Mark and Lorna’s Tour de France

Tunnels. Narrow tunnels. Narrow dark tunnels. That’s my abiding memory of the six hour drive from Monte Carlo to Serre Chevalier in the Alps. And when you have a passenger with a nervous disposition this is sweaty b******s time. Did I mention we also had hangovers?

So when we got to our alpine lodge, it was a relief to just grab fish n chips and bed. Ahead of the next stage of the journey. A good night’s sleep and up early …

… Tuesday 2nd July, Stage 4 of the Tour de France, Pinerolo to Valloire. I had reassured Lorna that e-bikes were just like normal bikes with a power button (I was making this up as I’d never ridden one), so when we got to the hire shop and picked up what were essentially two motorbikes … it was time to fess up and listen hard to the instructors. In fairness, after a couple of miles Lorna was powering past Lycra-clad weekend warriors on carbon fibre road bikes up the long climb to Galibier.

This experience was incredible. Flags of every nationality flip-flapping in the alpine breeze. Helicopters hugging the valley at alarming speed, the view just getting better and better the higher up ‘Le Col’ we went. This is a global party, the likes of which I’d never seen.

Pitching camp, which meant basically laying the bikes down and parking our sore arses on the roadside, we proceeded to unpack our picnic. Baguettes, Gouda, prosciutto, olives – well, when in France… not to forget the Chateau Neuf du Pape.

I got the speaker out and started to play some dad-music, proclaiming myself as the resident DJ in our five yards of turf. Beyond this point the Aussies had their party going on and beyond that the Dutch, and beyond that the Pogacar fans (Slovenians?) and so on …

Then the caravan. Now, for those that have never witnessed this, I don’t want to spoil it … yes I do. This was joyous. A carnival of bizarre tour sponsors’ floats blasting out tunes and throwing out freebies came through about an hour before the race – as is the custom – leading us to muscle the elderly and small children out of the way to ensure we got the free Haribo and t-shirts. Well, you know, survival of the fittest and all that.

One of the funniest things I’ve ever seen was Lorna chasing the Leclerc sponsors’ van up the hill for about 200 meters to get her polka-dotted t-shirt. Now that I know what she’s capable of, I will be reminding her of this when we do our Sunday runs.

Finally, the tens of thousands of spectators lining the winding ascent fell quiet, as somewhere down the valley the riders were fast approaching. Helicopters circled like toy drones all around us, and then the leaders appeared. A dazzling multicolored bracelet of athletes threaded its way up the mountain.

I’ve often watched the tour and other major sports events on telly and scoffed when fans at the live event seem more intent on capturing it on their phone than watching it with their own eyes – well, guilty as charged. To be fair, the riders went past at such pace (and this was a steep upward hill) that without my iPhone I would never have known who’d gone past us and in which part of the peloton.

In real time we managed to pick out the Brits of Tom Pidcock and Mark Cavendish, but only upon looking through my photos later that night did I realise the world’s greatest cyclists in Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard had been so close as to almost run me over.

Abiding memory? How human they all looked in the flesh, almost vulnerable, as they helped each other and threatened each other up the 20th kilometre of a 30km climb of the notorious Galibier.

And the best example of this was our own Mark Cavendish. We screamed him on as he struggled up the hill in what seemed to be the fifth group, many minutes behind the leaders. His team mates around him, he looked done-in. In fact it felt like he might be flogging a dead horse. Time to give up in his dream of becoming the cyclist with the most stage wins in the history of the race? Apparently not. Fast forward 24 hours …

Sport can be beautiful.

And, just like that, it was over. After free-wheeling the 20 km back to our hotel, we managed to get dinner and then collapse, surrounded by our booty. The next day we’d drop the car off in Grenoble and go from there to Turin. My better half making me smile when asking over dinner, “what time do we need to leave for granola?” Well, we were both tired.

Wednesday was looooonnnnggg. After waxing lyrical to Lorna about how wonderful these travel apps are, our bus to Turin was cancelled and it was only the kind-heartedness of a station official that managed to arrange for us the last available connection to Turin – a four hour journey from Grenoble, comprising three trains and a bus, meaning we would, after all, hit destination number 7 on the day we had planned.

Turin is a laid back city. It seems to exist solely to provide beautiful piazzas in which to have a meal or a beer. Lunch down by the Po River was perfetto and came with a rather unusual guest in the form of a Coypu. Look away now mum.

Finally, it has become clear that there have been a few churches and ‘religiousy’ points on this trip, so I have been careful to make sure my secular partner was never dragged around anything too churchy for too long.

That said, I did want to visit the Duomo in Turin that houses the famous shroud. Fully aware it would not be on display, I took the opportunity to be thankful for the good things that have happened and to pray for all of us.

And then a miracle happened.

At the end of a long hot day, when I was just thinking of going to bed … I was alone with my thoughts in the hotel. I finished off my beer, and set off to bed. And there before my very eyes, appeared a heavenly body wrapped in a shroud …

It’s been emotional.