French Revolutions

enthusiasm. There’s something almost Communist
about the desperation to showcase all this space-age know-how. The Concorde
shambles didn’t put them off: France still wants to have the fastest trains in
the world, and the most nuclear power stations, and an active space programme.
The hi-tech jet fighter that screamed terrifyingly over my helmet later that
day provided the first of many saddle-soiling experiences with low-level
training runs. While Britain’s motor industry (silence at the back there,
please) looks to past glories with retro-style Rovers and Jags, France is forever pushing out weirdly futuristic concept cars. The funny-faced Renault
Twingo was considered so outré that they didn’t even bother making a
right-hand-drive model for our benefit.
    After breakfast (another
lock-up-your-croissants face-stuffer), I spread my Michelin maps on the table.
The first stage prologue around Futuroscope was only 16 kilometres; even I
could presumably manage this fairly smartly, then shove the bike in the boot,
drop off the car in Poitiers and cycle back to rejoin the route for the next
day’s stage, Futuroscope to Loudun. Two stages in a day — stick that up your
yellow jersey, boys.
    There was a genial, flabby Dale
Winton at reception; together we spent a short time plotting the progress of a
column of ants across his desk before I asked him where, precisely, the Tour de
France began.
    It was 16 May, the day after the
press office were to announce the route details. If nothing else, I thought,
they’d have been looking forward to telling me exactly where to get off.
Presently, however, it emerged that Dale had no idea what I was talking about,
partly because despite mentally rehearsing the question several dozen times it
had dribbled fitfully from my lips in an intriguing blend of languages — it
would be two weeks before I stopped saying the Icelandic ‘nei’ instead of ‘non’
— and partly because of his preoccupation with the ants, and in particular the
fact that the lead group had penetrated his switchboard. At length he presented
me with a 1:5 billion scale map of western France and said, ‘You try ze
Futuroscope, ah, service de presse?’
    Ten minutes later I was knocking
gently on a little door by the park’s entrance, surrounded by jabbering
coachloads of schoolchildren waiting in the windy sunshine for the main gates
to open for the day. I waited for a moment, then tried the handle. The door
blew inwards and I crossed the threshold; before me stood a crisply presented
young woman with an enamelled name badge detailing the flags of those countries
whose nationals she was authorised to belittle.
    The up-and-down look she poured
slowly over me could have withered a vase of carnations at twelve paces, but in
fairness it was difficult to take her to task. Back at the hotel I’d tried out
my full Tour outfit for the first time: jersey, shorts, mirrored wraparounds,
white Nike ankle socks, gloves, cleats. In the mirror it was surprisingly
convincing, a symphony of lissom logos. It did not take me long, however, to
establish that it was in fact too convincing. If you’re going to walk the walk,
you’ve got to talk the talk, but having already demonstrated incompetence at
both disciplines I felt a fraud. If I was to avoid being shown up as the worst
kind of inept poseur, the look would have to be diluted.
    The Peugeot shirt made the cut, but
was now teamed with a rather noticeable pair of baggy tartan shorts that
sheathed those panty-linered Lycras. I kept the gloves, though the shades had
gone, replaced as a facial accessory by a daftly bulbous white helmet eerily
reminiscent of the look pioneered by Woody Allen when playing the role of a
spermatozoa. Big, fat, morning-campers panniers completed the picture. In the
hotel mirror I’d looked the part; outside the Futuroscope press office I looked
the prat.
    Spying a Union Jack on her badge I
piped up, ‘I’m following the Tour de France, and it would be very useful if...
if...’ Something was wrong; I looked down and saw what it was. Her hand was on
my chest — she was pushing me out of her office. Not quite knowing what else to
do I carried on talking as she eased me outside and slammed the door behind us:
‘... If you... could...’
    ‘Zis is a press office. It is perhaps
more... correct to talk with you out of side.’
    ‘No, no, I think it might be more
correct to talk... in there, because I am a journalist, or anyway a