The Edge of Chaos

The rules of the Tour were stretched to the very limit on Mont Ventoux, where a single crash changed the course of the race.

The Tour de France exists in a state of near-chaos at all times. It’s a fast moving, dynamic environment, which operates under extremely strict rules and is very well organised. If the television cameras covering the Tour panned out and out until the entire race was visible, viewers would be able to see that the whole race takes up an area covering hundreds of square kilometres.

The very front of the race is the flèchage, a vehicle which travels one or two days ahead of the Tour, and is therefore up to 200km or more ahead of the riders, which puts up the arrows and directions on the race route. The back of the race is theoretically the police car travelling behind the broomwagon, but even after this has passed through the finishing area, the TV trucks and infrastructure at the stage finishes are in place for a few hours longer, until the roadies have broken it all down, to be packed into lorries for the transfer to the next stage town.

The ecosystem has to be regulated, or it would quickly fall apart. But the people who work on the Tour are constantly trying to bend the rules to help themselves. The riders (not many, these days) bend the antidoping rules. Print journalists stray into the space reserved for TV rights holders. Interviewers ask just one more question, when their time is already up. Managers give sticky bottles to their riders. Drivers hop out to move barriers blocking their way and quickly duck through, so long as there’s no gendarme in sight.