goat tour de france

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The demographic and cultural backdrop surrounding Goat is almost as eccentric as their mythical sound. The group formed in Korpilombolo, a small Swedish town located in Norrbotten County. This remote village was allegedly displaced by Christian Crusaders and resultantly immersed in years of voodoo practice.

There is no definitive time that marks the band’s exact formation. According to the group’s members they have been performing and recording together under different incarnations possibly since the 70s. The current lineup includes three core members; however, during concerts they recruit at least four other musicians to carry out their complex and verbose compositions.

In 2012 Goat signed to the UK label, Rocket Recordings and released their studio debut “World Music” (despite the fact they had already been recording for almost 40 years prior to this release). The album received positive reviews, particularly from the publication the Guardian, which ranked the album as one of the year’s best. It was described as an immense revelry in pan-culturalism, encompassing a hodgepodge of sounds ranging from afro-beat, psychedelia, krautrock, funk, and acid rock. Influences of Can, Faust, Parliament, and Incredible String Band are apparent throughout this recording; however, their is never any sign of direct emulations. The group mixes bizarre, but technically intriguing sounds, culminating into something both absurd and captivating.

Sometimes it is difficult to discern whether to take the group seriously or not. Their live performances are impassioned and frenetic, seeming as though it was spawned off the tail end of an acid trip. They sport colorful/ornate robes and tribal masks (some shaped like animals, others that look like something Michael Myers would wear and the remainder sporting an Indian theme). Their shows include incessant improvisational dancing and the use of a wide range of instruments. The band’s liberal sound translates directly from the group’s uninhibited lifestyle. The members apparently live in a commune, leading a life of ease and peace. They obviously are fond of experimentation as they claim to practice a variety of transcendental rituals often including nudity and satanic prayers.

Goat followed up the release of their studio debut with the live album “Live Ballroom Ritual”. The album was released toward the end of 2013 and was distributed through Rocket Recordings. Their proper 2nd LP “Commune” saw release on 23 September 2014 and was their first recoding to be issued through Sub Pop.

Live reviews

I was told it was somewhere in Partick but last night Glasgow seemed surreal, not a city I recognised at all. On the map I could see it was near the Royal Hospital for Sick Children so I headed down Dumbarton Rd and onto Kelvinhaugh. I couldn't believe the quantity of student accommodation that had sprung up along here and when I got to the end of it everything changed again. I felt I was in the middle of a Murakami novel or had slipped into a parallel world. There was an overpass and a train line overhead and under that, a row of warehouse type premises that looked a bit rundown but when I got to the end of the road, I could see my destination in sight as there was a crowd of people gathered outside and a tour bus with the name 'Midnight Express' inscribed on the side. Inside, the venue had the look of a scene from Blade Runner, there were exposed pipes and ventilation tracts overhead, it was dark and I guess about 1000 people were standing in front of a stage awaiting the appearance of Goat. They were mostly all young students so I felt like I was gate-crashing from another time continuum but this old goat wasn't going to miss an auspicious occasion like this. The band started in Korpilombolo, Sweeden which is said to have a history of voodoo after a witch doctor came and lived there and that helped explain the strangeness of what seemed to pervade the whole day so far. They were the headliners at The International Festival of Psychedelia which had taken place the previous night in Liverpool, they had played at Glastonbury in 2013 and I'd first heard them on Stuart Marconi's Freak Zone on 6 Music. What followed was truly extraordinary... The band began laying down a hypnotic trance like sound which was heavy - the core were a simple bass, guitar and drums - but with a definite late 60's/early 70's sound and an Afro influence too. They looked incredible, no that's putting it mildly, they looked outrageous. The bass player was playing a Rickenbacker but was wearing a full Hijab ! The drummer looked fairly normal but the guitar player had a Greek - like gold mask on his face. There was a hand drummer whose face was obscured by beads or hair I couldn't tell which and the light show was exceptional. Then the 2 girl singers came on... They danced like dervishes for 2 hours straight and sang in Sweedish and sometimes English. They looked like Amazonian priestess's and would 'bless' the crowd with long, feathered poles which looked like Native American coup-sticks. The whole experience seemed nothing short of time-travelling back to the heady peaks of the 1970's and after a 2 hour feast of sound and vision they left the stage to a deafening roar. As the audience were not going to let up, they came back for an encore. After the disappointments of September in Scotland, Goat put a big smile back on my face and for that I'm truly grateful. I envy anyone in Newcastle tonight as they will play there before heading back to Sweeden.

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The visual performance with their epic costumes and crazy dance moves is something that really makes the Swedish experimental and alternative fusion group Goat exciting, and you have to see them live to make the most of this quirky performance element. Back in 2012, they were ranked in the top 10 by the Guardian for album of the year, and their intricate guitar lines are an example of why they were worthy of this nomination.

