There are millions of stories about the Tour de
France, the world’s greatest and biggest annual sporting event. Many of them escape our notice.
Here’s an odd tale, for starters. When British fans
thrilled to the 100th edition of the Tour de France, to the second
historic British victory in the 2013, someone thought fit only to moan.
Kenyan born
Chris Froome had stomped the opposition to win the 2013 edition, to follow Bradley Wiggins’ first in 2012. It was another great moment in the
story of British cycling’s emergence from Cinderella sport to top cycling
nation.
But when the story was run in The Guardian, some
bloke, a doctor, took exception to a
photo of Froome and the other top finishers for posing with celebratory cigars!
And the doc wrote to complain. He considered it
wrong to give smoking publicity.
Perhaps the Doc needed to light up! Er, a Freudian slip, that one. Meant to say,
lighten up!
Fortunately, The Guardian the following day did this
reader the honour of publishing my indignant response.
Here it is:
“Dr Tony Jewell clearly doesn't know his
cycle racing (letters, July 23) if he was "astonished" to see
photographs of Froome and other Tour de France winners with cigars in their
mouths.
Once upon a time,
many a top rider could be seen smoking a pipe during the early part of a long
stage. When the speed picked up, he'd call up one of his domestiques and hand
his pipe over to his trusty servant safe in the knowledge it would be
looked after until he called for it after the stage. The domestique would
knock out the pipe on his handlebars before putting it in his jersey pocket.
The downside was it
would leave a dirty brown stain on the handlebar tape.”
Of course, this is was a pack of lies. But it served to make a point.
The inspiration for this daft idea must
go to the late Gus Russell of the Merseyside Wheelers.
Gus always rode with the social section with his pipe clenched
between teeth, sometimes lit, sometimes not.
But after a smoke he could be heard, back down the line, knocking out
his pipe on the handlebars.
They rode very sedately, those social run members. Very slowly! Didn’t suit
everyone.
One Sunday morning, when
the training and social sections had both disembarked from the same
Birkenhead Ferry from Liverpool, the two groups politely and sedately
pedalled through the town together. Until the slow speed dictated by Gus and
his crowd drove club time trialling ace Jim Clarke to distraction.
Unable to contain himself, Jim leapt off his bike, handed it to a
clubmate to take hold of and keep it rolling alongside, and then ran ahead
of the group, his shoe plates clattering on the road, shouting, "come on guys, can we have a
little bit more pace!"
There were a lot of long faces!
Jim reclaimed his bike and the
training guys upped the gears and sped off to leave the socials to it.
But you always hoped to have Gus for company in the Cheshire
lanes on those 6am marshalling turns at the Liverpool and District TTCA
12-hour. Because, as well as having a pipe on the go, he always had his primus
stove with him for a brew!
Anyway, Eddy Merckx famously enjoyed the occasional
puff on a fag and he won the Tour five times, not to mention over 500 other
races.
But not, we must suppose, on 70kph mountain descents
when it would be difficult to keep the thing lit.
I enjoyed covering the Tour during the 1980s.
First thing’s first. If there’s three or four of you
in the car it must be an estate car. Do they call them estate cars? OK,
five-door car, the fifth being the huge wedge of a thing which rises up like a
drawbridge at the rear. These cars have a large flat area behind the rear seats, for luggage - and washing.
That space also doubles as a dryer - where you
spread out your smalls to dry.
It is impossible to take enough clothing with you
for what is a four week trip all told. For you must include the days getting to
the start and away from the finish of this three week Tour of One Night Stands
in Hotels when suitcase will be opened but never emptied.
So you must wash clothes as you go.
At the very least the colourful array of underwear
laid out in the back can cause amusement for the spectators peering in whenever
you are parked up on the route.
By the time the race reaches Paris, however, you
will have begun to look a little frayed. The shirt you wear may be days old,
and for those bashing stories out from dawn to dusk, there may well be several
days growth of facial hair as shaving has become one chore to be dispensed
with.
Walking out on the posh Champs Elyees, one of my
travelling companions was only saved from being picked up as vagrant when the
Gendarmes spotted his Tour accredition sticking out of his moth eaten black
shirt.
Poor soul had come directly to the Tour from the
Mexico World Cup, a six week jamboree and was knackered. (Football!)
It was his first Tour, too, so it was a steep
learning curve. Not that you would have known reading his sparkling copy.
It was entertaining, showing he had an excellent grasp of the often complex
nature of stage racing. He was a pro, afterall, from a real newspaper!
To the discomfort of this particular member of the
English party, some of the French hacks had scrubbed up for the final day’s
stage. One even wore a very expensive white suit! Clearly, these people lived
in or near Paris and gone home the night before, to shake off the weeks of
travel. We viewed this as cheating. They had the left the zone before the
battle had been wrapped up!
Enough about travel basics. Over the following
weeks, I’ll recall a few more action snapshots.
