Dope article!
5
How charming to see a "sport" that involves the spectators, not as high-paying customers (the tab to watch a pro basketball game in the U.S. is shocking) but as participants, in the sense of being right there with their favorites. The French know how to live. Beer, yes, but brie and baguettes as well. As for laundry skills, those socks could use a little more soap and a lot more scrubbing.
9
What is the clean up like after these days of partying? If it were Americans the area would be trashed, but maybe Europeans are more responsible?
2
What a strange first picture. Fans want to get on TV so they don costumes, and we see Superman, Robin, and the Hulk. The French don't have any superheroes of their own? A bit odd, since most American superheroes emerged as propaganda pieces to prop up morale while the West was battling Hitler and the Nazis. Interestingly most were created by Jewish artists, who would be a bit more nervous about the ominous clouds darkening Europe, with Captain America being the best example. One would presume cartoonists in France elicited similar characters There is simply no comparable equivalent to the national pride elicited by this event in the not so United States of America, but the cartoons are straight out of Hollywood and Marvel Comics!
2
Superheroes are an American creation and are universally known. Which other costume should they wear? Beret and baguette?
4
The Tour de France is the best sporting event of the year, with the best commentary (Phil, Paul and, this year, Lance on podcast), the most drama, the best scenery, the friendliest crowds, and it does the country proud. Vive Le Tour. This is must-see television, and prepares us to endure the onset of football season with its know-it-all, talk-about-every-silly-detail, political commentators.
15
I had a similar experience at the top of a mountain on the hardest stage of the Giro. We spent 3 hours to bike up Mt. Grappa, to a campsite we secured the night before when our club president had driven his furniture truck and slept in it, and then waited 4 hours for the Giro to show up at the top. We had a pavilion tent, two picnic tables, a massive gas grill and food and drink for perhaps 20 of our team. The crowds were massive, and the wine was flowing.
7
I've been to many stages on the Giro'd italia, but only once did I manage to get to a Tour stage. And it was on Mont Ventoux. There were 500k people between Bedoin and the station at the top. We arrived on Thursday and the road was closed so we unloaded our bikes and climbed up to about a half kilometer above Chalet Reynard. It was brutal. Set up camp on this totally exposed flat spot just above the road, cracked open some beers and then found the closest buvette and grabbed dinner. The mountain was roaring with people and it was still two days until the Tour came up. So much fun and so much comraderie. As Americans, we were teased a bit until I explained, by showing my jersey, that I was Tony Martin fan. Der Panzerwagen cracked right in front of us giving up the win to Juan Manuel Garrate. Best sporting experience of my life even if my guy didn't win
17
We just planned a week in Paris for my wife's 50th birthday around a day trip to the finish of stage 6, a short train ride southeast. After nearly three hours at the station, our train was canceled. Très mal. I consoled myself with a ride on a rental bike up the Champs-Élysées on a Sunday in July, dreaming of my youth otherwise spent.
7
I've been following the tour for many years. The coverage on TV is a bright spot in the slow summer with great race coverage and awesome views of the towns and the landscape. I was so intrigued by sights shown on TV that I wound up going to France to experience it for myself (not the race, the country, although we did see some race icons like Mt Ventoux). Wonderful, wonderful place.
This is the first journalistic look I've been given inside a mountain camp. Nice job. Great story. Vive Le Tour!
This is the first journalistic look I've been given inside a mountain camp. Nice job. Great story. Vive Le Tour!
27
They know how to have good time. Nice to see!
12
VIve Le Tour! What a grand tour of France each year with some of the best commentary in all of sports. Having a croissant, a cup of coffee and watching this grand spectacle go across France and sometimes other countries too is must-see television or in July.
13
I don't usually laugh out loud when reading a Times piece, but I did with this one.
10
Europeans, especially the French, Dutch, Italians, and Germans, just seem to know how to have fun. Joie de vivre!
21
Superbe pièce. Merci.
11
What a great story, I especially like the part where the lady says she sells the bread at cost because that is what others would do for her.
46
After so many years of unexciting Tours, the French finally have some riders who bring the fans out again, not only on the climbs, but everywhere along the route. Of course, the most entertaining - and obnoxious - are those on the mountaintop stages; one guy running naked, another "mooning" a rider, costumes of all types, bells, whistles, smoke bombs. You name it, the Tour has it.
And if you're the enemy, like 3-time winner Chris Froome, you had to take the abuse of spectators running up and cursing in your face. Literally.
We love watching the Tour on TV. Watch a basketball game or football game, you're in the stands, you're a spectator. But in the Tour, with motorcycles riding along the cyclists, you're in the mix of things. Sitting behind a rider going down a curved decent at 50 mph makes me cringe with fear and excitement.