The stage was in pitch black as a heavy acid style overture played across the auditorium, and as the lights came up, the band were frozen on stage in their absurd costumes, with all of their faces masked, ready to start their set. They opened the show with their track Goatman, before launching into the album Live Ballroom Ritual, and playing it in its entirety. Whilst the band were playing, they carried out almost tribal dances in their cloaks and African style costumes, which seemed to translate really well to the audience, because everyone was dancing non stop throughout the set.

As well as their originality, the music is of a very high standard, powerful lines from each band member, and very solid vocals. All of their music was performed live which made it even more epic. It was one of the best live performances I’ve seen to date.

I truly believe it goes without saying that you cannot enter shows by Swedish indie outfit Goat and not fully invest in their mentalities and ideals. The alternative collective fronted by Christian Johansson hail from Korpilombolo in Sweden which is a town with history firmly rooted in voodoo worship and black magic and now Goat takes a little piece of this around the world.

They have amassed a huge reputation on both the gig and festival circuit for their show which is as much about the atmosphere, costume and theatrics as it is about the high quality whimsical music. As they run through music taken from both of their albums, the show becomes progressively more surreal as the audience are led down the group's personal rabbit hole in order to fully immerse in the music on display. The crowd is more than happy to follow and when they are returned following a finale of 'The Sun The Moon' the applause are rapturous. The group stands stationery with ominous masks staring out onto the crowd before one final explosion of light and sound for 'Goathead'.

Absolutely gorgeous. I have never seen such a show. The opening band, Josefina and the Liberation was also good. Good venue. Well organised.

I wish I would be able to tour with them for a while. I loved to watch even how the technicians where setting up the instruments.

There was a minor glitch with the sound for a couple of songs about a guitar that was giving some feedback, but it can easily be ignored.

Glad I managed to buy tickets as it was sold out. Thanks songkick

I can honestly say that monday 17th october i witnessed probably the best live performance I have ever seen in my 34 years on this planet! It has revived my soul taken me on a journey I need to go on, and perhaps opened the gates to another world ha ha! GOAT you were amazing stay true to yourselves and keep on making people loose there selves in the music.

I've been waiting to see Goat for a while now. Stoked when songkick said that they were playing in Poland only to find out that it's an artist named Goat from Japan. Heartbreaking. Hoping I can see them soon! The live reviews make the wait seem worth it, though.

So much energy and style. Gets you dancing with a south american influence complete with costume.

Best seen live at a Festival. Superb performance with the song 'Run to your Mama' on my daily playlist.

Best Live band on the planet. The energy will consume you and you will wish you could share it with all everyone you love. The music will move you in an incredibly positive way

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Friday, April 26, 2024 9:12 pm (Paris)

• Tour de France

Tour de France 2022: Thibaut Pinot, French cycling's popular romantic figure

At 32, the climber no longer aspires for an overall Tour victory. But the most famous goat-owner of all Franche-Comté has never seemed so popular among cycling bike enthusiasts in France.

By  Alexandre Pedro

Time to 4 min.

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Thibaut Pinot was long encumbered by his popularity. His older brother and coach said he is "a bit of a bear by nature." The cyclist could not understand why customers in his supermarket peered at what was in his cart. But the whole country wanted to know what the young man's guts were made of after his 3 rd place in the 2014 Tour de France. Eight years later, the dream has faded. At 32, Pinot will never step into the shoes of Bernard Hinault, the last French winner of the race (in 1985).

But the heart has reasons to ignore the list of winners. On Friday, July 8, during the 7 th stage of the 2022 race, the whole of Haute-Saône cheered on the local son during the Planche-des-Belles-Filles climb, with the secret hope of seeing him raise his arms in victory. But love for the Groupama-FDJ climber goes beyond the borders of the Franche-Comté region and even of France itself.

Julien Pinot understood this after the brother's victory in the final stage of the Tour des Alpes, on April 22. "I had some sense of this, but we saw riders from other countries, that he's not especially close to, come to congratulate him. The same with journalists. In the cycling world, I think they like his behavior, the attack-minded side of him. Thibaut doesn't cheat."

That day, in the rain and despite a broken spoke, Pinot won in Pinot style. On the attack, mouth wide open, proud after a disappointment. The day before, he planned to put an end to 1,007 days without a win and erase months of hardship with trips to Paris to heal a bruised back from a crash in Nice on the first day of the 2020 Tour. But then Colombian Miguel Angel Lopez reappeared on the final climb.

No matter. The next day, his army of fans celebrated their idol by pushing #Pinot into the trending column on Twitter. Daniel Friebe contributed to this viral phenomenon. A leading cycling journalist, the Englishman has always had a soft spot for "Thibaut." Especially after the trauma of the 2019 Tour. "It was the most intense moment in 20 years of the Tour for me," said the Francophile. "Thibaut is the strongest in the mountains, you think he has everything to win, to follow in Hinault's footsteps, and then he dropped out and we still can't quite explain it today." Pinot threw in the towel two days before the finish on the road to Tignes, hit by a mysterious but painful thigh injury.

