Tour-spotting

Grimly we ploughed through the neated rows of vines, ignoring the howling wind and the horizontal rain, focusing only on our Goal – a good view of the Tour de France as it shot through  A Village Near Us!  Rarely does the opportunity come this close – close enough to hear the wheels purring smoothly, to see those muscles pulsing... pulsing, to feel the wind in your hair as the bikes whoosh lycra’dly past - it's an opportunity not to be missed!

‘A bit of exercise’ – walking instead of driving – had seemed a suitably sporty idea to reach the spot…  But one row of vines looks very like another.  Our water tower marker suddenly appeared on the wrong horizon, then disappeared completely...

George was still sticking to his 'half an hour at most!' forecast; I was losing hope.  “Let’s have a sandwich!” I suggested.  George frowned and pointed out that it was nowhere near lunchtime, and if we just went back along this track until we reached that treeline, we might be getting near the main road...

Some time later..., we did by chance hit the main road, and soon cars started passing us and joining cars already parked along the verge.   People opened their boots to unleash padded coats and canvas chairs (we're generally alone in flinging a jacket on the grass), then strode along to the wide viewing bend, where a crowd shuffled in small clutches, gazing expectantly up the road and muttering, "Should be here any minute...".

After about a week, someone with a mobile yelled, “Caravan in five minutes!”  (Oh thank god!)
And Loh!  It did verily heave into view –  45 minutes of colourful, musical and demented publicity vehicles (of which this is but One - look out for Heroic Gendarme saving child-wanting-hat):

This is George's proud camera-work, and not even our voices are in it, but we were There. I specially loved the veritable Ethos of the Tour, portrayed in giant yellow Balloon Sculpture.

I read that for many people, the Caravan is best part.  (So I'm not the only one...)

Anyway, after It, there follows a lengthy pause before the actual Cyclists arrive. This can be quite handy for erecting foldy chairs, (or brollies as the rain has no doubt set in again), and for shuffling about bagging a better view. Several people had their eye on my lamppost for example, planted as it was on a small hillock.
I leaned menacingly.

Then I had to relinquish my claim because George had gone and  bagged a better view down the road a bit - loads of space, perfect outlook, ditch very leapable - we knew we'd be happy there...

I'd eaten my inadequate sandwich ages before, and was very sorry I hadn't made more effort to grab a flying publicity biscuit.  Messages had got through on the progress of the race, and it was now running an hour late.  Children were getting bored with their death-defying ditch games, and holiday-makers were wishing they'd gone to see another chateau instead.

And then!  A rustle in the throng, an excited murmur and fingers-pointing, the thrub of the TV helicopters (oh god - how's my hair?!) And they're HEEEERE! 

What a Thrill as they burned rubber round that long bend and shot up the Straight towards us!  Such a densely packed crowd of nearly two hundred bikes, looking very like this:




(In fact, this clip was the youtube end of Stage 11, which Mark Cavendish won). 
Our snippet of The Tour was just the same, but without the Pirates of the Caribbean music and the finish line.  It was fabulously exciting and very quick.  What a disappointment when the bringing-up-the-rear van  came past...

Yes - a Disappointment!  Obviously for George the Tour-junkie, but why for a dedicated Unsporty such as I?  The enforced hanging around Anticipating, perhaps..., the frisson of Live Action...

Should I start accompanying George to football matches, one wonders...

Hell No!!

The Tour de Paris-Tours

Pchaw to the Tour de France – we have a better Tour, one that goes right past our front door! Last weekend, 155 riders set off from Paris (or Chartres, fairly nearby) on the gruelling 230km ride to Tours.

It was won by the Belgian Philippe Gilbert thanks in part, it must be assumed, to his attention to vital details such as choosing the perfect rider to get into the slipstream of on the home strait. The runner-up, Tom Boonen, was most disheartened by his own mistake there... (What about the very kind Exuder of the Slipstream, I'd like to know)…

For I understand little of this kind of stuff – what’s most memorable for me is the joyful gathering of neighbours to watch the race whizz past our very pavement, with the sharing of Almost-Champagne and Nibbles.

We gathered last year too, but made the mistake of not realising that the riders came in two chunks – not only the Elites (or Proper ones)... (I don't mean that, I mean Super-Experienced ones), but also the Espoirs (Aspiring Star ones). The Espoirs race an hour before the others and last year, we all thought that was the end. They were Going Like the Clappers, after all…

It was only when George put the TV on later, that he noticed something very like Our House on the live coverage of a bike race. Sure enough, a quick peer out of the window found a helicopter circling, closely followed at ground level by the Whoosh of a second clutch of racers.

Well? Everbody else was fooled, too…

This year, George took up position at the top of the slope well in advance and armed with super-charged video camera, while I popped down to banter gaily with the other spectators. They’d been there since before the Espoirs, and were suitably merry.

If my French were more equal to the multi-dialect SpatterChat that is a street gathering, I’d have gone out earlier too. As it is, twenty minutes of vague nodding and slipping in the odd completely inappropriate sentence, is enough. For everyone…

The ambience, though, is convivial and patriotic, with yells of “Vive l’Angleterre aussi!” generously tucked in. There were about twenty of us, and it was a great chance to cement relationships with, for example, the couple who’d only moved in a week before (I’d launched myself at them while walking past one day, but this time they showed no anxiety whatsoever).

There were two wise-looking elders in the best seats (cushions on their picnic chairs), and various people of the vicinity. We discovered that the horrid, rotund neighbour who drives right up our exhaust is, in fact, quite a nice person, as are the gang of shady-looking second-homers who were leaning on the fence opposite (keeping it between them and us).

In fact, when retired Hélène impressively caught the water bottle flung to the crowd by one of the Elites, she took it across to the ten-year-old. (She may have suddenly realised it had been heavily dribbled-upon)…

Disappointingly, that was the only Present flung this time. Usually the very long publicity caravan has staff chucking tee-shirts, caps and sweets into the excited masses, and there is much gnashing of teeth and elbows to grab a prize.

A few years ago, George and I went to see the Tour-Tour de France, but in the galaxy of delights raining down, all we managed to catch was a wizened bit of dried sausage. And I had to really shout at that evil little child, too… Wasn’t his Puncture Repair Kit Enough?

We don't know if the Paris-Tours will happen again next year - there are rumours it will go a different route. How we'll miss the flashing lights, the motorbikes, the smiling, waving policemen and the loud hailers screaming: "Get Out of the Waaaay!"