The Caravan

The event, or rather pre-event, I'd never heard of in relation to the Tour de France is the Caravan. It's really a carnival on wheels. On preparation for our grand trek in search of a personal glimpse of the famed Tour I'd photographed a couple of pages on my phone from a French newspaper I'd bought in Beaune. I hadn't even fully appreciated at the time why I'd needed two maps; one with approximate times printed for the Carvane and the other for Tour approximate times. Once we got to the village of Longvay, Shauna, being competently bilingual struck up a conversation with a local couple waiting next to us who explained that "la Caravane" would pass by ahead of the race itself handing out sponsored merchandise to the spectators.

So the deal is that "la Caravane" is the parade of race sponsors. It truly was a spectacle and a half! It's basically all the sponsors' bling. They literally threw it at the crowds as the brightly decorated vehicles sped past. And I do mean "sped". This was no slow, stodgy North American-style parade. They were moving at a good clip; alarmingly fast actually. It's a good thing there was a big police motorcycle presence to keep the crowds back on the sidelines behind roped barriers. According to literature I read later, 600 people on about 170 vehicles representing 35 manufacturer sponsors make up la Caravane and they distribute 18 million pieces of bling during the 3 week Tour; from keychains, candy, cycling hats; basically anything small they can throw at you and not cause harm if it hits you. I learned that the caravan is about 12 km long. No wonder it takes half an hour to pass.

After the caravan had concluded we waited about another half an hour for the actual Tour competitors. A yellow motorcycle complete with two yellow-clad riders preceded the peloton by a few minutes. The motorbike flew up the road, pulled in quickly to a curve in the road beside us and the passenger displayed a yellow scorecard of some kind. I don't know what it meant, but it must make sense to the Tour riders. They whipped through a minute or so later. I was expecting the main group to be broken up into smaller groups, but I learned later that no one had yet made a firm move for the lead.

This is probably the best shot I got of the peloton, although I didn't actually capture the rider with the leading yellow jersey, which would have been Chris Froome at this point I think, even this early at Stage 7.

Us in Longvay. This is pre-bling, or else I would have been wearing my new
green cycling cap.

The sweep vehicles.

Then as quick as that, it was all over.

Le Tour de Citroen. 

This is actually one of my favourite shots of the Stage 7 portion. It's from online coverage. I was thinking about it later; it reminds me of a couple of old 1960s Land Rovers, complete with safari photographers, racing alongside a herd of gazelles on the Serengeti.