Guide to Going to the Tour De France in Person
WHAT DO YOU WANT TO SEE?
First you will have to decide what kind of stage you want to see. Do you want to dedicate the whole day, or maybe just get a quick glimpse of the peloton? If you want to make a day of it, pick a time trial or mountain stage, otherwise pick a flat stage.
THE TOOLS YOU WILL NEED:
In order to watch the Tour you need to know where the riders will be. The general route is posted on the Tour de France website (http://www.letour.fr) months before the race starts, however they do not announce the exact route until just a couple of weeks before the race. So you will have to do most of your planning at the last minute. When the exact route is announced you can go to the Tour De France website to get the complete details of each stage. The description of each stage is displayed in a table format with the road names and approximate arrival times of the caravan and riders based on their pace. MapQuest (http://www.mapquest.com) has online maps of France so you can use it to see exactly where the roads are.
The second useful tool is the VeloNews Official Tour de France Guide which you can purchase from http://www.velogear.com. They don’t release the guide until the exact route is announced, but you can preorder it so you will get it in the mail as soon as it is published. The Official Guide gives you information about all the teams and riders as well as each stage. For each stage there is a short description, a map, and an elevation schematic. On the map and elevation schematic you can see what towns the race route goes through, where the start and finish markers are for the bonus sprint and climbs, as well as where the feeding stations are. On some of the stages a detailed road map is provided that shows you what roads to take to view the riders twice during the stage, and how to steer clear of the roads that are closed because they are part of the route.
GETTING TO THE STAGE:
With this information you are now set to stake out how you are going to watch the Tour. My husband and I were in Paris and wanted to see a mountain stage. We found a stage in the Pyranees that had two big climbs. We wanted to watch a mountain stage because we figured the riders would be slower and spread out so we would be able to see them better. Looking at the information obtained from the Tour de France website and the Official Guide we were able to figure out that there was a small town, Ax-Les-Thermes at the base of the second climb which was 10 kilometers from the finish. We figured we could go there and walk up the mountain and stake out a position. Going to the RailEurope website (http://www.raileurope.com) we found that we could get overnight tickets on a train from Paris to the Ax-Les-Thermes. We would leave Paris at 9:00pm and get to Ax-Les-Thermes at 7:00am then catch the train again that night and be back in Paris the next morning. This worked even better than expected because the town was actually a ski town so they had a gondola that took us up to the top of the mountain where the finish was. We staked out a spot at the end of a climb, which was 1 kilometer from the finish.
WHAT TO EXPECT:
There were a lot of people, which was really surprising to me because we were out in the middle of nowhere. Some people ride part of the stage before hand so there were a lot of people who arrived by bicycle. There are people from almost every European country, as well as from the States. We met some fellow Americans and hung out with them for the day. A nice family from Holland had a radio and kept us updated on how the stage was progressing.
The weather was really hot, around 95 to 100 degrees, so bring sunscreen and water. Because we were near the finish there were a handful of concession stands that were selling water and food. It is a very elaborate setup near the finish. They have a large portable stage where they give out the awards. The last 2-3 kilometers was railed off with advertisements strung up all over. They had a big blow-up finish line for the King of the Mountain bonus stage, plus the news and team vans are everywhere.
About an hour before the riders arrive the caravan drives by. The caravan is kind of like a parade where the sponsors drive by and throw out goodies, like hats, whistles, bags, and water, etc. So when you watch it on TV and wonder where all the stuff came from that the people are waving around, that is what it is.
Even though we were watching a mountain stage the riders still flew by, barely giving you time to see them. Taking a video of the riders would probably be better than trying to get still pictures. It took about 45 minutes from when the leader came by till the last rider.
SOME FINAL THOUGHTS:
We were not in Paris during the final stage, but they were setting up for it a week and a half before. It seemed like it would be hard to get a good spot, but would be a great party.
I’m not sure, but staking yourself out at a feeding station might be a good place to see the riders.
While you get a lot better coverage watching the Tour on TV, watching it in person is a great experience and allows you to understand the atmosphere better when you do watch it on TV.
