SUNDAY
Arcalis “La première semaine Britannique” ends with five British stage wins out of a possible nine, a record, two British riders, Mark Cavendish and Chris Froome, having worn the yellow jersey - a repeat of 1994, when Chris Boardman and Sean Yates managed the feat, Froome and Adam Yates in first and second overall, and Froome, Cavendish and Yates in the yellow, green and white jerseys, the latter for best young riders. And Cavendish apparently heading for the all-time Tour stage win record. The Brexit jokes have stopped all of a sudden.
MONDAY
Andorra At the previous day’s finish, x-ray checks were added to the thermal imaging and scans that are already being used in the fight against booster motors which may be hidden in the bikes. Someone raises the topic at Sky’s press conference and Sir Dave Brailsford is straight on him: “Finding an engine in a bike is pretty simple. You just need the right technology. Chris’s bike is being tested more than anyone else’s. If someone was stupid enough to come here with an engine in their bike for sure they would get caught.” Just don’t suggest that any rider is “motoring” or “has a good engine”.
TUESDAY
Revel The stage leaves Andorra via the majestic Col de l’Envalira, where Jacques Anquetil almost lost the Tour in 1964 when a feast of barbecued lamb and sangria on the jour de repos disagreed with him, unlike the champagne, lobster and oysters he consumed on a regular basis. With a nod to Master Jacques’ excesses, some bright sparks in the race organisation break into the race head Christian Prudhomme’s hotel room and fill his bath with fruit punch. By Thursday afternoon he is probably dying for a stiff drink.
WEDNESDAY
Montpellier Two legendary figures from contrasting cycling arenas meet at the stage start in Carcassonne. On one side of the barriers, Sean Yates, Peter Sagan’s directeur sportif at Tinkoff. On the other, Eddie Adkins, a massive figure in British time trialling and a hero of the young Yates. Adkins was beaten into second place in the national 25-mile time-trial championship back in 1980 by the Sussex rider, long before Yates began a lengthy professional career that included winning a Tour stage in 1988 and wearing that yellow jersey in 1994. British time trialling has moved forward in terms of technology, but remains low-key and relatively arcane, far removed from the world of the Tour – the drama and excess epitomised by Yates’s current boss Oleg Tinkoff – but it has its heroes. Like Bradley Wiggins, spotted this year riding a club time trial, Yates has never forgotten where he began, and has never truly given up “testing”.
THURSDAY
Mont Ventoux I have spent 26 happy Tours cracking jokes about the French and La fête nationale, centred on how the home cyclists always try to win the Bastille Day stage amid massive media hype, and how they usually fail. But once the terrible news from Nice begins breaking around midnight, all of a sudden cocking a snook at French national pride doesn’t seem remotely funny.
FRIDAY
Caverne du Pont-d’Arc The Tour is a bubble, and when it tries to connect with the real world that sometimes jars. Today it doesn’t. Beyond the brutal human facts, the Nice attack hits close: many of the riders live in the area, which is where Team Sky has its training base, and the Promenade des Anglais is familiar to everyone in cycling, as the finish location for Paris-Nice. To their credit the riders, with Froome and Tom Dumoulin en tête, manage to say the right things, putting what they do into perspective. The Tour is a form of escape, a glorious irrelevance, and for all the significance accorded to time gaps, aerodynamics, viewing figures and yellow jerseys running up mountains, that is too easy to forget.
SATURDAY
Parc des Oiseaux Three days of national mourning begins. The Tour heads north, but this festive event, hailed by Louis Aragon as “the race of a summer of men”, sits uncomfortably alongside the national mood this bitter July.