Moral defeats in France

Daniel Friebe often pictured the scene, imagining his "Frenchie" riding down the Champs-Elysées in yellow, but in the end he wondered "if this wouldn't have destroyed his legend as a heroic loser." Pinot himself asked the question in an interview with Le Monde four days later, alluding to "the fear of not wanting that life."

Today, Friebe sees his favorite rider "becoming an Internet meme, even with its cursed side," but he understands what's behind this. "What's universal about him is his vulnerability, his tragic defeats," argued the man who analyzes the Tour in The Cycling Podcast . "Thibaut doesn't know how to pretend to hide his emotions and that's very human."

Pinot is entering the final chapter of a career that reads like an open book. He has kept his "sulky teenage side" (according to Friebe) and keeps a safe distance from his profession. When some colleagues put their feet up at home to save their legs for the next race, he is still a hyperactive child of the earth, who lives, according to his manager Marc Madiot, "at the end of the last path off the last road in Melisey, Haute-Saône."

In his little paradise, he fishes for pike in his pond, plans to a build bed and breakfast with his girlfriend, and pampers his beloved goats. Could Thibaut Pinot, who has created an Instagram account for his favorite goat Kim, be a sort of Raymond Poulidor 2.0?

Like "Poupou" did before him, the cyclist mostly plays the role of the valiant but unfortunate hero. When he dropped out during the 19 th stage in 2019, it was like one of those moral defeats that French sports have such a soft spot for. Pinot in tears shaking on his bike and supported by teammate William Bonnet was a bit like Michel Platini holding the hand of the unfortunate Patrick Battiston on his stretcher, on that beautiful and tragic night in Seville, during the 1982 World Cup semifinal against West Germany.

'We can't all be like Pogacar'

In any case, Romain Bardet has come to terms with this. Same age, same social background (child of a rather left-leaning middle class), but with one more podium on the Tour: the Auvergne native knows that he and his friend and rival each have their role to play. "He's the great romantic talent, I'm the Stakhanovist worker," he said in the latest issue of the magazine Pédale! .

At the start in Copenhagen , Pinot gladly handed over the keys of the Groupama-FDJ truck to new leader David Gaudu, but he's still his team's number one rider on the applause meter. In Dunkirk, on the morning of the first stage in France, cries of "Pinot, Pinot" covered over his voice as he shared his impressions of the day to journalists. "Maybe it's because they're getting used to seeing me, I'm one of the old French riders now," he said with a newfound casualness as he attacked the world's biggest race.

The Frenchman may belong to the caste of stage winners in the three grand tours (with the Vuelta and the Giro) and one classic (the Giro di Lombardia in 2018), but he doesn't feel "like a top rider," at least not for the past two years. Sometimes, the romantic aura that surrounds him "overwhelms him a little," he told Le Monde in May.

"Still, the fact that people react so much to me warms my heart," he continued. "I tell myself that it's not just big wins that make people feel things. We can't all be like Pogacar and win every race. I'm not trying to be popular, but I'm happy to be seen as an honest rider." Plus, you kind of have to like a guy who can write in a column for Ouest-France "I think I like goat psychology."

Alexandre Pedro

Translation of an original article published in French on lemonde.fr ; the publisher may only be liable for the French version.

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Exclusive: Mark Cavendish talks Tour de France, GOAT comparisons and his 'perfect opportunity' at Astana Qazaqstan

Mark Cavendish has described the Tour de France as “above the sport” as he underlined how special the event is in an exclusive interview with Eurosport’s Adam Blythe. The Manx Missile also discussed GOAT comparisons with greats in other sports and his “perfect opportunity” at Astana Qazaqstan. Stream the 2023 cycling season live and on-demand on discovery+ and eurosport.co.uk.

• Category: Xbox Store

Free Play Days – Embr, Goat Simulator, and Tour de France 2022

Be a goat or compete to be the G.O.A.T. this weekend during Free Play Days. Embr, Goat Simulator, and Tour de France 2022 are available this weekend for Xbox Live Gold and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate members to play from Thursday, October 13 at 12:01 a.m. PDT until Sunday, October 16 at 11:59 p.m. PDT.  

How to Start Playing

Find and install the games on each of the individual game details page on Xbox.com . Clicking through will send you to the Microsoft Store, where you must be signed in to see the option to install with your Xbox Live Gold or Xbox Game Pass Ultimate membership. To download on console, click on the Subscriptions tab in the Xbox Store and enter the Gold member area to locate the Free Play Days collection on your Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S.

Keep the Fun Going

Purchase the game and continue playing while keeping your Gamerscore and earned achievements during the event!

Game Details

• Standard Edition $19.99 (Free Play Days)
• Standard Edition $9.99 (Free Play Days)
• Xbox One Edition $39.99 (Free Play Days)
• Xbox Series X|S Edition $49.99 (Free Play Days)

Fight fires for fun and profit in this unpredictable and frantic multiplayer game. Team up with friends, take on daily challenges and climb to the top of the corporate firefighting ladder. There is more than one way to become a hero, with loads of laughs along the way!

