The 111th edition of the Tour de France begins in Florence this weekend and, as every year, excitement is building among fans and anyone involved in cycling – and we in the road.cc office are no exception.
Which got us thinking – tongue firmly in cheek – about some of those things on our own rides that might take on an extra dimension as the big race approaches and dominates our thoughts over the next three weeks. And we’d love to hear your ones in the comments too (we’ve updated the list with some of your contributions from previous years, so thanks for those).
So, without further ado, You know when the Tour de France is about to start when…
… You’ve bagged a KOM or QOM on the way home, so dig out your polka dot jersey for the next morning’s commute
… You grab a shopping bag off someone at the bus stop, stick the strap round your head and chuck out the things you don’t fancy, then stuff what remains into your jersey pockets
… You cross your fingers that on your flat run home, that puncture or mechanical happened within 3km of where you live so it won’t affect your time on Strava
… You wait until that slight uphill drag before overtaking the slower cyclist ahead of you just to show you have better legs
… You pop out in the car a couple of hours before your bike ride and throw sweets and plastic tat at anyone you see by the roadside
… You’ve ridden your bike for 20 days in a little over three weeks, so you start the ride on the 21st day with a glass of Champagne while high-fiving the driver who is giving you a close pass
… You check over your shoulder as you approach the traffic lights you know full well are about to change, zip up your jersey and coast through as they change to green while punching the air with one hand and pointing at your chest with the other
… You try and work out the time gap on the chalkboard and realise you are actually looking at the telephone number of the local pizza delivery place on the moped just ahead of you
… You pass a bunch of guys dressed in orange hi-viz who are doing roadworks at a bend in the road and imagine yourself passing Dutch Corner on the Alpe d’Huez
… You decide to take every Monday in July off (and the last of those to nurse the Mother of all Hangovers)
… Your post-ride shower turns into an in-depth post-stage interview breaking down how you won (again)
… You time your last swig of water perfectly to chuck your empty bottle to the kid waiting at the bus stop
… You keep track of the positions of everyone in your group ride through each town sign, and award a green jersey to the ‘most consistent rider’ (or maybe a green tea at the café stop)
… Your partner waves a tablet computer at your bike before you head off on your commute – and if it’s pedal assisted, you’re getting the bus to work for the foreseeable
… You award yourself the daily combativity prize because your commute took you through High Street Kensington
… You upload your post-ride footage to Velon instead of your local police force
… You take flowers home to your partner but demand they hand them straight back to you, together with the magnum of Champagne in the fridge and a peck on the cheek … after putting a clean shirt on you – over the one you rode home in
… You take your bike on the train on your way to work and pretend you’re Maurice Garin at the 1904 Tour
… You take a different route home from usual and smash the KOM or QOM a local rider has proudly held for years
… You decide to take a holiday and post a social media comment apologising to your fellow commuters for letting them down but insisting that you have full faith in them to make it to the end of the week at the office without you
… You know ITV4’s advert schedule off by heart, including what is the worst thing you can do to a donkey
… You throw your bike every time you cross the line on a green traffic light and bang the bars if someone crosses it in front of you.
… When the police come round to your house at dawn to check for illicit substances
… When buying over the counter hay fever tablets at the pharmacy, you ask for a TUE ‘just in case’
… After burning off the lights you start flicking your elbows at the eighty-year-old grandmother on a Raleigh shopper behind you and slow down and make exaggerated hand gestures at her if she won’t roll through for her turn
… You think your tyre is going down so rather than stop and check it, you put your arm in the air and wait for a car to pull up alongside
… But if it doesn’t look like a car’s going to pull up, you find someone in the same-coloured top as you and make them give you their bike.
… You sign the window with a Sharpie every time you leave for a ride.
