Le Grand Depart 2014

“You only become a racer once you wear a number". Jean Bobet

I understand that sentiment. Wearing a number changes everything.

I’ve followed the Tour de France since I was a schoolboy. First through the pages of Cycling Weekly and then later when television caught up with the spectacle of the greatest sporting event on Earth being played out across the stunning French countryside (forgive the hyperbole - I’m a fan of both the TdF and the French countryside).

There is something about Le Tour that raises it above every other sporting endeavour. To describe it merely as a contest between elite athletes is to sell it short.

There are heroes and villains, pain and elation, tradition, rivalry and a level of sportsmanship that I cannot imagine in any other sporting event. It’s been described as chess on wheels; it’s certainly that to be sure, with tactics to defy the uninitiated. And drama worthy of any theatrical production.

It’s impossible to talk about the TdF without reference to drugs. There are no excuses, it’s cheating. I like to think that the sport is cleaner now and that the days of the industrial scale drug use are over. There are new heroes to replace the disgraced.

This is the 4th time that the Tour de France has come to the UK and the 2nd time that we’ve hosted Le Grand Depart. I’m amazed at the way Yorkshire has entered into the spirit of the event. Estimates suggest 230,000 people were at the start in Leeds, with a million fans lining the route. The helicopter shots will no doubt keep the Yorkshire Tourist Board happy. Chapeau Yorkshire.

And then, as so often happens in this race, within a few hundred metres of victory and celebration - heartbreak; Mark Cavendish has a nasty crash in the final sprint. It’s too early to say, but it looks like a broken collarbone. If so, his Tour is over. A sad finish to a glorious day.

My own racing career was cut short for more prosaic reasons; that heady combination of a lack of talent plus the discovery of girls. And Lambretta scooters.

We can all buy the jerseys and ride the bikes. We can ride the same routes. But it takes a special breed to wear a number.