Goat Simulator

Live the dream! All your fantasies of becoming a goat are about to become true with the latest in goat sim technology. Get points just for going around wrecking stuff and causing general mayhem. Earn extra style points for getting creative with your destruction. Head butt buckets. What else are you going to do this weekend? Tour de France 2022

Fight for the yellow jersey in the official game of the Tour de France, available this weekend during Free Play Days! Experience the new online mode with weekly challenges and compete in the leaderboards. In Solo mode, prepare to deal with new incidents (injuries, illnesses) during the 92 stages we have available.

Don’t miss out on this exciting Free Play Days for Xbox Live Gold and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate member! Learn more about Free Play Days here and stay tuned to Xbox Wire to find out about future Free Play Days and all the latest Xbox gaming news.

Tour de France 2023 Favourites stage 9: Mountain goat at Puy de Dôme

The climb up the dormant volcano is extra piquant as the final 4 kilometres are solely double digit material. So the stage winner must be an hors catégorie climber.

The question that’s always hovering above stages like this – is it going to be an attacker or a GC rider? The route is going up and down the entire day, but there are no big climbs in the run-up to the finish climb. Yet, if the race is made hard enough all these minor climbs will start to feel like Mont Ventoux in the long run. So how the race unfolds will be crucial for the stage win.

Since attackers definitely will have a shot on a course such as this a huge battle for the breakaway is expected. If there are strong climbers on board and the attackers reach the foot of the Puy de Dôme with a comfortable lead, the stage winner will be at the the front. But to be frank, we think – and hope – that the flanks of the dormant volcano wil turn into a battle ground for the yellow jersey.

As mentioned, the run-up to the finish climb is far from flat without offering big climbs. Five hills stand out: Côte du Lac de Vassivière (4.4 kilometres at 4%), Côte de Felletin (2.1 kilometres at 5.2%), Côte de Pontcharraud (1.8 kilometres at 4.6%), Côte de Pontaumur (3.3 kilometres at 5.3%) and Col de la Nugère (9.2 kilometres at 2.8%). The riders plunge down the Nugère to enter the Puy de Dôme shortly after Clermont-Ferrand.

Favourites 9th stage 2023 Tour de France

*** Tadej Pogacar, Jonas Vingegaard ** Rigoberto Uran, Thibaut Pinot, Giulio Ciccone, Dylan Teuns, Felix Gall * Neilson Powless, Marc Soler, Mikel Landa, Ruben Guereiro, Mattias Skjelmose

Another interesting read: route 9th stage 2023 Tour de France.

Tour de France 2023 stage 9: profiles

Click on the images to zoom

Xbox Free Play Days includes Goat Simulator

Thanks to xbox free play days, xbox game pass ultimate and xbox live gold subscribers can play three games for free over the next few days, including goat simulator..

Goat Simulator

Goat Simulator is the latest in goat simulation technology. You no longer have to fantasize about being a goat; your dreams have finally come true! Goat Simulator is all about causing as much destruction as you possibly can as a goat. Destroy things with style, such as doing a backflip while head-butting a bucket through a window, and you'll earn even more points! • You can be a goat • Get points for wrecking stuff • We've only eliminated the crash-bugs, everything else is hilarious

Team up with friends to become the most über firefighters money can buy. Rush into burning buildings filled with dangerous hazards, valuables, and top-of-the-line security systems. Fight fires, save lives, salvage goods, and make life-changing money. Buy high tech tools with advanced upgrades, and fresh outfits that unlock new ways to play. Embr will keep you coming back for more with new mission types, daily and weekly challenges, and plenty of achievements to hunt.

Tour de France 2022

Tour de France 2022 Xbox One

Fight for the yellow jersey in the official game of the Tour de France 2022. Experience the new online mode with weekly challenges and leaderboards. In Solo mode, you can now deal with incidents (injuries, illnesses) during the 92 stages available.

Tour de France 2022 Xbox Series X|S

• The weirdest games on Xbox Game Pass
• Game Pass adds five more Xbox games soon, including Minecraft Legends
• Goat Simulator herded back onto Game Pass
• Free Play Days features four free Xbox games, including Age of Empires 2
• Game Pass loses eight games in March, including Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy

I Tried to Stare Into Eddy Merckx’s Soul. It Didn’t Work Out Like I Hoped.

He is not like other humans. He is the Cannibal. He is the greatest cyclist of all time.

I want to write about Eddy Merckx. First, I have to write about Belgium.

The journey into Belgium is something I look forward to every time. The place appears to be on the verge of total collapse. It is best measured when driving there. You need to go through Holland and Germany to appreciate the collapse of Belgium. Because in comparison to their neighbors, known for perfection regarding infrastructure, city planning, and general order, it wouldn’t be all that embarrassing if they—Holland and Germany—would one day just knock at the one of the parliaments of Belgium and go: So listen... You need help?

