bernaudeau founded the squad under the Bonjour banner. At the end of the month, if no replacement sponsor is found, JRB will be fini, as his riders will be free to sign for other teams. No surprise to see four of his riders in the day’s 29-man escape, and two - Cyril Gautier and Pierre Rolland - still in the hunt at the foot of the final climb, but it is Ag2R’s Romain Bardet who wins. Next day, Gautier and Rolland are at it again.
FRIDAY
Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne The shorter stages that make up today’s Tour mean later starts; since the Pyrenees the flag has dropped almost daily pretty much as the mercury hits 30C. One by one the riders pedal up the little hill - a cruel touch, this, on a mountain stage - here to sign on, most of them looking as weary as can be imagined. Luke Rowe has an ice pack down his neck; Luke Durbridge an extra bottle of mineral water in his pocket to quaff before the flag drops; Manuel Quinziato has his jersey fully unzipped, already, with sweat pouring down his chest. And this is before they have even begun the first of the day’s four mountains.
SATURDAY
Alpe d’Huez Every space in the resort is occupied by a tent, a camper or a car; on the climb, the party was in full swing at midnight the evening before, as drunk fans mooned at Tour cars and lorries and threw beer at gendarmes. A vast overnight thunderstorm soaked the mountain and blew over the gazebos. Let’s hope it’s not a sign of Lance Armstrong’s second coming but a portent of a spectacular day on the road.
