Twenty Tours de France. It seems faintly ridiculous when I write it down. My first was the year Lance Armstrong’s carefully constructed empire was beginning to wobble. I photographed him circling the Champs-Élysées with a film SLR, blissfully unaware that neither film cameras nor Armstrong’s reputation would age particularly well.
Today I’m back where it all began, sitting outside a cafe a stone’s throw from Place de la Concorde nursing a café crème while Paris carries on entirely oblivious. A couple laugh over breakfast. Someone walks an exceptionally pampered poodle. A waiter in a waistcoat unsuccessfully attempts to persuade two tourists that vodka is an acceptable accompaniment to a croissant. In a few hours the world’s biggest bike race will thunder through these streets. Right now, it’s just another Sunday morning.
That’s one of the peculiar things about the Tour. It arrives like a travelling circus, creates absolute chaos for a few hours, then quietly disappears.
First stage of the Tour and I’m on the moto. Those days have become something of a luxury. Before Covid, there were 18 accredited in-race photography motos weaving through the Tour. Now there are just nine, with smaller agencies pooling their allocations and sharing pictures to retain access. I work with a small Belgian-Italian collective, so when it’s your turn, you make the most of it.
This year, my draw included the opening team time trial, a handful of sprint stages, and the mountain finish in Orcières-Merlette. It wasn’t Alpe d’Huez, but nobody turns down a day on the back of a Tour moto.
The opening stage offered little drama from the bike itself, so I let Barcelona do the storytelling instead. The Sagrada Família became my backdrop. As my characteristically cheerful moto driver disappeared into the distance, I realised every one of my water bottles had disappeared with him. Good job it wasn’t the middle of a Spanish heatwave. This could be a long day.
A 400mm lens picked riders out from the cathedral’s shadows before I switched to a 24mm as they swept past, trying to cram Gaudí’s masterpiece into the frame – crane and all. By the time the final teams rolled through, I’d become surprisingly adept at juggling cameras while panning at speed.
Between runs an older guy leaning over the barriers, brandishing a couple of professional cameras, entertained me, saying that, having started as a Navy photographer, he’d photographed everyone from Reagan to Obama. I quietly Googled him afterwards, half expecting to discover he was a bit of a lune. A quick search revealed that he wasn’t making it up. He’d had the sort of career most photographers could only dream about.
Perhaps sensing I was slowly dehydrating on the baking tarmac, a group of Danish fans adopted me for the afternoon, keeping me supplied with ice-cold water until the final team rolled through.
Returning to the moto for stage 18 couldn’t have contrasted more with Barcelona. The narrow Alpine roads left barely enough room for riders, support cars and the occasional motorcycle. We spent most of the afternoon leapfrogging between the breakaway and the chasing peloton, stopping occasionally for sweeping mountain views before racing back into position.
Then, with three kilometres remaining, Richard Carapaz attacked. Unfortunately for us, he chose our side of the road. One moment he was behind us, the next he was almost alongside. My driver instinctively grabbed another handful of throttle just as I swung the camera round. For a few entertaining seconds I was photographing one-handed while hanging on to the back of the bike for dear life. Unsurprisingly, the sharpest thing about some of those pictures was the memory.
Stage 19 belonged to Tadej Pogacar. On the Alpe d’Huez, he eclipsed Marco Pantani’s longstanding climbing record, and my role that day was to wait at the finish rather than out on the mountain. Recent Tours have tightened access around the winner, replacing the old scrum of photographers with a far more controlled finish, so positioning becomes everything. At this point, it’s about second-guessing how the riders will react after the stage.
As it’s uphill and the podium wasn’t far from the finish, you can be certain he won’t be going too far – so I positioned myself on the back line of grey-bibbed photographers, getting ready with my wide-angle lens for close encounters. To avoid missing the finish line, I shot the celebrations over the line and kept a close eye on where Pogacar would end up. Ducking and weaving to find my position, I made sure not to block my fellow photographers and cameramen while commanding my space and ensuring I could find the right angle.
The shots worked out, and I can rest easy knowing that my colleagues and I have what we need for the evening news. Records have a habit of sounding abstract until you’re standing 20 metres away when they fall.
On the final Alpine stage, stationed on the Galibier, I’d found the composition and set up the camera on a tripod with a cable release, but needed someone to trigger the remote camera while I worked elsewhere. Ryan, a cycling journalist and travel companion with absolutely no photography experience, suddenly found himself responsible for my third camera. I walked him through the task at hand. See man on bike: press button! A few nervous nods. Then I walked away, hoping for the best. He nailed it! Chapeau, Ryan.
On the final day, I wander down the now-barriered Champs-Élysées as the publicity caravan dances its way towards the finish. I’ve left plenty of time to walk the two-kilometre stretch, passing burly gendarmes who wave me through with practised indifference. Dressed in dark blue uniforms, bulletproof vests, heavy black boots and sunglasses, with pistols resting neatly on their hips, they’re an imposing sight. I smile and offer a quiet bonjour as I pass each one, just to see whether I can coax the faintest smile in return.
The Champs feels different these days. Security is tighter than ever, with officers stationed every few metres behind the barriers. They don’t tolerate mistakes. Years ago an American photographer tried to take a shortcut into the race by hopping a barrier and spent the afternoon in the back of a police van. It’s a useful reminder that, however relaxed the Tour may appear, it never really is.
By the time I reach my position, a dozen photographers are already lined up. After a few laps I head back to collect some extra kit before making my way across to the central reservation. Normally it’s second nature: step over the low plastic barrier, land neatly, carry on. I’ve climbed volcanoes, scrambled across mountain passes and waded through mangrove swamps without incident. Yet a two-foot plastic barrier on the Champs-Élysées proves my undoing.
The camera breaks most of my fall. Unfortunately, I still need it for the rest of the race.
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Yellow jersey holder Tadej Pogacar accelerates up the climb of Montmartre to catch Fred Wright; the peloton race round the streets of Paris; Remco Evenpoel clearly enjoying the final stage as he races past the Arc de Triomphe; Mathieu van der Poel collapsed after his all out effort to win the final stage on the Champs-Élysées.
An organiser runs over to check I’m all right while another photographer helps me to my feet. Apart from a few grazes, I’m fine. My pride, however, has taken almost as much damage as the camera. Looking up, I catch the sympathetic grin of another photographer and a TV cameraman trying very hard not to laugh. Right. I need another camera.
I call Jim, my travelling companion, who’s somewhere in the crowd shooting his own pictures. A few minutes later he appears clutching a spare camera body. Disaster averted.
Twenty Tours later, I’ve realised the race isn’t really about yellow jerseys or mountain stages. It’s about the people you meet, the mishaps you survive and the friends who quietly rescue you when everything goes wrong. That’s what keeps me coming back.
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