“Tom Pidcock’s in that group,” my colleague Tom said to me atop Le Markstein as, for the first time, we watched the race cross the finish line on Saturday’s stage 14 of the Tour de France, straining as everyone else did to watch the action unfold. My answer was probably not as succinct as “no, he can’t be”, but it was something similar.
In between the rain storms in the Vosges, we managed to get a glimpse of the actual action – the first time I’d actually seen the bike race I’m writing about in person in the nine days I’d been out here. It might surprise readers how little journalists at the Tour actually see of the Tour, or how hard it is for us to keep up with what’s going on in each stage as it goes on, as we encounter a series of logistical hurdles, from driving, to checkpoints, to buying lunch as the press room has no food again.
