by Lionel Birnie
François Thomazeau vacated his nest in the back seat of The Cycling Podcast’s Broomwagon on Thursday. He first covered the Tour de France in 1986, working for many years for the news agency Reuters. After a few guest appearances he joined The Cycling Podcast’s regular Tour de France team in Düsseldorf back in 2017 and has added his rich knowledge of cycling and France to our episodes ever since.
Like a Classics rider who starts one final season with the intention of retiring on the vélodrome in Roubaix, François agreed to come with us for the first six stages of this year’s Tour so we could drop him off at Le Viscos, the hotel and restaurant in Saint-Savin, not far from the Col du Tourmalet.
Le Viscos is one of his happy places. It’s been in the Saint-Martin family for seven generations. The food and ambience are exceptional and every time the Tour goes nearby, François stays there. We were very fortunate to be invited along in 2017 and it is a guaranteed highlight of every Tour.
On Thursday evening, the restaurant’s celebrated chef Alexis created a 15-course dégustation for François and his friends and colleagues who came to say chapeau as he peeled the metaphorical dossard off the back of his jersey. To call each course a canapé does not do the food justice and the pièce de résistance was a giant pâte en croute with François’ name in pastry on the top.
It was great to meet some Friends of the Podcast too, who had come along to say hello and merci to François.
François had been hinting at retirement for a while and I owe him a huge debt of gratitude for postponing his plans a little longer so he could help steer The Cycling Podcast through the most challenging Tour imaginable last year. We knew our first Tour without Richard would be hard but then my Dad died a few weeks before the start and I went home during the middle week for the funeral. François is unflappable in all circumstances and his calmness that week was so reassuring.
It’s not just François’ contribution to the podcast that I’ll miss tremendously. Off the mic, his sense of humour, his contacts and standing among the Tour de France milieu, and his ability to book a good restaurant in even the busiest of towns on Bastille Day have added to the podcast in dozens of hidden but important ways.
But, as much as he loves the Tour, I could sense he’d grown weary of the bullsheet. The traffic jams, the bad hotel breakfasts, the motorway service station sandwiches, the succession of stinking hot press rooms in conference centres and sports halls and hours spent in their sticky plastic chairs. Not everyone is lucky enough to choose the manner of their retirement but, like the riders, when you know, you know.
I remember back in 2017, Richard spent the day in the Cannondale-Drapac team car, so François moved from his nest up to the front passenger seat alongside me as we drove to the finish. We passed a non-descript-looking field which François nonchalantly informed me had hosted the French national cross-country championships one year when he took part.
It was also a relatively rare chance for me to put something on the car stereo other than Buffalo FM and I chose an episode of the BBC’s Desert Island Discs, a classic show in which celebrities tell the story of their life through the music that resonates with them. The guest was John McEnroe, one of the greatest tennis players of all-time. We listened through the whole episode in silence and when it had finished, François said: ‘McEnroe’s a great guy, I met him many times when I was working at the French Open.’
From anyone else it might sound like a boast – or worse, a humblebrag – but from François it was anything but. He’s met so many interesting people and done so many interesting things he has a story or an observation for every occasion.
A couple of years later, Richard once again left us for a day as he went off to interview Andy Schleck. François and I were with our friend David Luxton and because we’d had to drop Richard off someway along the course we had to follow the race route all the way to the finish rather than the hors course, which is the separate route for press cars and other vehicles.
At one point, it became clear the petrol was running out. The orange warning light came on and every time we went up hill the miles-left-in-the-tank display read two disconcerting dashes rather than a number. I was getting quite stressed at the thought of running out of petrol on the Tour de France course and blocking the race. I could see the headlines: ‘Podcast idiots obstruct Tour’.
To diffuse the tension, David asked what I’d be looking forward to for dinner if I was at home and this kicked off a long discussion about curry. After a fortnight on the road in France I was craving something spicy.
That evening, we were staying at a chateau deep in the countryside owned by a friend of François’ and her husband. When we arrived and were shown to our rooms my nose detected the unmistakable waft of something hot and spicy coming from the kitchen. To my astonishment, our hosts had made us a big curry with rice and that night it was the most welcome taste in the world.
I always wondered whether François had sent a message to ask if it would be possible to cook us a curry or whether it was just an incredible coincidence. I meant to ask him before he left us on Thursday but I forgot. I wouldn’t put it past him if he arranged the whole thing and, actually, I think I’d prefer to believe that was the case because it’s just the sort of thing he would do.
We know François will be missed by you, too, but it’s not the last you’ll hear from him, not least because there are still two more parts of François Thomazeau’s Tour Tales to be released and he’ll be dialling in with some French Flavour every few days. I hope he’ll be interested in creating more special episodes, similar to our trip to his home city for La Marseillaise, a series for Friends of the Podcast we put out at the start of the year celebrating the city and its – often unheralded – cycling heritage.
And who knows, perhaps he’ll join us again for a few days when the Tour passes by Marseille. We’ll keep the nest (always the seat in the back-left) in the Podcar vacant and tidy. And if you do agree to come along, François I promise you’ll never have to walk over a bridge to get to the team buses again.
A rest day in Clermont-Ferrand
The Tour de France has reached its first rest day and we’re taking a day off to recharge in Clermont-Ferrand.
Ian Boswell, the former Team Sky and Katusha rider, will be arriving on the train this afternoon fresh from finishing the Étape yesterday to join us for the middle week of the Tour.
