Every year for as long as I’ve been coming to the Tour de France, there has been a character I find myself drawn to. There are a lot of characters, actually: the Tour is a big rolling circus with a surprisingly high retention of people around the bike race, which means that the security guards in the press room are usually the same from one year to the next, as are the people on the Bad Coffee Stand, as are the various performers in the village at each stage start. But the King? He’s a particular favourite.
In the early days, I knew him mostly as ‘The Smelly King’ (although in Tour Daily folklore we are split on nomenclature, some preferring ‘Stinky’ instead of ‘Smelly’). In hindsight, the fact that we once caught him on an especially hot and aromatic day makes the nickname feel a bit unfair, especially seeing as he was many hours into a long shift wearing a velvet suit and neck ruff. Anyway: for the first couple of years, I’d speak to him, and he would always stay in character as Henri IV. It was both funny and infuriating. At the very least, you had to admire his commitment to the bit.
Escape Collective
As the years went by, and as I got to know him a bit better with my annual interviews, he was less smelly, and more of a human being rather than a character. It became an important part of my Tour de France experience, a soft and early chat to get my head in the game before going to talk to the less charismatic riders. And besides, I just really liked talking to him. I stopped thinking about him as ‘The Stinky King’, and pivoted to ‘Henri IV’ or ‘Your Majesty’. And from there, to Bernard – his real name.
This year, Bernard is not at the Tour de France. I was a bit sad about that, because I can’t have a little dance of a chat with him, but after my sadness subsided, I had the ghost of a memory that he’d told me that 2025 would be his last appearance in character. He is now the creator and director of a play called "Il est une fois le Tour de France" (Once upon a time… the Tour de France), which portrays the story of the race’s creation by Henri Desgrange, and had an opening run of shows at a theatre in Tarbes this April.
I wish him well, and miss him, and in honour of his ten years of brave service to the Tour de France in uncomfortable and hot clothing, would like to share this interview from stage 19 of last year’s race.
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