Tour de France.
 

With the Tour de France due to get underway on Saturday, I am interested to see how it will work. We love watching the tour each year so in that respect we are looking forward to it. But with this virus still present in France and large daily increases, there must be some concerns about staging something like this that draws large crowds. I have been reading about the protocols the teams must follow, but how much control will there be of spectators ?
It will be interesting to see how it all pans out in the end.
Vive la Tour

We too love watching Le Tour and wonder how they will control the crowds. I hope Michael Matthews who is local does well, and hope Richie Porte stays upright and safe. I have no idea who the favourites are this year, and hope all the riders have a good Tour. This post is a good reminder for me to go and buy the magazine.

I read that the high mountain passes will be closed to the public.

Love that it's on, but I feel seasonally displaced now. On the couch, watching a mountain stage, that's July and holidays, not late August and work commitments...

we are usually watching in mid winter here in Aus, not going into spring. I’m just happy that it is on.

We are fortunate to have live coverage on the Eurosport satellite channel here in the UK, and now I’m retired am free to watch it at home. Here is what thelocal.fr says about crowd control:
https://www.thelocal.fr/20200803/5-t...de-france-2020

Another new thing this year is that the sexy kissing bimbos with the bouquets and the jersey awards are finished. There will be male bimbos along with the female bimbos for the arrival awards and of course no kissing.

About time on that one.

I always watch it on TV anyway and really like the aerial views, so hope to enjoy a lot of that still. The crowds on the sides are of minor interest. I've been in Paris for the ending a couple times, that is the part where you kind of need an audience.

Cheska, did you see that the SBS contingent is not in France this year. Robbie McEwan and Matt Keenan are still commentating but from the studio here. It would be good if Richie Porte did not have any disasters this year and we will see how Caleb Ewan goes. He is only young and this is only his second tour so he has time.

We are usually just back or planning another trip so watch for places we have been or are going. It will be different this year sadly.

We don't have cable so have never seen it. But in 2018 the tour went through a part of France we know well, so that morning I thought I'd try to follow the route online using Google street view, except Google wouldn't let me because the roads were closed!

We did get to watch that stretch on a tour website. I was surprised to see that the tour route diverted from the wide main road and forced the pack to squeeze through Belleme, a small town with narrow streets and some very tight turns. The pack passed through so quickly we barely got a glimpse of the town.

Now you've got me interested.

Coquelicot, we get coverage on free to air television here in Australia. That usually starts part way into each stage . We download the Skoda tour tracker on to our laptop and plug it into the TV. This starts coverage at the beginning of each stage. Before we did this we always found that when the tour went close to or through places we had been to or were going to, it was at the beginning of the stage and they were past it before TV coverage began. It has ridden past the gite we had in the Pyrenees several times over the years.

If you can find some way to watch it, it is great. The aerial shots are wonderful as the helicopters range all around the countryside and not just on the cyclists. You get to see chateaux, abbeys, churches, little villages and some of the beautiful natural features. The commentators will often tell some of the history of what you are seeing.

In previous years, a French chef, Gabriel Gate, who lives in Australia used to present a little 5 minute segment, Taste le Tour, about the food of the region and cook something. He has retired and this year we have another French chef who lives here cooking a French dish each night. I always used to enjoy the previous one as he would actually be in France and some of the things he cooked were achievable for a home cook. This new one is called Plat du Tour. Guillaume Brahimi is a well known chef with restaurants in Sydney, so hopefully it will not be too 'cheffy'. Because of all the travel restrictions it is being made here.

Now I am all depressed because who knows when we will get back to France.

rhon we do exactly the same with the Skoda tracker, and I did know sbs were not travelling to France. In normal times at the beginning of the Tour we have a lovely dinner, champagne and a special dessert to welcome in the race. We won’t be doing that tomorrow as we are working in the garden all day, so it will be veal stroganoff that is in the freezer, and a nice bottle of red for my husband.

The Tour is very popular here in Aus, and many people watch it for the scenery and places to visit. I too love the food segment and in previous years had written down suggestions from Gabriel Gate and eaten them when in France.

I promise faithfully I will not add anymore places to my next itinerary. rhon it is looking like 2022 now.

Clouds on the horizon already -- two of the staff of a Belgian team have tested positive. If nothing else happens, fine, but if there are other cases in the coming days, it could put the entire Tour in jeopardy since as we all know, there is no social distancing in the peleton.

Watching this morning. I am enjoying the scenery even if a bit cloudy.

Rarely have so many riders fallen off their bikes. Okay, the road was wet, but these are professionals.

Well that was quite a first stage.

Wow. Yes. Glad that the Jumbo/Visma team took responsibility to slow down on that crazy descent.

There was oil spillage on that descent. Crazy.

I was quite nervous on that descent. I’m sure my leaning on my sofa helped some riders stay upright. Good first stage and made more memorable because we spent time in the area.

Dry roads today. That's a relief.

What happened yesterday was something that happened every year when I lived in Los Angeles. A very fine oil film builds up on the pavement during the dry season, just from the passing traffic. The first time it rains -- bingo! -- the road becomes a skating rink. In LA it meant that anybody putting on their brakes a bit too hard would keep sliding into the car in front.