… You fix yourself chicken pasta for breakfast. Again
… Any time there’s a hill on your route you spend ages poring over coefficient tables and trying to work out 14 per cent of the fastest Strava time
… You go to the bar for a round after your ride and return with six beers stuffed down your top
… Before every ride, you change your bottle cages and bar tape to match the colour of your jersey
… You have a slight problem with brake rub, so you hurl your bike in a ditch and stand around pouting with your hands on your hips like a five-year-old
… You give regular knowing looks to the ‘camera’ while riding the turbo (in full team kit)
… You arrange a load of random crap you found in your garden into the shape of a bicycle and walk around the ‘wheels’
… You take a 2,000-mile, circuitous route to the office (starting abroad every two or three days)
… You only ride to work for three weeks each July, but cycling to the office at weekends and leaving the bike at home for the second and third Mondays
… You have a friend drive a van ahead of you while chucking sweets and cheap keyrings at passers-by
… You ride with seven pals and 180 other people, with mates and spouses following you in their cars
… You wait at the traffic lights just after you’ve punctured and grabbing the bike from the next cyclist who stops there
… You throw your jacket into the open window of a car once the rain’s stopped
… You pull up at the side of the road if you’re caught short and whip it out from under your bibshorts while balancing the bike between your thighs
… You bounce off a car, losing loads of skin and carrying on to the office anyway rather than going to A&E like a normal person
… You belt into Parliament Square at top speed, whacking mobiles out of the hands of Big Ben selfie-taking tourists as you go
… You stand on a step and objectify two female colleagues when you arrive, then take a cuddly toy to your desk
… You retreat into your cubicle in a sulk after a tough ride to work and chuck your helmet at any colleague who approaches
… You watch highlights of your commute at 11.30pm every night, commentated on by two blokes who can point out interesting buildings en route
… You avoided watching the Giro d’Italia in May and instead had a cheeky couple of weeks on Tenerife to get ready for July
… You’re riding pillion on a motorbike and start musing out loud about the kind of day a cyclist you pass is having before giving him a cheery thumbs-up
… You have all your commutes from a seven-year period deleted from Strava and replaced by a blank space and an asterisk
Over to you in the comments…
26 thoughts on “You know the Tour de France is about to start when…”
I wonder what ITV’s tdf
I wonder what ITV’s tdf sponsor will be this year.
Zwift is at least relevant, though, far better than the slow cyclist on watchshop.
The watchshop advert still
The watchshop advert still makes me laugh, you’d have thought it wopuld have been easier to have him ride at a normal speed and just play it in slow motion, but nope, instead they’ve made it look ridiculous
Skoda this year.
Skoda this year.
Was it Skoda last year too?
…you sign the window with a
…you sign the window with a Sharpie every time you leave for a ride.
…you fix yourself chicken
…you fix yourself chicken pasta for breakfast. Again.
Any time there’s a hill on
…any time there’s a hill on your route you spend ages poring over coefficient tables and trying to work out 14% of the fastest Strava time.
…you go to the bar for a
…you go to the bar for a round after your ride and return with six beers stuffed down your top.
…before every ride, you
…before every ride, you change your bottle cages and bar tape to match the colour of your jersey.
…you have a slight problem
…you have a slight problem with brake rub, so you hurl your bike in a ditch and stand around pouting with your hands on your hips like a five-year-old.
…you give regular knowing
…you give regular knowing looks to the ‘camera’ while riding the turbo (in full team kit).
…you arrange a load of
…you arrange a load of random crap you found in your garden into the shape of a bicycle and walk around the ‘wheels’.
You think your tyre is going
You think your tyre is going down so rather than stop and check it, you put your arm in the air and wait for a car to pull up alongside.
But if it doesn’t look like a
But if it doesn’t look like a car’s going to pull up, you find someone in the same-coloured top as you and make them give you their bike.
Brauchsel wrote:
I did intend to put exactly that (including same coloured top) in the original list but forot. Great minds etc …
After burning off the lights
After burning off the lights you start flicking your elbows at the eighty-year-old grandmother on a Raleigh shopper behind you and slow down and make exaggerated hand gestures at her if she won’t roll through for her turn.
When buying over the counter
When buying over the counter hayfever tablets at the pharmacy, you ask for a TUE “just in case”
When the police come round to
When the police come round to your house at dawn to check for illicit substances
You throw your bike every
You throw your bike every time you cross the line on a green traffic light and bang the bars if someone crosses it in front of you.
You inadvertently ride your
You inadvertently ride your bike less and watch more TV.
Feature request for the site:
Feature request for the site: a collapsible section where any tdf spoilers go so I don’t have to stay off the site until I’ve managed to watch highlights.
You see round men in yellow,
You see round men in yellow, polka dot and green stretch jerseys frequenting the highway.
I pity the bearings in that rear hub.
When otherwise responsible
When otherwise responsible parents think it is now appropriate to allow children to be hoisted high up in digger buckets / telehandlers or similar wholly unsuitable machines just to get a view of the race or is it to be seen on TV?
Some of the media decide to
Some of the media decide to report on cycling; forgetting cycle racing takes place all year rouund; road, off road, velodromes, etc
You say “if ten will kill me,
You say “if ten will kill me, I’ll take nine” as you carboload on hobnobs ahead of the “stage” home.
You check behind you to
You check behind you to manoeuvre right but feel like your checking if the break is chasing you down.
Facebook and other social
Facebook and other social media becomes full of “avid fans” who have great in-depth knowledge of the sport, e.g. this morning had a dispute with an American gentleman who’s “been watching it for far longer than you I bet” (checked his profile, he wasn’t even born when I started watching) who said that Bardet was a disgrace because he should have let van den Broek win “because Bardet already has Tour stage wins and the young guy hasn’t so Bardet shouldn’t of [sic] stolen it off him.”