A Beginners Guide to Le Tour de France: The “Unofficial” Rules!

The Tour is a very complicated sporting event. To be perfectly honest I don’t completely understand it yet, I don’t even think I am close to completely understanding it! I know this because often I will be watching it with my wife or a friend and they will ask why one of the riders just did something strange and all I can do is shrug my shoulders (or more commonly, pretend I know and offer a guess that sounds smart enough to answer the question!). I think the thing that creates the most confusion while watching the Tour is the ‘unwritten’ or ‘unofficial’ rules that the cyclists follow. Often these rules go directly against what is strategically smart, or what is basic common sense, drawing a collective “huh?” from audiences all over the world! I have alluded to them a few times in previous blog posts, but I think it is time to dedicate a whole post to these rules.

Enjoy.

The Principle

You will never understand any of the unofficial rules unless you first understand this principal. If you read this principal and think it is stupid then you will probably not enjoy the rest of the post (or for that matter the Tour itself). The Principal can be summed up in the following:

“If you want to win the race than you want to beat someone, not take advantage.“

Essentially the principal is saying that winning by exploiting another rider’s bad luck is hollow and not satisfying! You are riding with the same group of people for a whole month, in extreme heat and torrential rain, up steep mountains and then down extremely dangerous descents, through 5 or 6 different countries! If you win because a spectator ran into the guy next to you causing him to crash, then chances are you aren’t better than him – just luckier!

Understanding this principal helps you understand why the following ‘unofficial rules’ occur:

-If a leader is taking a “bathroom break” then none of the other leaders attack.

-There is no attacking in the feeding zone.

-If another leader crashes then you don’t use their misfortune to attack and gain time!

Ullrich in the Pink Jersey and Armstrong in the Yellow Jersey

This last rule is a big one, especially because it happens regularly! Crashing is a big part of the Tour, it just happens. A good example of this last Tour happened between Lance Armstrong his main competitor, the German rider Jan Ullrich. During the race Jan Ullrich had a crash (he literally flew off the side of the road and fell down a hill, see below), up to that point him and Armstrong were incredibly close, if Armstrong wanted to seal up a race victory he could have done it there and then – just kept cycling and claim a good few minutes on Ullrich. But he didn’t, he slowed down and waited, allowing Ullrich to join him. Armstrong went on to win the Tour, but it wasn’t because he exploited Ullrich’s bad luck. Well two years later Armstrong had a nasty fall during one of the mountain stages. Ullrich was just 15 seconds behind him in the race for the overall leader, Ullrich could have taken advantage of the situation, but he didn’t. Later on he told the French press:

“If I would have won this race by taking advantage of someone’s bad luck, then the race was not worth winning.”

Or as another cyclist put it:

“There’s always been a predictable code of honor, when you ride with the same people for three weeks of a Tour or a whole season, it is a matter of respect. You don’t take advantage of someone’s bad luck.”

But of course there are other rules besides the ones listed above. The two main ones being:

Jan Ullrich literally flew off the road and rolled down a hill!

If the Tour de France should pass a rider’s hometown, it is OK for the rider to go ahead, take a detour, then come back to the race. No one will complain. The largest nation represented in the Tour is France (obviously), thus lots of cyclists will be at one point of the Tour riding through their home town or city. It is an unwritten courtesy to allow them to enjoy that by going ahead, waving to their family and friend and grabbing a glass of champagne. Of course the rider won’t use this as an opportunity to attack.

Secondly, and I think this one causes the most confusion. No one attacks on the final stage. At the end of the day, the biggest achievement is simply finishing the Tour, just being able to survive it! So for all the cyclists who have made it, the last day is just about riding into Paris. But you may say:  ”this is stupid. Its not over till its over! What about Cadel Evans who was only 58 seconds behind Sastre, if only he attacked on the last day he could have won it!” The only response to that is, he had 20 days to win it, if he hasn’t won it by the time he got to the last stage, he hasn’t won it! The Tour de France is firstly about finishing the monstrously grueling event and secondly about winning it.

That answer is probably immensely unsatisfying! I a sorry. There may be more to it than that. If so please feel free to comment.

I guess the iceberg analogy works well with the Tour. There is only so much that we can see, the rest stays unseen, a strange mix of tradition, honour and friendship amongst competitors! Is it confusing? Yes. Does it add to the beauty of the Tour? Definitely. Would I want it changed? Not at all.

Well I hope that was helpful! If not then go to a more credible website, like Wikipedia! If you haven’t seen other posts in this series than feel free to check them out, you will find posts on:

The history of the Tour; The Peolotn; How do you pee when you are riding in the Tour?; and the Tour and Drug Cheats!

Here is a video of Ullrich’s crash – sorry its not very good quality: