But here’s the truth: not all fans are built the same. Some wake up at 5 a.m. to warm up on the trainer. Others wake up at 11 to warm up a croissant.
So, instead of pretending we all experience the Tour the same way, let’s lean in. Here’s your DIY fan guide to enjoying the race, tailored to the most common cycling personalities.
The Tour Encyclopedia Experience
This isn’t passive viewing. This is an immersive, fully committed deep dive into the soul of the Tour, done entirely from your living room.
Every stage is an event. Every attack gets timestamped. Every post-race interview is a post-mortem for your imaginary Directeur Sportif role.
Your Tour setup? A cross between a war room and a picnic. The TV’s always on, the remote is holy, and your notes are… excessive. But that’s how you like it. You don’t just watch the Tour. You document it, debate it, live it.
Your DIY kit:
Fantasy league, but nerdier: Create your fantasy league — but with your own rules. Points for breakaways, bad tans, awkward team car moments, or waving at the camera. Now everyone’s invested. Especially you.
Live commentary, by you: Assign yourself the role of Directeur Sportif. Shout tactical takes at the screen. Write notes. Circle things in red. Underline them. Twice. Even if they won’t matter later.
Regional snack pairing: Match your snacks to the region at every stage. Normandy? Cider and Camembert. Provence? Rosé and tapenade. Yes, it’s unnecessary. Yes, it’s perfect.
Strict dress code: Cap on. Vintage jersey optional but encouraged. Bonus points if it references a rider no one else remembers.
Stage tracker spreadsheet: Build it. Fill it. Love it. Include categories like: “Was this attack serious?” or “How many gels did Pogačar eat today?”
By the third week, you’re running three screens: live feed, live tweets, and a spreadsheet with suspiciously detailed wattage estimates. Yes, your bike has been untouched in the hallway for days. But who needs saddle time when you’ve just mentally calculated Vingegaard’s normalised power for a Category 1 climb while reheating your croissant? Because this is the Tour encyclopedia experience, and you’re not just watching history—you’re footnoting it.
Zobrazit příspěvek na Instagramu
The Background Glory Experience
Let the Tour soundtrack your summer. Watch just enough to feel involved, never enough to feel stressed.
You love the Tour de France… but let’s not pretend it’s your whole personality. It’s a vibe. A moving postcard. A majestic drone shot of lavender fields interrupted occasionally by someone faceplanting into a ditch. You’re here for the moments, not the metrics.
You know the big names. You can recognise a jersey or two. But if someone asks why the leader’s group is 10 minutes behind the rest, your best guess is “They have more points,” hoping no one will be interested enough to ask how points are earned.
Your DIY kit:
One working TV (optional sound): Bonus points if you leave it running all afternoon, like cycling ASMR. You’re not watching the whole stage. You’re ambiently absorbing it.
A well-timed snack ritual: Pop in right before the final sprint. Have a fizzy drink ready. Celebrate like you’ve been emotionally invested since kilometre zero.
The “cultural appreciation” trick: Learn one fact about the region each stage passes through. Repeat it casually over lunch. Suddenly, you’re a cultured Tour viewer with range.
Emergency “I was watching” responses: Keep three neutral phrases ready:
- “Wow, that was a bold move.”
- “You could tell he was cooked at the summit.”
- “Classic Tour chaos.”
Deploy as needed during conversation. No one will suspect you missed the entire middle hours.
You don’t follow every second. You don’t need a spreadsheet. You let the Tour roll through your day like a beautiful, unpredictable background playlist. Because while others are arguing about watts, you’re already at the terrace, sipping something cold, waiting for the recap.
The Performance Parallels Program
The Tour de France isn’t a race. It’s a reference point.
You don’t tune in to relax. You tune in to benchmark. While others cheer for breakaways and bicker over GC standings, you’re deep into a zone 4 interval, muttering split times and sweating through your third bidon.
Your Tour setup? One smart trainer, one screen, and zero tolerance for fluff. If the broadcast doesn’t show watts, heart rate, or gradient… why is it even on?
Want to get the most out of it?
Your DIY kit:
Sync your suffering: Schedule your hardest workouts during the Queen Stages. Bonus points if your intervals start when the breakaway does. Misery loves company, even if they’re in the Pyrenees and you’re in your laundry room.
Turn commentary into coaching: Mute the broadcasters. Replace them with your own motivational playlist or, better yet, pre-recorded race radios from old Tours. Who needs Anthony McCrossan when you can get yelled at in Flemish?
Calculate like you mean it: Keep a running spreadsheet of estimated pro wattages per kilo. Compare it to your own. Are you Vingegaard for 3 minutes? Are you a dropped sprinter on the flats? Either way, now you know.
Feed zone IRL: Plan your gels and hydration breaks to match team feed zones. Pretend that banana handoff from your roommate was strategic. Drop wrappers like bidons.
Ride the replays (smart): Missed a stage? Watch it on fast-forward and simulate attacks with microbursts. Because you don’t need drama—you need data.
Sure, you’re not racing in France. But if suffering is the metric, you’re right there in the mountains. Just with better Wi-Fi.
The Yellow Jersey lifestyle
You don’t just watch the Tour de France. You live it.
Every July, your house becomes a high-altitude training camp with indoor plumbing. While others casually tune in, you’re clipping in—mentally, physically, emotionally. The peloton’s in France. You’re in your kitchen. But you’re both racing.
Want to do it right?
Your DIY kit:
Stage simulation Saturdays: Match your ride to the stage profile. If they’re climbing the Galibier, you’re riding hill repeats or cranking your trainer incline until your living room becomes the Alps. Bonus points if you miscalculate hydration and bonk halfway through, just like the pros.
World Tour wardrobe rotation: Jerseys organised by team, year, and sponsor accuracy. You don’t just wear kit—you curate it. Mismatched socks? Only if they’re from different Grand Tours.
Gourmet feed zones: Make your snacks regional. Brie during a Brittany stage. Tapenade in Provence. If the breakaway gets caught, you pour a glass of wine and toast to the effort. Calories count, but culture counts more.
Commentary karaoke: You’ve seen this stage live, in recap, and again in three languages. Try reciting the final 5 km with the commentator’s cadence or impersonate a panicked Directeur Sportif yelling instructions in the team car. For full immersion, wear an earpiece and talk to yourself in French.
Recovery like a champion: Ice baths? Optional. Compression socks? Required. You don’t just lounge—you actively recover while fact-checking wattage numbers and tweeting gear ratios with surgical precision.
By Stage 20, you’ve lived the Tour harder than some actual domestiques. Your heart rate hasn’t been below 80 since the Prologue, and your espresso machine is on the verge of burnout. But that’s what it takes.
Because you don’t spectate.
You participate.
And if the yellow jersey were awarded for commitment, yours would already be framed.
Tour de Home, but make it epic
Whether you’re calculating wattage during a solo kitchen breakaway or watching highlights with a croissant in hand, the Tour de France isn’t just a race—it’s a season. A vibe. A lifestyle.
It doesn’t matter if you’re barely riding, riding obsessively, or just riding the emotional highs and lows of each stage from your couch. There’s a version of the Tour out there for everyone. And yours might just involve more spreadsheets, snacks, or sassy commentary than you’d like to admit.
So, embrace it. Turn up the coverage, turn down the shame, and make July the best month of the year—whether you’re sweating on a trainer, snacking through stage profiles, or screaming “Allez!” at your plants.
And if you’re curious about which Tour fan you really are? Don’t worry. We made a quiz.
Just don’t blame us when it gets a little too accurate.
