Fascination Tour

I’m sitting here with glass of Cote du Rhône and watch the Tour. For one week now, I’ve been shown daily what I have missed over the last six years. The Tour is rolling through France, and I’m vraiment a part of it, just sitting here in my chair. Not much beats French TV for watching the Tour. It starts with all mountain stages being shown in the full beauty. Even the flat days deserve three hours live. Barely any commercial interrupts the broadcast.

But time is only one aspect. Another is the dense atmosphere. No one else can be as close to the action as someone watching TV here. Laurent Jalabert is reporting the action of the day and after the stage, at least three racers join the spike-haired announcer, Gerard Holtz, in Velo Club to keep us glued to our screens even longer. The foolhardy guys that film the race from their motorcycles have a direct line to the studio, as has the camera man sitting in the helicopter. There is always someone right where something just happened. Moto 2 might be filming the pack while moto 1 is telling details about the break-away. Suddenly the dude in the helicopter screams something about a crash.

And since the language everyone speaks is French, it’s very easy to get interviews from truly everyone. Today, Bjarne Riis and Johan Bruyneel were both live on air during the race, giving interviews while navigating their team cars through the zoo that is the Tour caravan. Same goes for the managers of almost any other team. After a while I lost track. Lance is totally relaxed and quite happy to chat with the guys on the motorcycle. Vinokourov speaks French, Hushovd speaks French, Boonen speaks French. And I’m sitting here in my chair and listen.