D-7

Seven days to go

A week today I’ll be in the middle of a trip of over 700km, driving from the Bordeaux area to Lens in the NE of France in preparation for the 2025 Tour de France Grand Départ.

Things are falling into place. All my accommodation is booked - I’ve got a total of ten nights in Airbnbs, of which four places are double-night says; nine nights in B&B Hotels in three different places; two nights in different Ibis hotels; four nights in other hotels. Out of 25 nights on the road around the whole of France, I’ve managed seven multiple-night stays in accommodation, which feels like pretty good going.

Packing is also going well - still a bit of work on the bike, still a few things to buy, but it’s largely finished, as are the jobs around the house I need to finish before leaving for nearly a month on the road. 

The main development is that I’ve managed to get hold of a copy of the Tour de France 2025 Media Road Book. Only published a couple of weeks before the start of the Tour, this is pretty much the Tour’s official bible, used by the teams and over 3,000 authorised vehicles that accompany the teams around France. It shows the route itself, access and evacuation routes, detailed start and finish maps, prohibited areas and a wealth of granular detail that aids the smooth running of this circus on the road. Although cyclingstage.com has done a magnificent, and for me invaluable job of anticipating this year’s route, the Road Book carries the definitive route for this year’s Tour, together with all the sprint stages (for the green jersey - maillot vert) and categorised climbs - the ones that carry points and time bonuses for the polka dot jersey (the maillot pois). So there’s been some last-minute minor adjustments to where I’m planning to be watching each stage.

But other than that, I’m pretty much ready. The clock is ticking…

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