There’s a idea that the Tour de France can be vastly improved by a lot shorter levels. It could be extra thrilling to observe. It could immediate extra fascinating techniques, extra open racing and fewer reliance on the crew. That form of factor.
Michael Hutchinson is a author, journalist and former skilled bicycle owner. As a rider he gained a number of nationwide titles in each Britain and Eire and competed on the World Championships and the Commonwealth Video games. He was a three-time Brompton folding-bike World Champion, and as soon as hit 73 mph driving down a hill in Wales. His Dr Hutch columns seems in each subject of Biking Weekly journal
Nicely, I’m right here to let you know this has already occurred. It’s occurred many instances. The Tour de France is a shadow of what it as soon as was. It’s solely 60% of the size it was within the 1910s. As if that wasn’t sufficient, there at the moment are 30% extra levels. Or strive it this fashion – the common stage in 1919 was 370 km, and that yr’s longest stage was 480 km. The winner of that one took 19 hours to get from Les Sables-d’Olonne to Bayonne.
The unique route was simply across the edges of France. They went all the best way out the peninsula to Brest and again each Tour till 1932, and I’m guessing the bit the place you rode 400km alongside a wind-blasted coast highway to Brest, then circled and rode out on the identical wretched highway you’d ridden in on will need to have been a little bit of a low level within the lives of everybody concerned.
The roads had been dangerous. They had been lower up and gravelly, mud baths within the rain, and within the mountains typically not far more than animal tracks. You weren’t even allowed to draft different riders, as an alternative you needed to experience alone. The truth is you needed to be fully self-sufficient till 1930, together with fixing all your individual punctures. Of which there have been many – Jean Alavoine bought 46 in 1919, at a mean of three per stage. And he nonetheless completed second on GC. As a rule riders needed to discover their very own lodge at a end city, as a result of there was nobody to do it for them.
So what, in essence, Henri Desgrange got here up with in 1903 was the proper Twenty first-century bike race. It had all of the issues presently in vogue – ultra-long distances, bikepacking, gravel and adventuring. It had no transfers as each single stage began precisely the place the earlier one completed. So as to add to the environmental credentials, there have been no buses, no crew automobiles, no overseas begins, no promoting caravan. Better of all, it was about struggling. Struggling for the riders, struggling for the officers, struggling for all.
I can consider few issues I’d prefer to see greater than an original-style Tour de France, Brest and all. No groups, no techniques, no working collectively, simply 200 lone riders doing levels that begin at midnight and are nonetheless going when it will get darkish the next day.
As a fan, consider the pleasure of spending a night on Alpe d’Huez having a peaceable barbecue and watching riders come previous for a mountain end after 350km, shattered, damaged, and hopefully one after the other over a interval of about two hours. You may’t inform me that might not be a serious enchancment on eight hours of German techno adopted by just a few seconds of motorcycle racers and 100 automobiles.
Then they’d get to the end and uncover that the followers and press had booked up each lodge on the town, and must sleep in a bivvy bag for 5 hours until the following stage began.
Clearly it’s not going to work very nicely on tv – however it might be unbelievable on social media. You’d be watching the tracker dots crossing the Alps and see that Geraint Thomas’s had stopped shifting. Then you definately’d examine his Instagram and there’d be an image of him the other way up in a tree.
In fact Tadej Pogačar and Demi Vollering would most likely nonetheless win. However we’d have a lot extra enjoyable alongside the best way.
