Bluffer's guide to Tour de France (AKA the perils of committing to the cause)

Some readers will have followed this blog since November. The great news is that I have nearly finished (I fly out to France on 3 July) so you won't have to read much more. The bad news is that my posts from hereon are even more likely to be about boring cycling stuff.

Bluffer's guide
For anybody who unwittingly finds themselves involved in a conversation about le Tour, here are some pointers to help you sound like you know what you're talking about:

What is going on?
The Tour de France is a 21-stage (one stage per day, with two rest days) mix of normal stages, time-trials and mountain stages, covering about 2,000 miles.

How long have they been doing this?
This year's event is the 104th edition of the Tour de France. The first was held in 1903 as a PR exercise for L'Auto newspaper. It clearly worked - circulation doubled during the event.

Why is the Tour de France starting in Germany?
Every other year, the ride starts outside France. This year's event starts in Dusseldorf. The Tour always finishes on Paris’s Champs-Elysées, where the leader is traditionally allowed to coast home in the final stage.

What is a peloton?
A peloton is a group of riders cycling very close together to reduce wind resistance and save energy. Riding in a group works brilliantly, but you do have to rely on the people in front of you to point out any hazards (and similarly do the same for people behind you).

This energy efficiency makes it difficult to judge whether or not to make a breakaway from the peloton. It is much easier to ride as part of the peloton than out in a small group and this is why breakaways are usually chased down.

I know it's the Tour de France, but do we need quite so much French?
For some reason, cyclists like to demonstrate their knowledge of the sport by using unnecessary French (why do we have to refer to cobbles as pave, even in the UK?) and sometimes Italian too (such as grupetto, used to describe the bunch of riders bringing up the rear).

So it's all about the yellow jersey, right? Oh hang on, what are these other colours?

The yellow jersey is worn by leader of the general classification (the GC) - i.e. the rider with the shortest total time. This is the real prize, but there are also others.

• The green jersey is awarded to the fastest sprinter (sprint points are awarded at key points during each stage).
• The red polka dot goes to the awesomely-named King of the Mountains!
• Belgian Eddy Merckx is the only person to have won all three of the above jerseys in one tour.
• There is also a white jersey for the best young (under 25) rider.

So that's why they aren't all trying to win?
That's right. Teams tend to comprise the star riders (the likes of Chris Froome), plus specialists in mountain stages or sprints (think Mark Cavendish), but they also include a number of domestiques, who basically act as human windshields for the riders with aspirations of winning.

They're all cheats aren't they?
Cheating in the Tour de France is not a modern phenomenon. Early tactics included short cuts, getting towed and boarding trains. Apparently the first four finishers in 1904 were all disqualified!

Drugs. painkillers, stimulants and performance-enhancers have always featured routinely though:

• Early on it was wine, strychnine and ether;
• Post-war, it was cocaine and amphetamines;
• In the late 1900s and early 2000s, riders turned to steroids, hormones and EPO (in 1998, riders even staged a two-hour sit-down strike in protest against drugs testing);
• Lance Armstrong’s seven chemically-assisted wins from 1999 to 2005 have all been removed and not re-allocated.

The important one - how do they go to the toilet?
The first thing to say is that (contrary to some stories I have heard) they get off their bikes first! Bib shorts (think a cross between cycle shorts and dungarees) make it all a bit tricky, but you just have to find a way to get around all of the lycra.

Peloton etiquette dictates that when the yellow jersey stops to take a "comfort break", no one overtakes him. Cyclist Tom Dumoulin got upset during the Giro d'Italia this year when the peloton took the opportunity to get ahead while he stripped off for a number 2 - cue plenty of toilet humour from the Twitterati.

Finally, why do they shave their legs?
Four reasons are generally given:

• The least likely of these is to gain an aerodynamic benefit (some studies have suggested that leg hair actually helps with aerodynamics).
• The two more believable excuses are to aid quick healing of cuts and road rash after a tumble, and to make life easier for post-ride masseurs.
• More likely, however, is just that everybody else does it! 

Commitment to the cause
I decided some time ago that if I am doing this, then I should do it properly - with all of the awful things that might entail.

That is how I found myself on Saturday evening with an epilator in my hand.

Anybody who has seen me in shorts will be aware that my legs are naturally quite hirsute. I have generally been okay with that, although at times I have been a bit self-conscious about it. This has been a particular concern when on cycling events, so I decided that I was going to get rid of the hair before I got to France.

I decided against shaving (mainly because of the risk of ingrowing hairs), and was not sure about waxing, so decided to try my hand at epilating. 

To anybody who hasn't tried it, here is what to expect: On bony bits (e.g. shins) it was fine - just a bit prickly - while at others it hurts like a machine trying not only to rip your hair out, but also take your skin with it! Eventually you reach a point at which it just gets boring as you try (and, if you're anything like me, fail) to cover every centimetre of your legs - imagine how tedious it would be trying to colour your legs in evenly with a painful marker pen.

I won't post any pictures - partly because I forgot to take a side by side picture when I had only done one of my legs, partly because once you have seen it you won't be able to unsee it, and partly because it just looks weird.

One final word on this is that it was my own stupid fault. I decided to sign up for the charity ride and I decided to commit far more than I actually needed to. The real victim of this story is my girlfriend, who had to spend a Saturday evening teaching her boyfriend how to epilate his legs. I am not sure she would ever have imagined having to do that, even in her worst nightmares, so I am very grateful. I am also very sorry for breaking her epilator with my masses of leg hair.

Fundraising

In case tearing my own leg hair out is not enough to warrant sponsorship, in just over a week I will be riding 670km (430 miles) in four days as I tackle four stages of the Tour de France. More information is available here.

All of this hard work is to raise money for the fantastic William Wates Memorial Trust. WWMT gives funding and support to organisations and projects which help disadvantaged young people by keeping them away from a life of crime.

Please visit my fundraising page at http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/TomHoldaway. 

I am now just £120 short of my fundraising target. It would be awesome if I can get to my target before I leave for France!

Thank you for reading!