The Tour de France is a place of hidden hazards. The riders are only ever a stray spectator or runaway dog away from their race coming to an end, and then there is the small matter of having to get around 3,000 kilometres of a country in all manner of conditions (but especially hot ones). The sanctity of a good night’s sleep feels like the least they could expect.
Alas, even that is far from guaranteed. This week brings the race through the isolated interior of France, a place pockmarked with a smattering of small towns but not that many; the first rest day, held in Aurillac, is one of the bigger towns and even then it’s a bit lacking in suitable accommodation options.
Iain Treloar
The race organiser, the Amaury Sports Organisation, is responsible for booking the hotels and it’s mandatory for the teams to stay where they’re placed – which feels egalitarian in that it stops the wealthier teams from snapping up all the best sports, but also means that the experience from one night to the next can be wildly varied, both in location and quality. Visma-Lease a Bike was 2.5 hours away (in what was reportedly a nice place, despite the drive), while Uno-X Mobility, Picnic-PostNL and Alpecin-Premier Tech drew the short straw in Le Lioran, 30 mins up the road.
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