One Stage - Two Towns

Tour de France 2025

Saturday 5 July: Stage 1 Lille - Lille

By car: 0 km
By bike: 16 km

Walking: 12 km

Tat: Bag of sweets (traded for a Continental tyre supermarket trolley token), Ibis Hotel washbag, inflatable neck pillow and bag of saucisson (traded for a Velux hat).

Up quite early this morning - so I finally went for a ride on the Brompton. Another big shout out to La Tête Dans Le Guidon in Jonzac for not only fixing my gears but now they have incredibly smooth indexed shifting. I also realised that I forgot to pack a large spanner and had no means of removing the back wheel of the Brompton in case of a puncture (the front has a thru-axle), so I headed for a brico to buy one - but first came across an Action (something like Home Bargains in UK). I’d just about chosen something when an assistant told me very firmly  ‘no bikes in the shop’. I explained that I was just about to buy something, and she came back «Vous devez quitter le magasin immédiatement.» . Instead I folded the Brompton - much to her amazement, and then she was happy.   

I said I’m staying in Lens - I’m actually staying in Liévin. It’s the contiguous commune to Lens, and they form the intercommunality of Lens-Liévin. Unlike other cities living cheek-by-jowl with each other (Manchester/Salford, Sheffield/Rotherham) there’s nothing to mark the divide; no river, no motorway, it just feels like one conurbation. And in this respect it reminds me of another South Yorkshire town - Barnsley.

They have almost identical populations - both around 240,000. Both have Norman origins, and both still retain extensive countryside outside the urban area. Both sit on extensive coal reserves which were both exploited from the 1850s onwards for over the next 100 years. Both saw major mining disasters - Barnsley’s Oaks explosion in 1866 is still the worst in England, losing 316 miners and rescuers, whilst the Courrières disaster in 1906 became Europe’s worst, with the loss of 1,099 miners. Both saw their last pits close in the 1980s. Both have played host to the Tour de France within the last decade or so. The big difference is Lens was almost literally wiped from the map in the Great War, with only a population of 9,000 remaining in 1918.

Whereas Barnsley has largely turned its back on its mining heritage and is now home to many  anonymous distribution centres, Lens-Liévin tried to celebrate its heritage whilst also moving forward. It was declared a UNESCO Heritage site in 2012 - much pithead winding gear has been renovated, and many spoil heaps remain - but also in 2012, taking inspiration from the Guggenheim in Bilbao, the Lens-Louvre art museum opened, an annexe to the main Louvre museum, housed in a vast bunker on the site of an old mine.

Liévin‘s slag heaps still dominate the landscape.
This photo is taken from Vimy Ridge - 8 km away. 

And so the Tour wends a very particular path through Lens-Liévin to ensure you get those all-important helicopter shots to publicise the museum.

My carefully chosen (😁) hotel is only a swift 5-minute walk onto the route, and so, in what will probably be my last lazy morning for three weeks, I left the hotel at noon to catch the Tour caravan.

I’m sure I’ll tire of the Caravan tat in a couple of days - but it’s always nice to get a hat or two (see last year’s blogs). There were no French grannies where I was, my main opponents were a nine year-old girl and a 70-something man, who was seemingly impervious to the vehicles speeding around him, and would dive into the road for just one more Park Asterix free pass. Fortunately the girl was open to trading and I ended up with a rather nice Velux bucket hat - one of the better hats this Tour. 

I walked past the Lens-Louvre to see the peloton pass, so I was closer to the railway station, and then hopped onto a train to try and beat the riders to Lille. Incidentally, I’ve never noticed before how fragrant the peloton is nowadays. Gone are the days of Deep Heat, it’s now nearly 200 twenty-something men smelling of Lynx. 

So I did make it to Lille :

A couple of beers (not all 26!) and then catch the train home.

Apologies - this blog appears to have grown huge. I’m cycling to and from Arras tomorrow and my tour really starts. Expect appropriately succinct blogs from now on.

Likely spot me tomorrow at : Arras (185 km remaining)

Tomorrow's T-shirt: Stockport County 22/23 away shirt [looks like Argentina]

What’s this all about ? New readers start here

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