0 Le Tour De France 2012: An Australian Fan's Survival Guide

The Tour de France.  An epic, three week test of endurance.  The battle of iron will over the screaming fatigue of an exhausted body.  And then there is the bike race.


As an Australian, I count myself lucky to live in a beautiful, relatively uncrowded land of startling beauty.  We have wonderful food, beautiful beaches and generally pretty good weather compared to much of the Northern hemisphere.  What sucks is the fact that we live in a VERY unfriendly timezone for watching European sports.  I can't count the number of nights sleep that I've missed because of Football, Cycling and Ironman races over the years, sitting up at o-dark-hundred to enjoy my chosen sports.

So it is with a mixture of sheer joy and horrible trepidation that I view the Euro cycling season.  Whilst I watch the beautiful, sunny French countryside slide past on my TV screen, I can't help but be a little irked by the fact that I'm sitting up at 2am huddled next to my heater.  I suffer from a near comatose state of fatigue for most of the race, trying to maintain my own training, family and work lives on about 3 hours sleep per night.


So here are my, hard-won, tips for surviving Le Tour if you live in part of the world that is equally unsuited to watching the live TV broadcast:

• If you are not a real cycling tragic, you probably don't need to be watching EVER single moment of the tour.  Pituresque as it may be, the flat stages are usually just three hours of French chateaus and hay-bale sculptures before a short, intense sprint at the end.  For most of the flat stages, I set an alarm and wake up approximately 30 minutes before the end of the stage.
• Go to bed early.  I always try to get in a couple of hours sleep before the stage starts.  It's not really fun waking up at 11pm to watch TV, but after three weeks, you will be glad of the extra sleep you are sneaking in every night.
• Watch with a friend.  It's always better to watch with someone who loves the race as much as you do.  You can discuss the relative merits of the new Campagnolo EPS gruppo, or swap leg shaving tips, or just keep each other awake.  I know that I've fallen asleep at critical moments of past races because I've been on my own, on a comfortable couch.
• Coffee is your friend.  But not at night.  One year, I was drinking coffee to keep myself awake to watch the Tour every night and then wondering why I wasn't able to sleep after the end of the stage.  I thought it was just the excitement of seeing Mark Cavendish win bloody everything.  It wasn't.  Be sensible with the caffeine.
• Pick your battles.  If you're a fan of the GC favourites slogging it out in the high mountains, but not necessarily as excited by the bunch sprint (this is me), consider watching only the stages with a profile that suits your preference.  You can always catch the highlights of a missed stage the next day.
• Be nice to your spouse/boss/flatmate in the weeks leading up to the race.  You will be irritable, unproductive and tired, so you will need their tolerance.