It was raining a lot on the edge of Valence after stage 17 of the Tour de France in July. After days of baking heat, the sky had turned black on the edge of the Ardèche; if real life was a school English essay, the phrase pathetic fallacy would be on everyone’s lips. The world’s biggest bike race has a habit of bringing everyone back down to earth, metaphorically as well as literally, as the majesty of Mont Ventoux the previous day was followed by a sprint on an arterial road, hemmed in by grey offices.
The sense of doom was increased by the chaos at the finish, where a prankster had somehow got onto the course, and a crash in the final kilometre which led to a handful of riders contesting for the win, which went to Jonathan Milan.
