La Tour de France
On Sunday the Tour de France came to the Champagne region, and raced over some of the area’s white roads, which are the rough gravel tracks that criss-cross through the vineyards. It was promising to be rather spectacular.
We started our day by heading to Eguilly-sous-Bois. We thought it would be a nice, small village from which to see the caravan pass through. When we arrived there was definitely an air of anticipation.
I wasn’t really sure what to expect, but Brian said, jokingly, that he would be disappointed if it wasn’t a serious parade of floats, ‘With big animals and such like’. I really didn’t think he should be expecting too much, as the floats would need to keep at pace with the riders, often travelling at 50–60kph, but actually we were very pleasantly surprised.
There was a glorious mixture of vehicles, all created by the sponsors promoting their wares. They were throwing out freebies, from packets of spiced sausage, keyrings, drinks, and money off vouchers to hats and T-shirts.
I was lucky enough to be thrown one of the T shirts of the team that would go on to win, but we obviously didn’t know it at the time.
After the caravan we walked up the road to a stretch with three hairpin bends. We thought this would be a good spot to capture some photos.
As we patiently waited, chatting to a nearby lady, a family in a land rover appeared that had driven across the field. They parked up right in front of our view. ‘Excusez-moi monsieur’. The lady and I called across to him. ‘Pouvez-vous vous y déplacer s'il vous plaît, vous bloquez notre photo.’ She called. ‘Oui, la bas’ I added. Quite surprisingly he jumped back in his land rover and reversed up, a big thumbs up from us all, he smiled and walked back to join his family. The lady kept shouting ‘monsieur cochonou’, which we translated as Mr Pig, and we were now worried it would all get a bit heated, but then we noticed he was wearing one of the free ‘Cochonou’ hats thrown out by the 2CV, and it was all just a friendly joke. There was such a wonderful atmosphere.
The minutes slipped by. “I can hear the helicopter” Brian said, “Get ready, they’ll be here any minute”. They came into view just after finishing one of the white roads and leaving the forest, and took a steady ride through the zig-zag of the road, and then down into Eguilly. ‘Allez, Allez’ the crowd called, clapping and cheering them on.
The second place rider, Turgis (above), went on to win.
By now they had split into four groups. The front ‘breakaway’ group, of about 10 riders sped past, then a larger group of the main peloton, followed by a second group a few seconds later. A final group whizzed by only moments later. It truly was a spectacular sight, and a wonderful experience. Our first Tour de France.