I am in Brussels. It's hosting the Tour de France 's Grand Depart in honor of Eddy Merckx. Walking the streets of Brussels is an international affair. All colours of the human race. You see where Benetton got the idea. Truly, this place is as diverse as it is confusing, because basically Belgium can’t decide if it’s a country or a construction. Ask anybody. Ask the guy in the newsstand. Ask any of the thousands of European employees who work in the ministries or committees this city is so famous and infamous for. All will give you a different answer. Belgium is a personal matter. And as with the country, nobody in Europe knows what to make of Brussels either. Take its language. Even though people want English to be used as an unofficial compromise language between Dutch and French, French remains the lingua franca , and laws require Dutch and French translations. The acceptance of English as a language for communication with the city's public servants depends entirely on their knowledge of this language, though they must accept questions in French and Dutch.

I will soon write about Eddy Merckx.

Despite its name, the Brussels-Capital Region is not the capital of Belgium. Article 194 of the Belgian Constitution establishes that the capital of Belgium is the City of Brussels, the municipality in the region that is the city's core. The City of Brussels is also the capital of both the French Community of Belgium and the Flemish Community. The Flemish Parliament and The Flemish Government have their seats in Brussels and so do the Parliament of the French Community and the Government of the French Community.

[ How Do You Compare to a Tour de France Pro? ]

Flanders and Wallonia. Or, as we say in professional cycling: Ronde van Vlaanderen and Liege-Bastogne-Liege. De Ronde is known as the Flemish World Championships, and that will tell you something about their understanding of themselves. We have our own local World Championship! Of course, Liege is indifferent to this, and they pretend they can’t hear the Flemish. What? We can’t hear you! Because Liege has Phillip Gilbert. The Wallonian is the most accomplished rider in today's peloton with four different Monuments and the Rainbow Jersey in his palmares, and Liege will tell anybody who is willing to listen, that this is what matters more than anything else in Belgium, and so this is how we get to Eddy Merckx, because the most accomplished rider EVER, Baron Edouard Louis Joseph Merckx, The Cannibal, with 19 Monuments and three World Championships to his name, just walked by. That’s right. The home boy of Brussels is officially in the house! The man is here! The machine has arrived! Half bike, half human! OMG! It is widely accepted that Belgium is to cycling what Brazil is to football. Hell, didn’t they invent the bicycle here?! Sure they did! And after they invented the bike, they invented Eddy Merckx to put on it!

The minute the GOAT walked by I get a call from Brian Holm, director sportive of Belgian team with the impossible name Deceuninck-Quick Step. This year Holm is staying home after more than 20 Tours de France to his credit, and now he wants to make sure I’m in Brussels for the Grand Depart and the latest gossip.

"Brian. I’m looking at Eddy Merckx!"

Brian Holm has lived in Belgium for 17 years as a professional cyclist. He is a knowledgeable force in cycling and also one of its more colorful personas. He goes off immediately: "Eddy! Let me tell you about Eddy. At one point during the late 80s we started going to the movies. But the Belgians didn’t understand that. They got a little nervous, you know. The movies? they said. Why would anybody want to go to the movies? If you had time off as a professional rider you either went to get a massage or relaxed at your house. The movies was a waste of time , they said. Anyway, we saw Ghostbusters and Beverly Hills Cop and the biggest star in Hollywood was Eddie Murphy. But the Belgians didn’t care. They already had an Eddie. They had Eddy Merckx. And he was the baddest motherfucker they’d ever known!"

[Build a killer midsection in the kitchen for effortless miles on the road with Eat for Abs !]

The Tour de France feels at home in Belgium and has been coming here for decades. Belgium, as a nation, reminds ASO of how to maintain power keeping everyone unsatisfied while taking their money. Before the Grand Depart, again the teams are upset about ASO’s control over TV rights, and again Tour boss Christian Prudhomme shakes his head. Children, children, please! The UCI is also shaking its head, it is perhaps a more permanent shake, and so everybody is shaking their heads and no one in cycling has a bigger head to shake than Eddy Merckx! I mean, look at him! Look at that head! Wow! Merckxism has taken control of Le Tour. It is the reason we are here. The greatest cyclist of all time won the Yellow Jersey, the first of many to come, 50 years ago, and this is what Le Tour and professional cycling is celebrating. Eddy is flattered. Belgium is flattered. Even Brussels is flattered.

Eddy, Belgium, and Brussels. All flattered.

It’s hard to imagine what goes on inside that head of his as he is strolling into the thousands of people chanting his name. For 50 years Eddy Merckx has been signing autographs left and right, and when you occasionally bump into him at a bike race, he has the look of a half-confused celebrity with no sense of direction. He is not at fault. Because for 50 years people have been gently pushing him in various directions. All Eddy Merckx has had to do for half a century is show up and look like Eddy Merckx and so that’s his life.

