Ned’s Brompton is indispensable to his Tour de France
MUSINGS ON THE WORLD OF PRO CYCLING
Another Tour de France has come to an end. Never mind the yellow jersey, the green jersey, the sprints. Never mind the tussle for polka dots. For us, on the ITV crew, it’s always been about the ride.
We travel, as many of you may be aware, each with a Brompton in the back of the car. Though they are tremendously economical, in terms of the space they require (that’s kind of the point), by the time you have four of them folded up and racked side by side in the boot of a Ford Galaxy, there’s not a huge amount of room for the luggage we all have to lug around France with us; most of which we never actually unpack. But, after twenty Tours, I’ve still not figured out that I don’t need five pairs of trousers and a large nineteenth century novel about the loneliness of marriage in the French bourgeoisie.
Much of what we carry around with us is a nuisance, stuff that we really have no need for. But not the Bromptons. Outside of this immense bike race, I seldom use my folding bike. In London, I ride around on my knackered old road bike with all the chipped paint on the frame from the literally thousands of times I’ve attached it with a D-lock to something secure. On the odd occasion when the weather forecast suggests I might get an absolute soaking, I do from time to time use my Brompton, so that I can jump on the nearest bus or dive onto the tube with my bike if the need arises. And I’ve taken it on long-distance trains when there’s a short ride the other end I can manage by bike. But that’s pretty much it.
But, on the Tour de France, these bikes come into their own. Every stage finish presents David Millar, Pete Kennaugh and me with another set of challenges and opportunities. The Brompton very often holds the key. Sometimes we ride out to see the final climb on a course, like the one on which Wout van Aert attacked on the road to Calais. That was invaluable, when it came to commentating, though this form of reconnaissance is also fraught with potential danger. It’s one thing experiencing the climb at the speed of a 53 year-old cycling commentator on a folding bike. I suspect Wout van Aert had a rather different ride.
A better example was the stage to Mende, the famous climb to the airfield which was won by Michael Matthews, a sprinter outclimbing a 23-rider breakaway almost entirely composed of climbers! This year was the third time I had been there, in total. In 2015, the year that Steve Cummings won, I had driven to the top having transf
