HAS THE TOUR DE FRANCE ALREADY BEEN WON WITH TWO WEEKS OF RACING LEFT TO GO?

At the moment it looks like Tadej Pogacar has it in the bag with his invicibility and watts/kg. He is virtually untouchable. Everyone else in GC is 5 minutes back. The only way for the results to change was if he had a crash or illness.

The mountain stages are always my favorite because it takes a lot of stamina for the riders to get to the finish line and the speed that they are going boggles the mind. Plus, the scenery is awesome.

Here are 21 bits of Tour de France trivia.

1. In the Tour de France of 2021, one fan was fined €1,200 (about £1,000 or $1,400) for holding a cardboard sign in the path of the oncoming peloton while looking at the television camera on a motorbike ahead; she caused a massive crash - eight riders were treated for injuries and two riders had to abandon the Tour!

2. For all stages there are bonus time points. The first three riders completing the stage will be awarded bonus time points - ten seconds for first place, six seconds for second place, and four seconds for third place - which are then deducted from their respective times. Though controversial, the award of bonus time points animates the end of a stage race especially if the stage race and particularly if the GC race is closely contested.

3. All cyclists wear socks and shave their legs, plus arms and chests, for aerodynamical reasons; I don't know whether they shave their public hair or not! Almost alone on tour is the long-haired and moustached Quinn Simmons, nicknamed Captain America, riding for Lidl-Trek. No rider has ever been seen racing in Crocs!

4. Each team will usually have a GC rider as its team leader. GC stands for General Classification which is the list of riders in order of least time taken or taking to reach Paris. The GC rider is the team's rider gunning for the yellow jersey - see HOW TO WIN THE YELLOW JERSEY. To win the Tour de France, a rider has to be a very good climber and not a very good sprinter, though a good sprint is useful in winning tightly contested stages and taking seconds off rivals. Often teams will have road captains to make decisions during the race, eg when to attack, when to counter-attack, etc. In making such decisions, a road captain works closely with his team leader and, via radio, his team's sporting director in the team's car.

5. Riders do pee during stages. However, there's a toilet etiquette in the peloton. Generally it's the yellow jersey wearer who decides when there should be a toilet break in the peloton. Also France TV, which televises the Tour, agrees not to televise riders having a pee at the side of the road. For more details about going to the toilet on the Tour de France, please see HAVING A PEE ON TOUR.

6. All teams have team cars that closely follow their riders. The main team car will include the team's sporting director, usually a former road cyclist, who barks out orders and dishes out encouragement to the team's riders - team radios are only allowed on the three grand tours like the Tour de France. A team car will have a mechanic to sort out any mechanical problem, such as tyre punctures and gear malfunctions, that their riders may experience while racing. Also team cars will have spare bikes on their roof. Riders will also go back to team cars for food, water and ice packs. If a rider raises his arm that means he needs the attention of his team car. (There are also neutral service cars and motorbikes on the road with water and even spare bikes to dish out to struggling riders.)

7. False flats are simply slight inclines that look flat in advance of riding and especially when being televised. Though deceptive, teams are usually prepared for them because of their customary reconnaissance of stage routes before the race. Riders, especially the top riders, often like to pedal through each stage before the Tour de France starts. Such reconnaissance takes in every minutiae of the stage, especially so-called street furniture near the finish line (eg corners, manhole covers, roundabouts, narrowing of roads/streets, speed bumps, traffic bollards) that are particularly noted by teams to pass onto their riders.

8. Each rider is given a number which has to be clearly visible. The rider given the number 13 often wears the number upside down because of superstition.

9. The Tour de France is often raced in different countries. Belgium, Britain, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland have all hosted le Grand Départ, the start of opening stage of the Tour de France. (I wouldn't be surprised if the Tour de France starts in America in the near future.)

10. No French rider has won the Tour de France since Bernard Hinault way back in 1985, over 40 years ago. Decathlon CMA CGM's Paul Seixas is the latest French hope for the yellow jersey. French newspapers give French riders a very hard time! And just to rub salt further in the French wounds, the English language is now the Tour's lingua franca, the language most spoken in the peloton. There are now many top riders from English-speaking countries like America, Australia, Britain, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand and South Africa in the Tour de France.

11. A wheelsucker is a lazy rider who rides behind the wheels of other riders without taking their turn at the front. Normally wheelsucking causes a lot of arguments amongst riders on the Tour de France. But sometimes there are good and accepted reasons for a rider wheelsucking, especially if the rider has a teammate trying to win a stage up the road or a teammate trying to catch up down the road.