I’m looking forward to Ian overlapping with Mitch Docker for a couple of days before Mitch’s stint comes to an end. The pair of them struck up a great rapport riding the Cape Epic earlier this year and I’m looking forward to recreating that on the podcast.
Then, at the end of the week, I’m hoping another familiar voice will drop in for a few days, but more on that when I can confirm it…
The opening nine days of the Tour have been as intense as any I can remember. The opening two stages in the Basque Country were frantic. Hard racing and lots of excitement. Every day has thrown up stories and incidents. Even the boring stage to the motor racing circuit ended in chaos with three crashes.
Away from the mic, Mitch has discovered darts. In Bayonne, we headed to an Irish bar which had a dartboard and so we had a couple of games. The following day, Mitch was watching clips of World Championship darts matches on YouTube and Googling to see if any bars in Pau had a dart board.
Then, before the start of stage five he went off shopping and returned with a set of darts of his own. Our hotel in Bordeaux had a board in the bar and before we set off for the start we played a couple of games, with Mitch winning his first leg in the coveted Cycling Podcast Invitational tournament. At his current rate of improvement, I’m half expecting to see him on the oche at the World Championships in Ally Pally in about 2026.
Kilometre 0
Our Kilometre 0 series continues and today’s rest day gives a chance to catch-up on some of the episodes on the Friends of the Podcast feed.
In the build-up to the grand départ we released a mini series called The 100th Tour, 10 Years On, which tells the story of the 2013 Tour de France as told by The Cycling Podcast. And over the opening weekend, there was Shooting the Tour, featuring the filmmakers behind Enter the Slipstream, a documentary that takes viewers behind the scenes of the EF Pro Cycling team at the 2020 Tour – the Covid Tour, of course. Richard and François both featured in that film, which US viewers can watch on Peacock, the NBC Sports streaming platform. On Sunday, as the Tour’s second stage set off from the capital of the Basque region, Laura Meseguer’s interview with Joseba Beloki, one of Vitoria’s favourite sons, was released. It’s 20 years since Beloki’s spectacular crash on the descent to Gap which forced Lance Armstrong to cut across the field to avoid falling. Laura talked to Joseba about that and much more.
We have also released the following episodes.
– Part one and two of François Thomazeau’s Tour Tales, in which he recounts his earliest memories of covering the Tour from 1986 to 1992.
– Euskadi – our two-part look at the Basque Country and it’s sporting heritage, politics and culture.
– Mapping the Tour, in which we meet VeloViewer founder Ben Lowe and explain how the software has changed the way sports directors and riders prepare for races.
– An Hour in Bordeaux. It’s 30 years since Chris Boardman broke the world hour record on the same day the Tour de France arrived in Bordeaux.
– Le Puy de Prudhomme. The Tour last visited Le Puy de Dôme in 1988 but it’s long been a dream of race director Christian Prudhomme to take the race back. On Sunday, it happened. This is the story of a volcano that has long been dormant but has hosted plenty of explosive Tour moments.
As well as giving access to our archive of special episodes and all the Kilometre 0 shows, signing up as a Friend of the Podcast supports our work.
For the first time, you can also sign up on a monthly basis – it costs about the same as a couple of cups of delicious afternoon cappuccino – at thecyclingpodcast.com
Coming soon…
Arrivée returns with an episode covering the Giro Donne, hosted by Rose Manley and Denny Gray, who is making his full debut ahead of the Tour de France Femmes at the end of the month. Lizzy Banks, who rode the Giro in support of her EF Education-Tibco-SVB teammate Veronica Ewers – who finished fourth overall – recorded an audio diary during the race and that will be out for Friends of the Podcast soon too.
A podcast about the podcast
Last week, I was asked by Tim Cocker to appear on The Radio Academy Podcast to talk about 10 years of The Cycling Podcast and what the future might hold. To be honest, I had no idea what to say to that particular question other than that we hope The Cycling Podcast will be here in 2033 to celebrate its 20th anniversary.
Congratulations to all our listeners (and producer Adam Bowie) who completed L’Étape du Tour yesterday, tackling stage 14 from Annemasse to Morzine and scaling the mighty Col de Joux-Plane. It was great to see Friends of the Podcast Julian Thornley and Stephen Harris found each other and said hello because they were both wearing our brilliant MAAP jersey. I hope you both enjoyed the ride. Go to maap.cc to get your jersey or accessories.
Stacy Snyder’s ceramics
I thought of Stacy working away in her studio on the Tour de France Femmes batch of cups when the Tour visited Limoges – a city famous for its ceramics – a couple of days ago. We’re still inviting nominations for a good cycling-related cause to benefit from the money raised from the sales of Stacy’s Tour and Tour de France Femmes cups, mugs and bowls. Email contact@thecyclingpodcast.com with your suggestion.
Grand Crus
DVine Cellars’ Tour de France selection has been flying out of the door since it went on sale. Go to DVineCellars.com to ensure you don’t miss out.
Francoise, what a legend. You’re dead right here Lionel, just from getting to know him on the podcast I think he is incapable of name dropping. Comes across as supremely humble, and it must be an education to travel around France with him. I’d love to meet him in person. I wonder would he ever to a tour (Q and A type, Ireland) or would he consider writing a memoir?
I'm still waiting for the "check" MAAP jersey in honour of Francois. Always preferred that one.
Regarding Stacey Snyder's mugs, by chance I'm on the right side of the planet to order some right now, rather than in New Zealand where they go on sale for 1 minute in the middle of the night. Are there going to be any more on sale in the next month?