So, here are some of the most interesting Tour de Love stories you shared.
A different kind of love
Not everyone sees love as one-sided as we intended. Though we were hoping for more personal connections, fans will be fans, and the passion for the sport will always take priority.
“I don’t remember not being in love with the Tour. It has always been on during my summers as a child, and I think it is my first and forever love. The four times I have attended are some of my favourite memories. To this day, I watch the race from start to finish, and the people and the roads and the landscape are always making me smile,” says Reddit user @frkloja
@zep2floyd has a different take. They have a specific Tour moment that they fell in love with.
“When Stephen Roche won the Triple Crown, I’ll never forget that year as an Irish cycling fan. The Tour de France win was something I’ll never forget, and I started my love affair with pro cycling.”
Sometimes, love transcends generations. Fathers take their children and manage to give them a life-long treasured memory. @Anaalgarnaal is the perfect example.
“On Saturday 21st of July 2001, my dad took me – a 10-year-old kid – to the start of the 12th Tour stage in Perpignan (Perpignan – Ax-les-Thermes). We were camping with the family nearby. The city was flooded with other tourists who came to see the Tour caravan as well.
At some point, my dad decided to let me climb the fence, which gave me access to the press/VIP area. I got so close to most of my favourite riders and collected more than ten autographs before the riders were called to the start. After the start we drove back to the campsite and watched the rest of the stage together from our cabin.”
Now, that’s how you create a lifelong Tour de France fan.
Finally, we have @exphysed, who has his own take on the Tour de Love Story question. He says, “I learned to love the Basque version of the ‘olé olé olé’ song after hearing it for nine hours straight all the way through to sunrise while I tried to sleep under my rental car on Pla d’Adet the night before Stage 15 of the 2005 Tour. Is that the kind of story you’re looking for?”
Well, not quite what I was looking for, but it certainly made me laugh out loud.
Regardless, the Tour and cycling as a whole are the reasons many of you fell in love with each other.
The Tour as the best wingman
Indeed, there is no better way to find your significant other than being part of the greatest cycling event in the world. Can you really imagine finding someone willing to watch more than four hours of cycling every day for a month if they are not in love with the sport? So, yes, quite a few of you out there found your true love on the roads of France, waiting for the peloton to flash by.
@canadianhifive shares, “I had my first date with a woman at the final stage of the 2018 Tour de France. We’re from Canada. We are getting married in two weeks!” I guess you’re already married, mate, so congrats from all of us here at We Love Cycling.
@johndoe701 also had a pretty good experience. He says, “Wife and I stood on the Champs-Élysées to watch the final stage of the 2017 Tour as part of our honeymoon.” Now, that’s what I call a romantic honeymoon in Paris. You definitely have a keeper, mate.
@Jagoda.khatri, one of our Instagram followers, also shared her love story. “L’étape du Tour 2018 brought me and my boyfriend together. We got the entrance tickets at the last minute from a common friend, did the race together, and crossed the line holding hands. Two days before the event, Eric decided I needed a proper climbing bike (I had an aluminium Trek Lexa). He gave me one of his carbon frames (the geometry was great for me) and put all the parts together. I still use this bike and always say it’s a bike love story that brought us together,” she wrote, and we couldn’t be happier for her.
Cycling is love
However, love on two wheels can happen anywhere. That’s what we can learn from the heartwarming story of Mariam Dgebuadze and Giorgi Gobadze.
“My hubby and I met each other at a race. I was on the management team, and he was racing a Triathlon challenge. My Gio won the race and my heart.
After five years of dating, Giorgi was racing in the last race of the Georgian National Championship. At the finish line, I was waiting to cheer for him. He finished first, and I was ecstatic. So imagine how I felt when he came off the bike, dropped on one knee, and proposed. That day, he became the Georgian National MTB Champion and my fiancé.
That’s not all, though. On our wedding day, we went down the aisle on our bikes. Not the most comfortable experience, but hey, bikes were an essential part of our romantic Disney-like story, so how could we leave them behind on our special day?
Today, we continue cycling together, hand in hand; no matter how steep the climbs on our journey through life together get, we can always count on each other to draft and pull each other to the top.”
If that’s not the perfect script for a romantic movie about cycling, I don’t know what is.
We can say a lot about love on two wheels, but you can rarely find a more romantic, tear-jerking love story than Mari and Gio’s. So we can only wish them many more years of cycling together.
The Tour is coming. Who will you share it with?
As you can see, cycling is magical, and the Tour de France is like a catalyst for your bike’s unexplained romantic powers. So, make sure you find someone special to share this year’s TDF with. Who knows, maybe some years down the road, you can share your love story and how it began right there and then while the peloton was just a stone’s throw away.