When he looks at you, he doesn’t look at you. It’s a non-look. There is an invisible gap when attempting eye contact with a man like Eddy Merckx. His stare automatically ends in front of your eyes and inside that remaining distance is where your stare meets his. You are now both staring into a void. This is where you communicate with him. At a stance. From a distance. He is the only person I have ever met where you feel you are communicating with a non-human. His eyes are black holes.

Eddy, Eddy, Eddy!

Even his entourage looks at him in awe. They can’t believe they get to push him around today. This way. That way. The Cannibal disappears into the crowd, the chanting following him towards the podium and the start line around the corner from Palais Royal. It’s time for him to face the world while leading the neutral start through his home town on this, his 50th anniversary of winning the first Maillot Jaune. The crowd parts like a biblical scene.

Eddy is gone. Not that he was really here, with me, at least. And I find myself in front of the Ineos team bus. Geraint Thomas steps out and the crowd goes "uhh," and not in a good way.

"That guy is too pale, isn’t he?" a British man mumbles to his friend. His friend looks suspiciously at the defending champion. "Now I wonder how much training he has done for this."

It’s true. Word on the street is that although Geraint Thomas is a top athlete he has begun his training too late. His season hasn’t been good. Then there was an early crash at Tour de Swiss. I move closer. Is that bags under his eyes? Hmm. Geraint has clearly been enjoying his win last year. That picture with Leo Messi in a parking lot. Some say, too much enjoyment. Rumor, gossip. Who knows. But there is no denying that even a Welshman shouldn’t be that pale in July.

I call up Matt Stephens. The Eurosport presenter knows everyone in pro cycling and everyone in cycling pro is also conveniently in his phone. He will have the latest news. We sit down and order coffee.

"Tell me. Whats going to happen at Tour de France?’

"Its nice for once that we can say: we don’t know. I interviewed Geraint yesterday. He is professional and he knows how to win this. But I think Bernal is the more likely candidate. David Brailsford is upset about not having Froome but… well, he said at the Giro that they have three riders that can win Le Tour."

"Feisty."

"Yes. He said, 'let’s make Geraint and Froome feel uncomfortable!'"

"Haha!"

"With a twinkle in his eyes, obviously. Egan Bernal is a once in a generation rider. Fignon was 23 when he won his first Tour. Ullrich was 22. Maybe Bernal [at 22] can do it. An outsider is Mikael Landa. On paper Movistar should do a solid TTT and nobody is talking about Landa. This is interesting. He has the age and needs to show himself because Nairo Quintana has plateaued. I mean. He hasn’t been there for a couple of seasons now. So he won’t be a factor. And Valverde? No. He has lost weight, but won’t be a threat. Mikael Landa is my dark horse. Bernal is my favorite. And I like Geraint."

"What about Fuglsang?"

"Fuglsang said yesterday: I’m not worried. I’ve done my results. All this is bonus. So he is confident and relaxed and therefore very dangerous. Can he stay upright and healthy through the first week, he should be a main contender. But the fact that we list different names means we’ll have an explosive race. Adam Yates is here with his brother. But he can probably only podium at best. Simon is probably not on his best form. Vincenzo Nibali, however, is the only other winner of the Tour in the peloton. Second in the Giro. He is always dangerous."

"Said he’d hunt stages."

"Well if he loses five minutes…"

"Then we’ll know."

His phone rings. He excuses himself and disappear into the growing crowd. A couple of hours later I join Eurosport UK and get a chair next to Bradley Wiggins. The former champion is here as a moto commentator. He leans in: "I brought some old jerseys. In case we need them on the show."

"Let. Me. See. Them!"

"Ha! Yes. We’ll look at them later. I have Merckx’s Yellow Jersey from 50 years ago. Coppis from 1949. I have that, too."

"Later!"

I go to see the peloton five kilometers out from the finish.

WWWWWUUUOSSSCCHHH!!

Human beings just instinctively make sounds when the peloton flies by! WWWOAH! YAAAZZ! WUHUU! Me, too. For 25 years I’ve watched bike racing from every angle possible, and I still half-laugh half-scream in excitement when the entire peloton pass me! The amount of air they push is amazing. A small storm.

They say bike racing is best watched on television, if you want to see what is going on. And this is true. On the road you have no idea what is happening. But it doesn’t matter. Most people don’t care about who the winner will be when you are on the road. Yes. We cheer for everyone regardless of team and country. We applaud the exercise, their struggle and fight. And that experience you can’t get in front of the TV. You don’t feel the side wind. You can’t feel the pouring rain or burning sun from your sofa. Ever walk up Alpe d’Huez? You get a new perspective walking up one of those mountains. Oh, this is what they are doing! I can hardly walk up this slope for longer than 10 minutes and these guys race it! Ah, I see! We watch the Tour on our TV’s and we enjoy it. But once in you life, you should really go and witness it live. It’s the truly greatest show on Earth.

