Someone totally unrelated to the Vuelta will wonder: “what is this man doing talking about Paris now?” Indeed, the Tour is now history, including the women’s tour, which was a real success. But Paris has a huge relationship this year with the Spanish round and not only because of the fact that the company that manages the race has its headquarters in the French capital.
On Sunday night, those Parisians who return home and are stuck, as usual, on the outskirts of the city, still begin to look at the date indicated by their watches or mobile phones. “We are no longer in July & rdquor ;, they will say. “And what are so many cycling cars, coaches, vans doing, the same ones, because they are the same, that were in the Tour? & rdquor ;. Also, for those who don’t know, the Vuelta uses the Skodas that moved through the Grande Boucle, all of them registered in France, and that were collected at the beginning of the week precisely in the French capital. It will be like looking back, reliving for a moment the fight between Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogacar, contemplating the Alps and the Pyrenees and even the cobblestones, the ‘Hell of the North’, where Primoz Roglic, now the main favorite to win, was stamped. this race.
The flight from the Netherlands
On Sunday, at the end of the stage, the great escape from the Netherlands will take place. The cyclists, part of the organization and a few accredited ones, will have the fortune to sleep near Amsterdam to catch a plane on Monday morning and fly to Vitoria. But we have to take the entire car park to the Basque Country and there is no other choice but to cross those busy French motorways in July – something will be gained – when a good part of the French people are in holidays.
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And between Breda, where the third stage of the Vuelta ends, and Vitoria, where the peninsular route opens on Tuesday, is Paris, where most travelers have chosen to sleep. They have not done it to visit or walk through the streets of Paris or drive the car through the Elysian Fields. Somewhere you had to rest along the way, because going directly to the Basque capital was a savagery. That is why Paris, even if it is the hotels on the outskirts, well worth a return under the risk that some inhabitant of the city thinks if he has gone crazy.
The peripheral radars
The Vuelta will pass through Paris, just as it will through Tours and above all through another terrible ring road in terms of traffic jams, that of Bordeauxwhich competes with those of Toulouse Y lyons to despair the motorist and catch up with the one in the capital. And, furthermore, with some terrible protagonists if you are lucky enough to find the route somewhat fluid: they are the radars that are fired at the slightest oversight. Many times you have to go to 70 per hour and just by exceeding that speed a little, and not for running, but for a little carelessness, the fine arrives. It is not a big deal to make the payment because the french government has a magnificent App that is downloaded with great ease and in a few seconds. You just have to put the code of the infraction that always arrives, that nobody believes otherwise, and facilitate the credit card. This small setback in the Bordeaux peripheral is solved by providing 50 euros to French coffers. It is then that someone inside him shouts ‘Vive le Tour!’ Hopefully Monday doesn’t translate into ‘Long live the Vuelta!’