Where the plot thickened:

Belfort, France

It wasn’t until after I had nailed down all the plans and bookings for this trip that I noticed that Stage 13 of the Tour was finishing in Belfort, France -a nearby town to Mulhouse.  We could get there by train in about 40 minutes.  I threw out the idea to Mike, who had mixed emotions about the it, but ultimately we decided to go for it.

So off we went… babes in the woods as far as Tour de France stage spectator strategy goes.  Just to give you a visual on what we walked into…. While there is no way to accurately count how many people see a stage, the general estimate is between 700,000 and 1,000,000 people!  Of course, they are spread out over the entire route (which can be as much as 100 miles), but it makes sense that the starting and finishing lines draw the majority of spectators…unless it is a mountain stage -that’s a whole different animal.  

Walking from the train to the finish area, you wouldn’t have even known the Tour was arriving in a a few hours.  There weren’t many people out and about along the way.  But there were some hints that the town was welcoming the tour..

If you look close there are some bikes in the display.

These banners were strung along a shopping street on our way to the race.

My bumper sticker reads: Will stop for ornate door pictures!

There’s no way to fully explain the ins and outs of the Tour without writing a book here -there are so many different moving parts.  Even though we’ve been watching the Tour on TV for years, nothing prepared us for being there in person.  Basically it is like any large sporting event where tons of people all want to be in front, see the action, get their photos…etc.  And the subtle pushing and shoving…making space where there wasn’t space before… all seems part of the experience.  I was able to (politely!) get to the front of a barrier, but I had to hold on for dear life or the people around me would have subtly swirled me out the backside of the crowd without blinking an eye!

These people were across the street.  The marker shows that we were 200 meters from the finish line.

I

This was looking toward the finish line -which we couldn’t see from where we were.

I thought being up front was going to give me a bit of a safe space and a great view of the goings on… The joke was on me!

We wanted to arrive early enough to see the Caravan.  It is a Mardi Gras style parade put on by advertisers and tour supporters that leaves two hours ahead of the official start.  They toss various things to the crowd along the entire route.  Things like hats, snacks, candy, waist packs, carry bags, and magnets.   We wanted to see it in person because the TV coverage doesn’t show it.

While we were waiting for the Caravan to arrive, there were also people walking up and down the street in front of us keeping the crowd entertained and throwing out things like hats and T-shirts.

I got this photo before the lady in front of me left, leaving me her spot up front.

Even though the people handing things out never seemed to come to our side – we did catch our first “swag” from the Tour.

When the Caravan arrived… This was more or less my view:  The woman next to me had her phone up (and panning right to left) the entire time!

The trucks and “floats” were hard to photograph straight in front of me unless they were closer to the other side..  I sort of gave up on photos, knowing I’d have other chances.

We ended up getting a hat, a carry bag and the waist pack.  Not that we need any of it!

We’d already waited about 3 hours for the Caravan to pass…then we had to wait about 2 1/2 more hours for the first riders to come by.  Normally there’s a pretty large group that arrives together at the finish, but on this stage the peloton had gotten quite spread out because it was a mountain stage..

Finally the riders started coming in.  Mike got these two pictures at some point,

While, I’d say that most of the people around us were generally nice, poor Mike, (who was right behind me) was being crowded by a man who had a kid on his shoulders and whom was repeatedly trying to squeeze between Mike and me to get to the front -not that there was an inch of space there without physically moving me and the lady next to me!  It wasn’t working very well for him, so he would just stick his arm out full length in front of Mike’s face to get his photos as bikers were coming in.  Several of Mike’s videos are of the guy’s arm and phone!  …or of the kid’s head!  I decided to kneel and get lower than all the heads and hands I was seeing through my camera.  It worked for the most part, but I could only point my phone directly in front of me.

An example of the guy’s hand in Mike’s photo…and the camera focused on the hand and not the rider!

If I haven’t said so before, crowds are quite stressful for both Mike and me.  I can get a little cranky if we’re trapped in a crowded situation for too long.  Even though this experience was pushing all of our buttons – I’m glad we had the chance to see the “circus” in person.

Mike thinks we should probably be reviewing our life choices because we stood there for hours basically to see this:

They are riding around 25 miles/hour as they approach the finish line.  If it is a sprint finish, the sprinters are going over 40 miles/hour! Don’t blink!

Even though there were still stragglers coming in, we were running out of time.  I wanted to see if we could find the awards stage.  There is a presentation after each stage where the riders who won various categories for the stage (and overall) are introduced and given small tokens of their achievement that day.  For example, the yellow jersey winner gets a stuffed lion (the mascot of the bank that sponsors the yellow jersey category) and a bouquet of flowers.

On the way there, we passed the finish line area where they have a “Jumbotron” showing the TV coverage of the Tour.  What’s showing on it in this picture is someone being interviewed post-race.

On TV, the awards stage looks like it is set up in a wide open area where everyone can see the presentations.  I was quite surprised that we found it off to the side -kind of squished between all the trucks, trailers, equipment, and flotsam and jetsam that makes up the traveling circus that we call the Tour de France.  There is a massive amount of equipment that gets moved to the next starting city every day.  The crews set everything up overnight so that the show can go on the next day in a new place.

The stage faced a narrow side street with some fencing where there wasn’t much room for many spectators at all.  As you can see in the photo -people were trying anyway!

We had to leave right after I took this picture because we needed to get back to the station to catch our train.  About 1,000 people had the same idea… I mentioned the Atlanta airport train being like a stuffed turkey – this train was like a can of sardines.  Amazingly, everyone seemed to take the standing-room-only situation in stride and seemed to be going with the flow.

Tomorrow we’ll be able to walk to the starting area for Stage 14 in Mulhouse.

Categories: Part 4 - Detour to Belfort, France, Switzerland 2026