Le Tour!

I think our goal for the day was just to see what we could see and not get trampled!  I’m kidding!  -it wasn’t that bad.

The start area for Stage 14 was in a park on the other side of Mulhouse -maybe a mile-ish away.  We thought we’d picked a good time to arrive, and if the few thousand other spectators already there are any indication, -we should have gotten started sooner!   Ha-ha.  

On our way, we saw some Tour related street art.

When we got to the park, it was a giant maze of barriers (and people).  Each night, the crew has to do whatever they can with the space they’ve been given for the setup.  Their primary concern would obviously be facilitating the race, not the spectators (and rightly so).

The result is great for the teams and the riders, but creates a bit of confusion for spectators trying to figure out how to get where they want to go in the barrier maze.

 In our attempt to find the merchandise tents, we ended up in a barrier created dead end near the Jumbotron.  We could have walked a bit further behind the Jumbotron, but when I went to look, there wasn’t any reason to.  At that moment, it was running a video that was showing each rider of the tour having a slightly goofy moment on camera in an effort to say “hello” to the spectators.  Mike took a picture of me watching it.

While deciding how we might backtrack out of our dead end, the Caravan started.  It wasn’t too crowded where we were, so we stayed put.  We stood a bit back from the barriers.  Again, I didn’t have a good position for Caravan pics -but I tried.

This “float” is for the bank, Le Credit Lyonnaise, which sponsors the yellow jersey.  Their mascot is a lion, which is why the tour leader gets a stuffed lion at every stage.

While I was taking the picture, Mike was catching a hat!  We weren’t really trying to catch anything, but that hat is a popular catch for spectators. 

The poultry company float threw out magnets – Mike got one of those too. 

Mike also caught a bag of crackers and a bag of pasta!  (The other thing in this picture is the magnet.)

After the caravan was past us, we decided to move along and see if we could find another way to the tents.  As we were walking,  I saw an empty spot at a barrier and decided to walk up and see why other people were standing there (although not a crowd).  

It turned out that we were in a spot where we could see the tour buses arriving.  Now, that’s not the most exciting thing in the world, but it is the type of behind-the-scenes thing that isn’t shown on TV.  It was kind of fun watching those big buses arrive and have to make a very tight turn around the corner we were standing by. Behind each bus were three or four team cars, carrying the bikes and support crews.  

I caught a picture of the Lidl-Trek team bus as it was turning that corner.  On this day, the rider leading the green jersey category was Mad Pederson of Lidl -Trek, who went on to stand on the podium in Paris wearing the green jersey. The green jersey is a special category for sprint cyclists.  They have a race within the race going on.  At each day’s presentation, the sponsor of the green jersey category also gives a stuffed animal. In the windshield you can see all of the stuffed animals that Mads had collected already.   (He is called Felix and is modeled after a lynx).

This picture shows the bus and one team car already through the turn, and the second team car to getting ready to make the right turn.  The buses went into a big parking area just ahead of the bus shown.  They park and begin setting up their camp… unloading bikes, making sure their riders are ready, and generally preparing for the stage.

I had mentioned to Mike that another behind -the scenes-thing that I thought it would be interesting would be to find out where we could watch the riders sign in for the race.  For each stage, each rider has to go to the start line and officially sign in. They can do it anytime in the hour or two before the race.  We didn’t realize it right away, but it turned out that once the buses got into their parking lot and had set up their base camp, the riders started riding back out to sign in -then and back to the bus.  We were in a great spot to see them coming and going, so we stayed for a while.

If you read my blogs, you know that any time I see a Camino de Santiago sign while traveling, I take a picture of it.  I found the best one yet on the woman standing next to me.  Loved it !!

Even though the riders would line up at the starting line in the park we were in, the actual racing wouldn’t begin until several miles down the road.  The Tour de France has what they call a neutral start for every stage.  The riders go to the start line and line up behind a car carrying the tour director.  When the stage starts, the car (with director) leads the riders out for the first three miles or so.  When they reach the 0.0 marker out on the route, the tour director pops out of the sun roof and waves a “go” flag and accelerates out of their way.  That’s when the race is on.  

We wanted to be sure to see the riders go past us while on the neutral start.  With an hour or so before the start, we decided it was time to find a spot along the route where we could watch them pass. 

The first few miles would be through the streets of Mulhouse.  On the map the route looked more like it was planned by a kid on a paper route… It didn’t follow the straightest road out of town for sure.  

The blue arrow shows the start line a the park. The yellow line is the route they followed to the 0.0 marker.

The strategy was to walk as far from the park as possible before the official start of the race until we reached a spot where there was space for us -i.e. not many people.  We didn’t follow the yellow line -we walked on a road that went straight across to the point on the map where the yellow line dipped down and turned onto the road we were walking on.  We then followed the route (yellow line) until we found our spot.  As you can imagine, it took us a while to find a good spot, but it was a really good spot!  If you can see the word “Mulhouse” on the map (upper right), we stood roughly about where the M is.  

I was thrilled to get this video!

The problem with trying to get photos or video is that you are distracted from the moment…. They were passing at a decent clip, so I doubt I could have picked out individual riders that I like in that split second, but when we looked at the video later in slow motion, it was easier to “see” them.

I was surprised to realize that the Tour’s overall leader as of this stage (and ultimate winner), Tadej Pogacar, had passed right next to me.

This is a screen shot from the video.

Mike isolated Jonas Vingegaard (polka dot jersey) from the video he took:

Vingegaard was in the polka dot jersey that day by default.  Pogacar actually held both the yellow and polka dot -and could only wear one.  So, Vingegaard, who was second for the polka dot wore it that day.  He is a past winner of the Tour. He and Pogacar (now with five wins) were considered the top two riders for this year’s tour. Sadly, Vingegaard crashed out in a later stage.

We decided that after all of the walking and excitement that we should sit down somewhere for a refreshment.  We found an Irish Bar near our hotel. 

Oddly, the bar had no Irish beer.  We managed. 

We had a good day.  It might be kind of “geeky” that we liked seeing the “behind the scenes” stuff.  But we enjoyed it.

Categories: Part 5 - Stage 14 Tour de France, Switzerland 2026