Eddy Merckx won it five times. We haven't talked about this. He might— would —have won a sixth if he showed up in 1973, but he didn't and poor Luis Ocaña got the title. Other great racers have won five Tours, but they are still not Eddy Merckx. It is obvious to say only Eddy Merckx is Eddy Merckx, but what do I mean? I tried to find out. I found Eddy , and tried to look into his eyes, but I could not catch them. Fifty years after his first yellow, Eddy Merckx is still winning.

Vive Eddy. Vive Le Tour.

.css-1t6om3g:before{width:1.75rem;height:1.75rem;margin:0 0.625rem -0.125rem 0;content:'';display:inline-block;-webkit-background-size:1.25rem;background-size:1.25rem;background-color:#F8D811;color:#000;background-repeat:no-repeat;-webkit-background-position:center;background-position:center;}.loaded .css-1t6om3g:before{background-image:url(/_assets/design-tokens/bicycling/static/images/chevron-design-element.c42d609.svg);} Tour de France

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This is what you have to eat to compete in the Tour de France

Three weeks, 21 stages, 3,351km, 176 cyclists and a combined burn of 25 million calories — so what exactly goes into fuelling the riders of the Tour de France?

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Described as one of the most gruelling endurance events on earth, the Tour de France is as nutritionally challenging as it is physical. With riders spending up to six hours a day on the bike with minimal time for recovery and just two rest days over the entire event, feeding the world’s greatest riders during a Grand Tour is no mean feat.

“To fuel the journey riders need to consume an average of 5,000-plus calories per stage. Maintaining such a huge energy intake is challenging,” says Corinne Mäder, senior sports nutritionist at PowerBar.

But it’s not just the calories. “Suppression of appetite and meal fatigue due to eating the same food every day for weeks must also be managed,” adds Mäder.

“Gastro-intestinal problems can also occur, especially during the latter part of the race, and sports nutrition products and food must therefore be selected carefully and tailored to the individual rider.”

Couple this with eating on the bike, ensuring adequate hydration and recovery, moving between hotels and the sheer length of the Tour de France and you’ve got a mammoth task on your hands. So how exactly is it done?

Diet of a tour rider

09:00: Breakfast

Riders will have breakfast around three and a half hours before the race, with carbohydrate-rich foods such as bread, muesli, cereal, pancakes, rice pudding, smoothies, orange juice - and even noodles - to help top up glycogen stores. An accompanying strong cup of coffee almost goes without saying.

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Cycling is a team sport but there’s also individual needs during the race, with the riders playing different roles on each stage. 

“We adapt the food to the needs, not just for the stage and also for the individual rider,” Trek-Segafredo ’s nutritionist Stephanie Scheirlynck says. “And it’s not just day by day, it’s also about looking at the demands of the next block of stages.”

This means that the breakfast is adapted to the stage and the role that the rider has that day (or as part of an upcoming block).

“At breakfast we focus on the fuel for the stage that is coming,” Scheirlynck explains. “If it’s a mountain stage, we will go rich in carbohydrates because that’s your fuel for climbing, but we also make sure the food is low in fibre because you don’t want the food to cause any fluid retention.”

“Then, if it’s a flat stage, only the riders who are going for the breakaway will have more carbs and low fibre at breakfast. 

“For the sprinter, who needs to stay in the peloton the whole day and only in the last 200 metres goes all out, energy expenditure is not comparable to a hilly stage or a mountain stage and this is reflected in the food they have at breakfast.”

In those three weeks, riders also need vegetables and fruit, fibre and healthy fats, and it’s on the easier stages that Trek-Segafredo gives the riders this healthier food. “I call them the green days and these are days when we know these sorts of foods are going to be digested,” Scheirlynck says.

10:30: Pre-race snack

Transfers from hotels to stage starts can be long, offering an opportunity to top up carbohydrates and calories in the team bus - typically, rice cakes with honey, raisin bread, sports bars or bananas are consumed with fluid. 

Studies show Tour riders are consuming less on the bike (possibly due to more aggressive racing), meaning greater reliance on pre- and post-race nutrition.

12:00: During the race

Different stages at the Tour require different fuelling strategies, according to duration, intensity and temperature, and also on your role for the stage.

Fat metabolism can be utilised during mid-stage low intensity periods when a rider can shelter in the bunch and get towed along. In contrast, tougher stages will see the body rely on carbohydrates, which means more gels and energy drinks.

Solid foods consumed on the bike include small rolls with jam, rice cakes and energy bars, and most riders will opt for this on the easier days. 

Quick-to-consume gels - especially caffeinated ones - will provide the majority of calories as the pace increases as riders will struggle to chew and swallow solids. Trek Segafredo also ups the concentration of its energy drinks for these tougher stages.

Fuelling on the bike also depends on personal preferences and what the rider is used to. 

Scheirlynck gives Jasper Stuyven and Giulio Ciccone as examples of riders within Trek-Segafredo who fuel very differently. 

“Stuvyn likes it simple, with everything in his bottle and he only takes on extra gels,” Scheirlynck says. “He trains at altitude training camps like that and so we know we can give him lots of fluid food and he’ll still be okay after seven hours.”