And if you're the enemy, like 3-time winner Chris Froome, you had to take the abuse of spectators running up and cursing in your face. Literally.
We love watching the Tour on TV. Watch a basketball game or football game, you're in the stands, you're a spectator. But in the Tour, with motorcycles riding along the cyclists, you're in the mix of things. Sitting behind a rider going down a curved decent at 50 mph makes me cringe with fear and excitement.
22
Bring the fans out again? There has always been huge crowds alongside the roads of the Tour. You probably missed a few Tour de France (1998, 2000), when Richard Virenque was making the show.
1
I just have to wonder what the place looks like after the party's over. Thousands of people camping out on a mountain with no facilities. Who cleans it up and what is the impact on fragile Alpine environments?
9
Bonjour à vous ! It' s a very good question; as you may think there are a lot of garbage alongside the road after the passage of the tour de France. There is a special service run by the organizers ( ASO in this case ) which is in charge of collecting all the garbage after EACH stage. I' m very pleased to notice your concern about environnement. It reassures me to see you are not like POTUS' s mind. Enjoy the Tour de France on TV and if one day you can attempt a mountain stage, just do it!!! Hello from France ( Lyon ).
13
Bonjour Philippe, merci de votre réponse, c'est très gentil de nous rassurer sur ce point! Au fait, j'aime beaucoup Lyon et j'ai hâte d'y retourner un jour.
1
Phillippe, I will enjoy it. But pardon us if we drive up the mountain stage. This climbs look too tough. It is the greatest spectacle on earth.
1
I watched one of the climbs a few days ago (and the ensuing harrowing descent that took out Richie Porte) and it was a bizarre spectacle for sure. The riders have to literally run a gauntlet of crazed spectators, lunging at them and screaming in their faces. Perhaps the strangest site was a guy sporting a French flag as a cape and wearing a large rubber shark head running along-side a rider, screaming something at him. Nice to see people having fun, but a bit more decorum, perhaps?
4
It's part of what makes the tour the Tour. One day, I hope to go.
12
Just a grammar/geography check:
"Prime spectating spots tend to be several miles above sea level"
If Keh means several miles "up the road", then OK. If he refers to altitude, then not so much. The road tops out at about 1500 m (4950 ft)--less than one mile above sea level.
The climb is hard enough, but at several miles higher, would be near impossible with much thinner air and reduced oxygen.
"Prime spectating spots tend to be several miles above sea level"
If Keh means several miles "up the road", then OK. If he refers to altitude, then not so much. The road tops out at about 1500 m (4950 ft)--less than one mile above sea level.
The climb is hard enough, but at several miles higher, would be near impossible with much thinner air and reduced oxygen.
10
This needs correcting: Prime spectating spots tend to be several miles above sea level,
(I doubt that any of the high passes in this year's tour are even as much as two miles (2 X 5,280 feet) above sea level.)
(I doubt that any of the high passes in this year's tour are even as much as two miles (2 X 5,280 feet) above sea level.)
1
Great story! Thanks NYT!
6
Considering all the conflict in the world, it's nice to see people coming together to party for the TdF. Granted, France as a whole is very homogeneous, and most citizens celebrate the TdF as they celebrate their country. And rightly so, as it is undeniably beautiful, mostly as a result of the French people and French government deciding long ago that maintaining their landscapes, both cultural and physical, is a priority for the country.
A country doesn't maintain this beauty by accident: it takes money, commitment, and long-term planning. If only the US could show the same courage.
A country doesn't maintain this beauty by accident: it takes money, commitment, and long-term planning. If only the US could show the same courage.
51
Wrangell-St. Elias National Park is larger than Switzerland. France is smaller than Texas. The US had the commitment to preserving the landscape. New leadership = new rules.
3
Thank you for giving me something to read that's unrelated to our current dystopian political landscape. This was a fun distraction; I want more of this!
41
Replace: pétanque with checkers, saucisson with hot dog, and Comté with barbecue potato chips, and you have NASCAR. The chief difference being that NASCAR fans don't try to run alongside the participants, although I think I might actually watch that. Seriously though, the fans, the beautiful countryside, picturesque villages and, of course, the lovely "hôtesses du Tour" are what draw me to the television every July for Le Tour.
24
Been there to see multiple stages and Alpe D Huez was amazing as they let tens of thousands of us cyclists do the climb prior to the peleton...key differences: It is an International and multi-cultural event, everyone is friendly and the GREAT beer flows freely, food is of good quality, the masses organize themselves after the TdF passes and lets pedestrians, then bikes, then cars/busses down the 8.6 mile mountain of a climb. Best of all, not a single piece of trash did I see on my way down
10
Excellent work! I enjoy cycling but the Tour commentators reflections on the Abbys, towns, local history, plus the crazed crowds on the mountains, the heros and villains of the pellet on, the battles for the different jersies, all of it makes it such a superb event. The girls doing the pecks on the cheek after each stage is so 1980 though. Anyway, great writing on the fans and the mountains, thank you.