12. All teams, including both GC and sprint teams, have rolleurs. Rolleurs can ride at a fast pace for a long period of time on flat bits of a stage. UAE Emirates-XRG's Nils Politt is one of the best rolleurs in town.

13. Puncheurs are very specialist riders. They are capable of riding fast up a hill or mountain for a short period of time. Often they're used by teams to launch an attack on their rivals at the start of a climb. Puncheurs also have to have other strings to their bow to be selected to ride the Tour de France. Tom Pidcock is a very good puncheur. He's a good climber too and rides as a GC rider for Pinarello Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team. Team Visma-Lease a Bike's Victor Campenaerts and Lidl-Trek's Quinn Simmons are also good puncheurs as well as good rolleurs.

14. Team radios are allowed in the Tour de France, as well as the other two grand tours, the Giro d'Italia and La Vuelta a España. Radios allow riders of a team to talk to each other and, moreover, allow sporting directors in team cars to talk to their riders. Riders have been known to switch off their radios or claim there's a radio malfunction if they don't agree with team orders coming from their sporting director. Team radio communications are relayed to the Tour de France organisers and are sometimes broadcast live. (Despite team radios dishing out times to riders, Tour de France officials sitting on the back of motorcycles also give out information on time splits between groups of riders using a board.)

15. Because a cyclist riding behind another cyclist or other cyclists saves up to 40 percent of their energy than the cyclist immediately in front of them is the reason why pelotons form. In a peloton, a large group of cyclists, riders are all saving energy drafting behind each other ready to take their turn at the front. It’s very difficult for a breakaway group of riders, and especially a solo breakaway rider, to win a race; they just use too much energy for them to keep going to the finishing line! The cyclists at the front of the peloton are usually riding hard; they're the ones doing the work. Those off the front can relax and conserve their energy. However, if the riders at the front of the peloton speed up, if there is a cross-wind, if the road narrows significantly and/or if there is a steep climb, the peloton will get stressed; it may break up, riders may get spat out and crashes may happen. For these reasons, riders normally like to position themselves towards the front of the peloton. In the peloton, top riders will normally ride behind the rest of their team in a line or at least a broken line.

16. For each stage of the Tour de France, there's an award for the the most combative rider. Usually the combativity award is given to the most aggressive rider animating the race whether he's leading a breakaway or attacking from the peloton. At the end of the Tour de France, there's a prize given to the most combative rider of the tour. The combativity award, usually selected by a panel of judges, often goes to a non-GC leader.

17. Each cycling team employs a team of soigneurs, known as swannies, whose role is to look after their team's riders during the race. Their role involves giving riders a massage, lining the stage route to hand over drinks and food to their passing riders, and looking after the needs of their riders. As far as I'm aware, soigneurs don't do fluffing duties! My guess is that sex, bar for solo sex, isn't allowed on tour.

18. Already used in swimming, a new lactate supplement that promises a three per cent increase in power output is being used in this year's Tour de France for the first time. This legal drug, ExoLactate, is a gel that's applied to a cyclist's body. The manufactured touted its trial and limited batch of lactate gels to all the Tour de France teams. One team, so far unnamed, bought all of the manufactured sachets of ExoLactate to deny rival teams this possible marginal gain! I wonder what team has done that; it's got to be a big budget team.

19. In 2021, five years ago, the top sprinter Mark Cavendish secured his 35th Tour de France stage win. This win meant he surpassed the legendary Eddy Merckx's 34 stage wins. With his record number of stage wins, the name of the British rider (nicknamed the Manx Missile as he's from the Isle of Man, a UK crown dependency) is now etched in the Tour de France's history books.

20. A road bike used in the Tour de France typically costs between €10,000 (about £9,000 or $11,000) and €14,000 (£12,000 or $16,000). However, a specialised time trial bike can cost up to €22,000 (£19,000 or $25,000).

21. Queen’s hit single, Bicycle Race, released in 1978 as a double A-side with Fat Bottomed Girls, was written by Freddie Mercury after observing a stage of the Tour de France while Queen were recording the Jazz album in France. The video for the Bicycle Race single features 65 naked women riding bicycles around London's Wimbledon Greyhound Stadium. For those who want to hear Queen's song with an uncensored video clip, please click this link, (https://youtu.be/xt0V0_1MS0Q). The video was heavily edited and even banned in some countries. The record cover showed a rear view of a naked woman on a bicycle, with a red bikini painted over her naked bottom. A bra was added to the American single cover! Below is an image, found on Brian May's website, of the uncensored record cover and the poster promoting the single's video.