Un village en fête

Tour de France 2025

Saturday 19 July: Stage 14 Pau - Luchon-Superbagnères
By car: 181 km
By bike: 15 km

Tat: Krys hat, 2 E.Leclerc chocolate biscuits, Continental tyre/jetons de chariot, 21st Century keyring, Balsamic vinaigrette, can of Orangina, Galois décapsuleur, Haribo

The Tour passed through the Pyrenean village of Arreau today. It was a Saturday, so the whole village was out in force, together with more than a few thousand Spaniards. Cycling in again made sense, as it was just over 8 km.

I toyed with the idea of going up the lower slopes of the descent of the Col d’Aspin, but that was already packed, and I decided to remain in the village itself. I’d get a slightly better view than them barrelling down the hill at 80 kmph. There was plenty of cheating as the Caravan passed - you can’t strategically place your children along the route - and it was definitely favouring small children with large boxes to catch things in.

Then news came through that Lenny Martinez, the new young French hope, was first over the Col, and the crowd went wild. The air of expectation was palpable, and in a flash they were on us, and then gone again. Both the riders and the cars travel so close and fast it can be quite sobering, and indeed, later on in the stage a fan was hit by an Ineos car. I wish her all the best.

Cycling back down the valley I caught up with Remco Evenepoel’s car and drafted behind it for a while. He looked very dejected.




 

Likely spot me tomorrow at : Côte de Saint-Ferréol (97 km remaining)

Tomorrow's T-shirt: Blue Xtra

What’s this all about ? New readers start here

I’m sorry, you can’t follow me directly on Blogger - but I will be posting here every day during the Tour. You can also follow me on Bluesky and Facebook to get notifications of new blogs. 

Location: 31540 Nogaret, France

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

21 Étapes - So what’s all this about?

Image
So what’s all this about? For many years now, and especially since living in France I’ve been visiting stages of the Tour de France. Sometimes staying overnight and taking in a couple of stages, sometimes cycling in, sometimes just one stage, but I’ve never been to the final stage on Champs Élysées. So a crazy plan bubbled away - why not go to Paris ? Why not take in more stages ? Why not see ALL the stages in one year ? It took my stepson David to point out to me that there’s no reason why I shouldn’t do that. I’m retired, I live in France - there’s nothing to stop me. Thankfully, my wonderful wife agreed too, and so 21 Étapes was born. A plan to see every stage of one Tour de France, live. It’s grown slightly to include the Team Presentations beforehand - so truly a complete Tour de France.  2024 wasn’t possible because a start outside France complicates travel - I will have to travel the same distances that the whole circus around the riders travel. But far more importantly, for...
Read more

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...
Read more