26
Funny, and not surprising, the antipathy shown to Froome, including the syringe with his name on it and the "merciless booing and cursing." I'm waiting for the powers that be to figure out how this scrawny geek, lacking in anything approaching cycling musculature, who rides a bike at a cadence akin to the way children ride "Big Wheels," can beat hundreds of the best cyclists in the world. It makes no sense whatsoever, unless he's getting some kind of, shall we say, unnatural help.
3
It's not doping. It's tempo riding and control of every calorie that enters his body. Tempo riding has ruined the past 5 years of the Tour because it is boring. Any Tour won by a rider who does not take a stage win is blemished. Not as bad as doping, but it takes the passion out of a dangerous, strategic, fantastically athletic, and emotional sport. Sky is under suspicion of doping and so is AG2R, but I doubt Froome or Bardet will fail a test. That's for domestiques and none have been dismissed so far for doping this Tour.
4
he's perfectly built for GC.
2
Not only tempo riding, but also universal use of power meters and tight management of riders' effort by remote technicians.
As for Sky, they might be clean but have enormously deep pockets and overwhelming team talent. Kinda like when the Yankees ruin baseball for the rest of the country.
Froome may be very talented, but his results would probably look less dominant with a mediocre team.
As for Sky, they might be clean but have enormously deep pockets and overwhelming team talent. Kinda like when the Yankees ruin baseball for the rest of the country.
Froome may be very talented, but his results would probably look less dominant with a mediocre team.
1
Thanks for this article. I've been watching the race and, of course, watching the crowd is half the fun.
9
Best sporting event, and best fans, and the world.
9
Wonderful piece. Thank you!
8
Not to be "that guy" that always finds the dark side of things, but every year the Tour rolls around I am nervous about a possible terror attack on one of these mountain sides. These are open air events where folks gather with almost no security, huge crowds, and cameras rolling. They are even more permeable than events like the Boston Marathon were several years ago.Additionally, there is always a prestigious stage on Bastille Day, which provides a symbolic as well as target right environment for would be attackers.
Especially given the uptick of attacks in France lately, I breathe a sigh of relief every year the Tour ends without an attack. I hope that ASO and the French Intelligence community are as concerned.
Especially given the uptick of attacks in France lately, I breathe a sigh of relief every year the Tour ends without an attack. I hope that ASO and the French Intelligence community are as concerned.
7
Quit worrying. There is nothing you or anyone can do about it. Just enjoy.
13
I worry more about the riders being attached by someone in the crowd (think Monica Seles being stabbed) more than terrorists. Sometimes I think the race organizers should come up with a way to hold the crowds back, one of these days a spectator will cause a crash when a cyclist runs into someone because there is no room.
But they do have fun! This weekend while watching the race there was a fleeting image of two guys on a platform; they had rigged up a wheel that rotated when one of them, suspended on a cable, pedaled around on a bicycle. Amazing! Must have taken them hours to construct it!
But they do have fun! This weekend while watching the race there was a fleeting image of two guys on a platform; they had rigged up a wheel that rotated when one of them, suspended on a cable, pedaled around on a bicycle. Amazing! Must have taken them hours to construct it!
3
Crashes at the Tour caused by spectators have happened numerous times in the past: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/15/sports/cycling/tour-de-france-crash-g...
3
In the United 'police' States, the cops would bust it all up, no question. Europe is where freedom lives, America is one big police state that lords over a heavily armed populace.
Now to be serious, that is awesome there is such passion that people follow around the Tour for the month of July. Few people work during the summer, because people actually have vacations, not like the US police state where your Gestapo boss looks down on a piddly week off while lying to your face about work-life balance.
Now to be serious, that is awesome there is such passion that people follow around the Tour for the month of July. Few people work during the summer, because people actually have vacations, not like the US police state where your Gestapo boss looks down on a piddly week off while lying to your face about work-life balance.
67
Fans do the same things at the Tour of California, USA Pro Challenge in CO, Tour of Utah. They're all over the road, in costumes, in the riders' faces, etc.
But it's not quite to the level of Le Tour's crowds, that's for sure!
Millions of Americans will watch guys watch grass grow (baseball), but think watching a bike race is boring. Or worse, don't even know bike racing exists.
Would love to see NYT cover the amateur bike racing scene in the US!
But it's not quite to the level of Le Tour's crowds, that's for sure!
Millions of Americans will watch guys watch grass grow (baseball), but think watching a bike race is boring. Or worse, don't even know bike racing exists.
Would love to see NYT cover the amateur bike racing scene in the US!
2