Faine Greenwood: Watching the Tour de France, which I actually really like as it’s a pleasant French travel documentary with lots of cool aerial shots concealed as a sporting event

Watching the Tour de France, which I actually really like as it’s a pleasant French travel documentary with lots of cool aerial shots concealed as a sporting event

My favorite parts are when the commentators are like, “this castle was built in 1547 and this town is best known for [insert obscure delicacy].”

But then, if you’re a fool, you Google that delicacy and have to wrestle with the idea of people eating That, on purpose.

Tbh I’d eat 99.9% of them lol

they should make the cyclists eat each one before they can pass

Do you want a 1904 Olympic marathon? This is how you get a 1904 Olympic marathon

If they get a tummy ache they can take a quick nap, it’s fine.

Oh heck yeah.

You're a braver soul than me.

Eh, if it’s survived that long, it can’t be too bad. Except for the things that I’m completely sure are dares…

Look, lutefisk exists. It’s not bad at all if you’re used to it but I wouldn’t get off my bike to try a bite.

The Ortolan sin bird is a fun one.

🤢, but also 😡

One year the town up the road from us paid to have the Tour of Italy go through but our town opted out. Although the route had to go through our town, and TV showed some lovely historic buildings, it didn't get a single mention in the commentary - we hadn't paid.

It is definitely a calculated revenue generating move, that’s for sure

Don't forget the farm art. Sheaves of wheat in the shape of a bicycle! Tractors forming a wheel! The town name in grain!

Just saw an amazing, realistic portrait of some ridsr plowed into a field. Had the volume off because we are also watching F1 qualification.

I can't remember which rider - possibly Canadian - being asked about post-race interviews. He said in Italy he always found out the local delicacy and learned to say in Italian "I love this part of Italy, especially the [x]". They loved him!

There is a huge book -- a ring-bound thing, I think -- that ASO issues to every TdF live commentator every year with details of every landmark on every stage.

The road book? drive.google.com/file/d/1Ff5U...

2024 - Tour de France (English).pdfdrive.google.com

Partly -- thanks for all 187MB of that! -- but I remember reading somewhere a while back that commentators got a more detailed packet with all those factual snippets for the landmarks. Perhaps now it's part of the real-time feed sent to the commentary booth?

Ah okay, yeah could be that the comms get a different one from the teams.

I live for rural French hay bale sculpture and making jokes about the board game every time they go through Carcassonne.

TdF! Beautiful.

some of the best background noise tv on tv

It’s so relaxing

my dad is a big cyclist so I've been watching all the major tours since i was a child. love July

My partner is also into cycling - I’ve been won over into watching these lol The women’s Tour is also really fun

did you see the dude that broke three teeth before the stage today after a he got hooked by a spectator and is still riding

Yes, poor dude - yikes

I think my kids feel the same way - hope so, at least. Regardless, they both ride as adults, so I’ll at least take that as a win…

Kind of... from seeing what you said I put it on in the background, and there's lots of lovely green. But I don't understand the strategy, or the scoring, and it does just look like one of a variety of accidents waiting to happen....

You sorta pick up on the strategy as you watch - it’s like chess played with extremely fasf moving humans on asphalt

yah it's 110 dudes, riding extremely fast, on sometimes very shitty roads, about an inch from each other. and then there are individual time trials. And those my friend are the best.

They race for 3 weeks and the overall winner is the rider with the lowest cumulative time. There are also 3 separate contests for best sprinter(green jersey), best climber (polkadot) and best young rider (white jersey). The white jersey is based on total time and the other 2 are points competitions.

Caley Fretz wrote a nice explainer last year.

How the Tour de France works - Escape Collectiveescapecollective.com Bike racing can be dumb and confusing. Here's an explainer for your non-cycling friends this summer.

Just what I needed, *thank you*.

Now get it!

I *assume* all the winners are individual, but also their points are added together to form a team score? And thank you.

They do track total team times as well but I don’t know if there is an award for that any longer. You are correct, the winners are individual but you have to have a strong team to do well. On every team, domestiques do one thing - support the primary riders. It’s really a beautiful team sport.

there are competitions within the race, too. each team may have different goals. www.theproscloset.com/blogs/news/t...

Tour de France Explained: How You Win & How It Really Workswww.theproscloset.com What do the Yellow, Green, and Polka-Dot Jerseys mean? How do you win? How do cycling teams work? Who are the favorites? We explain the basics of bike racing in this guide to the Tour de France.

Thank you, a quick scroll down this shows that the bit on "types of riders" is what I've been after. I appreciate you saving me from fighting online search....

you're welcome

Every day is 3-5 relaxing hours with 5-15 minutes of absolute white knuckle excitement spread throughout

The bicycle-themed land art made by farmers along the route is always nice.

Yes!

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