Think the Tour de France is just about cycling? Wrong. The Tour has evolved into a roving carnival traveling through the back roads of France. This has largely occurred due to the preceding caravan. The Tour de France Caravan features a stack of sponsorship vehicles in a 40km-long parade. There’s crazy cars, music, free stuff and sometimes, half-naked men dancing on a float to promote washing liquid. The caravan is often what draws half the crowd to line the Tour route. It’s loud, fun and a little competitive.
No physical violence. Women jockeying for the bouquet at a wedding have nothing on how fierce some bystanders will get when it comes to free stuff. By all means edge your way to the front, but save the fist-fights for the UFC. Or for a Frenchman who tells you Lance Armstrong was always on drugs.
No snatching stuff from kids. If a packet of Haribo candy lands on the ground and you and a kid both go for it, be the bigger person, literally, and let them have it.
If you have three Skoda T-shirts already, be a doll and share the love. The people on the cars often throw stuff in batches so you can easily end up with six of something while the people a few metres up miss out completely. Candy is a different matter. Finders keepers.
If you’re there in numbers, make the most of it. Spread out to maximise your haul. It’s just smart.
Make friends with the people around you and offer to swap items you may have in duplicate. If you want something in particular, let them know. They can keep an eye out for you.
Have fun. Wave, dance, get excited. Otherwise it’s a really, really long time to wait for a five-second blur of bikes.
