Mixing it with the pros

Tour de France 2025

Thursday 10 July: Stage 6 Bayeux - Vire
By car: 218 km
By bike: 0 km

Tat: I just hung onto a Parc Beauval panda hat. My granddaughter was two yesterday and she will love it. The rest went to the offended French couple.

I’m trying to embrace as many different Tour de France experiences as possible on this trip. Today I’m just travelling to a category three climb (about the best I can do without camping out on a hillside overnight). I’m going to get there early, get as near to the finish line as I can, open up my chair and stay in the one spot for the whole day.

Good night's sleep, up nice and early, left the Airbnb just before nine, and headed towards the little climb that no one is really interested in. As I get closer there’s more cyclists on the road, and then more cars. And suddenly the road is closed. In typical French fashion a field is commandeered (even if it’s at an organised event with parking you never have to pay for it). It’s nearly three km to the climb - probably not worth taking the Brompton as I’ll be in the same spot all day. I then realise traffic’s moving past the parking spot and end up in another field about 500 metres from the route along with hundreds of other cars ! 

There's camping cars (motorhomes) as far as you can see. Many people have stayed overnight here. By 11am the climb is completely full. And still the people keep coming. At least I’ve got a roadside spot in the shade. This is a small climb on a small Normandy road, and it’s going to be like Tourmalet. And it’s party time.

10:30 in the morning. Time to open the fizz.

They say the Queen thinks the world smells of fresh paint. 
Professional cyclists think it smells of fresh tarmac.

I find a nice spot and settle down. An elderly French couple squeeze in next to me. The road here is very narrow and there are lots of people, so it’s not surprising when, in the distance, we see vehicles from the Caravan by-passing the climb. This provokes outrage in the elderly French couple « C'est dégoûtant. C'est un affront à l'héritage du Tour » but eventually the other half of the Caravan passes by, including the E.Leclerc cherry, the pot of blood, and the clothes washing bottle - so they are happy scrambling for tat. What I manage to catch, I give to them. In the end they turned out to be a really nice couple and we spent a long time chatting.

Collecting tat today proved to be very dangerous as the vehicles pass less than a metre from us, and the tat hurlers are nearly 2 metres above us, so tat rained down with force all around us, with nowhere to hide. I fear for my eyesight.

As soon as the peloton passes, the camping cars start packing up, and by the time I get back to my car, some are already in the queue, presumably to drive to Mûr-de-Bretagne today (tomorrow’s finish). I realise I’m very much an amateur at this game. 

As I journey towards Dinan across this part of the country Suisse normande is very beautiful and reminds me of the landscape of the White Peak in Derbyshire, and both the landscape and houses of South Lakeland. It looks like a place well worth revisiting. 

Likely spot me tomorrow at : Dinan - 141 km remaining

Tomorrow's T-shirt: Stockport County 2023/4 Champions season shirt

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