But one constant remains, year after year, from Normandy to Nice, Alpe d’Huez to the Champs-Élysées: the fans. The glorious, often slightly mad, beautiful fans, of which I was one back in 1986 as a young 16-year-old. It was being a fan first that started my journey into cycling.
Little did 16-year-old me know that 30-odd years later I’d be bringing other fans the images, sounds, textures, and emotion of the Grand Boucle myself.
Let’s get one thing straight: there is no sporting crowd quite like Tour de France fans. They’re not ticket holders. They don’t file into a stadium. They take over entire mountains, villages, and towns. They wake up at 3 a.m. to stake a roadside spot, having travelled there days in advance. They boil coffee on camping stoves, eat bread and cheese, and sip local wine and wear costumes to boggle the mind. They have rider fan clubs, create homemade flags, posters, and friezes that help make the race come alive.
I’ve seen a man in a banana suit sprint next to a breakaway on the Col du Tourmalet, yelling in what I hope was encouragement. I’ve seen an 85-year-old woman in the Pyrenees slap her saucepan like a war drum as the peloton snaked by. I’ve seen fans suspended on bicycles from a crane, dangling them directly over the passing peloton, and I’ve seen a dozen men dressed as babies running alongside Mark Cavendish as he fought to finish inside the time limit in the Alpes. Just bonkers!
I’ve been offered more sausages, beers, and unsolicited back rubs than I care to count. On Alpe d’Huez I had to close the car window as fans tried to climb in and join me. Honestly… It’s clear that there’s no such thing as a “typical” fan at the Tour, and that’s the magic of it. They come from every walk of life—French grannies waving tricolores, Dutch caravans decked out like rave buses with techno music blaring out, Danish fans dressed as Vikings, in fact I’m sure I spotted a Viking longboat tandem a few years back! The fans are never calm. And why would they be? For many, seeing the Tour is a once-in-a-lifetime pilgrimage. It’s sporting theatre, high drama, and a touch of lunacy all rolled into one sweaty, lycra-wrapped spectacle. Their passion and joy are palpable and often so overwhelming it has reduced me to near tears.
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But the thing that gets me, year after year, isn’t so much the silliness, it’s the heart, the soul. The real, raw emotion. I’ve seen children on their dad’s shoulders, eyes wide with awe as the peloton roars past, waving flags and decked in swag they got from the Tour caravan. I’ve spoken to fans who’ve travelled thousands of miles, halfway across the world, camping in dodgy lay-bys just for the chance to see their heroes for often only a few fleeting seconds, and they don’t regret a moment of it.
They become part of the race. You can feel their energy pushing riders up the climbs, especially on those savage Alpine and Pyrenean ascents where the road narrows and the noise becomes a living thing. It’s deafening, thrilling, and terrifying all at the same time. I’ve been on the moto, just behind the group of leaders as they grind their way up a savage climb, and you can see it—how the fans lift them. Sometimes literally! (Please don’t touch the riders. They hate that.)
The fans know their stuff. These aren’t casual Sunday viewers. I’ve had roadside chats as a reporter with fans who know more about Visma – Lease a Bike’s team strategy than half the press corps! They live and breathe the race, they understand the nuance, and most of all they care deeply.
There are moments, quiet ones too, that have stayed with me. I picked up my first bidon that was thrown at my feet in 1986, and my father still has it. I can play every moment of that in my mind, I remember the feeling it gave me as a kid. It inspired me. I remember speaking to a Belgian couple who for 10 years have travelled and watched nearly every single stage of the Tour, the camper van their home for the month of July. They said they’ll do it for as long as they possibly could.
Or the little girl at the finish of a stage of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift in Rodez who waited patiently as a rider warmed down on the home trainer, only to be gifted a cap and a bidon; the delight on her face said it all, pure inspiration. That’s the Tour for you. Everyone’s a part of it, with the fans at the centre.
Sometimes, though, it gets too much. The road might get too narrow, the beer too strong, the crowd a little too close. I’ve seen a few accidents, moments where the party forgets the race. But even then, the love is a constant. This wild, messy, imperfect passion for cycling that pours out of every village square and mountain pass. That’s not something you can fake. It’s real. It’s raw. And it’s very, very French (with a healthy sprinkling of Dutch, Basque, British, Danish, Italian… well, the list goes on…)
As someone who’s seen this race from all angles, from a roadside fan who camped by a river all those years ago, to commentator, moto reporter, pundit, and presenter, I can tell you without hesitation that the fans are the lifeblood of the Tour. Without them, it’s just bikes on a road. With them, it’s a three-week love story, full of chaos, colour, and pure joy. A celebration that unites people from all walks of life, from all over the world. I would go as far as to say that they are important, vital even.
My role on the Tour is essentially to do the following: to convey emotion, to tell a story, to attempt to deconstruct the complexities of race tactics, to get across the spirit, history, and culture of the places the Tour passes through, to understand the characters that make the race, and finally to entertain, engage, inspire, and even educate those who take the time to watch the race. I love my role and am always striving to improve. But what would it be without the fans?
So here’s to the roadside legends. You make the Tour de France more than a race. You make it a celebration of everything glorious, ridiculous, and deeply human about sport. And, if you haven’t yet experienced the joyful chaos of the biggest sporting event on the planet, you’re missing a treat. Come and join in the fun. You will not be disappointed.
See you on the road! Come and say hi!