Three weeks in July

Come and join my Tour de France coverage over at The Musette

Photo by Howard Bouchevereau on Unsplash

I don’t know why I tuned in. I’m not sure what made me do it, whether I’d heard people talk about it at school or saw an advert on the telly. But something motivated me to tune in. It was the summer of 2011 and for some reason, on the 2nd July, exactly fourteen years ago yesterday, I sat down and watched the Tour de France.

I had no idea what was going on, obviously. For most of that first day - for most of the first couple of weeks, really - I watched 200 or so lycra-clad men pedal around France, transfixed but clueless. The commentators - the iconic Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen - used words like peloton, breakaway, lead-out, and I nodded along seriously while noting them down to consult Wikipedia later. Bike racing is a complicated business and still, watching it now, it confounds. It doesn’t help that half of the important words are in French, but I suppose that’s where the biggest bike race takes place.

Now I consider July, specifically the three or so weeks that the Tour de France takes place, the best time of the year. It’s mid-summer, the days are long and warm, and bike racing is on the telly, basically all the time. I follow cycling for the rest of the year but not quite as obsessively as during the Tour de France, when the race colours the rest of my life in a yellow haze, when I spend most of my waking hours wondering about who will be first over a crucial climb, or who will tumble off the road, ruining their chances and months of preparation. The rest of life sits in a separate compartment of my brain, and it takes some getting at when the Tour’s on.

So, why not write about it?

The Musette

began life as a purely cycling-focused publication, and although I now also write about books and culture too, the Tour de France is still the main event. If I have one dream writing assignment - one overarching life goal, really - it’s to cover the Tour de France on the ground. To be there in France and follow the great race.

That won’t happen in 2025. In 2025 I must still fit the Tour around the rest of my life. Or rather, fit the rest of my life around the Tour. I can bring you no scoops, no exclusive interviews, no reviews of the croissants in the towns where the race begins and ends. For that, you should read

Ned. Roads. Words.

,

Daniel Benson

and the like. I will be.

What I can do is give the armchair fan’s perspective. Not just my thoughts and opinions on who will win each stage, who will win the race overall, who will claim the yellow jersey in Paris in a few weeks’ time. But also what it’s like to have a sporting event take over your life for three weeks. What it’s like to desperately avoid spoilers, to snatch ten minutes of watching the race when you absolutely should be doing something else. What it’s like to live a normal life but be completely consumed with passion about what 200 or so lycra-clad men are currently doing in an entirely different country.

That’s what my other Substack,

The Musette

, will be for the next three weeks. A diary of sorts of my Tour de France. You’ll find out what’s happening in the Tour de France, if you’re interested. Though if you are, you’ll know that already. But you’ll also hear from a fan, from someone who wishes he was there too. It all starts on Saturday. I can’t wait.

It’s going to be quite the three weeks. Fancy coming along? Subscribe to The Musette below.