Then, other riders prefer to eat something solid. “Guillo Ciccone never wants his drinks to be overdosed because he prefers to eat something with it,” Scheirlynck shares. “Even if it’s a mountain stage, he wants solid food.”

17:00: Post-race recovery

As soon as the stage ends, recovery begins. “Recovery drinks with 0.3 to 0.4 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight, up to a maximum of 40 grams, are given to riders as soon as they finish a stage,” says Scheirlynck.

“We give this to riders in a shake because it’s easy to drink and it helps with rehydration too.”

They’re also freshly made. “We have a blender so we put in some fresh fruit, and some ice cubes too if it’s hot,” Scheirlynck adds.

Trek-Segafredo gives all its riders the same quantity for their recovery shake to drink while they’re cooling down, it’s the size of the recovery snack that riders also have that varies. 

Depending on how long the transfer is (which could be up to a few hours), riders shower and change in the bus before eating a snack or small meal prepared by the team chef — pasta salad, a wrap or sandwiches, something with cooked rice are all standard. “It’s around half of what we give them at dinner,” Scheirlynck says.

20:00 or later: Evening meal

“Dinner depends on the next day, not the day they have just had,” Scheirlynck says. 

Post-massage evening meals start with salad, soup or juice for a nutrient boost, followed by meat or fish and carbohydrate-rich foods — but gone are the days of overcooked pasta. 

With long transfers this evening meal can end up being even later than 8pm. 

“The good thing is that the riders are used to eating late because it’s also the case for other races,” Scheirlynck notes.“It seems as though they can digest everything a little bit faster  than we would be able to. 

Eating so late could reduce sleep quality though, which is not what you want during a Grand Tour. "If the riders are arriving at the hotel so late, then the team will give more to the riders in the bus so they can have a slightly lighter dinner," Scheirlynck adds.

The calories

The most important nutritional consideration for riders is getting enough calories to meet the extreme demands of the race.  This can be anything from 4,000 calories a day on a flat stage to 9,000 calories on a hilly stage.

Guzzling around 6,000 calories a day might sound blissful, but the reality of consuming such huge quantities of food day in, day out for three weeks presents one of the biggest challenges for the riders.

“Nutrient-dense foods are needed to remove the bulk of large volumes of food, to make it easier for riders to maintain energy balance and get enough nutrients,” says Mäder.

So bulky salads and vegetables are swapped for fresh fruit and vegetable juices, and carbohydrate powders are stirred into food and drink to increase calories.

The amount of food needed is close to the body’s maximum capacity for digestion, so failure to keep up with the enormous calorie intake can spell disaster, because playing catch-up is near impossible. And ending up in calorie deficit is a no-no because riders risk losing precious muscle.

Carbohydrate consumption must begin as soon as the stage does. 

As the body relies on glucose for energy during hard exercise, a high proportion of the calories consumed by riders come from carbohydrate — around 70 per cent, or 1,100g a day for a 70kg rider, according to Emma Barraclough, senior sports nutritionist at SiS.

“Carbohydrate is needed for high-intensity efforts, such as breakaways and tough climbs,” explains Barraclough.

Swallowed in energy bars , gels and energy drinks , riders consume around 250 calories or 60g of carbohydrate per hour. “Riders take in energy little and often — 36g of carbohydrate from their drink every hour with a gel or bar every 30 minutes as well,” says Barraclough.

During the longest stages, carbohydrate intake can jump to 80 or 90g per hour — but the key is to start early. “If riders don’t fuel and drink properly, they will not be in contention when it comes to the critical part and finale of a stage,” says Pete Slater, co-founder of OTE Sports.

“Riders start taking drink, food and gels on board as soon as they get going.”

Food logistics

Race food must be easy to eat, but variety is necessary too. 

Food consumed during the race needs to be portable and easy to consume on the bike. Riders start with food and gels in their jerseys, picking up additional supplies from musettes around halfway through the stage, packed by soigneurs at the start of each day.

Teams will label bottles so riders know what’s inside and can calculate what they need based on their role within the team for the day’s stage. 

“In the musettes we put everything so the riders can choose what they like themselves,” Scheirlynck explains. “You can’t have bottles or musettes with names on because you never know who is going to come first.”

A typical musette bag may contain two 500ml bottles, one of water and one sports drink for hydration and fuel, an energy bar to eat when the pace is less intense, and isotonic gels with caffeine for that extra lift when needed.

There’s homemade rice cakes or fruit cakes to prevent hunger, and help with variety on long stages. This solid food is all low in fibre and rich in carbs. 

There’s also always one small can of coke in the musettes Trek-Segafredo gives its riders. “From a nutritional point of view, it doesn’t make any sense to put a coke in there, but if taking a few sips helps the riders morale then that effect is more important than the disadvantage that doesn’t exist,” Scheirlynck explains, “and that’s why we leave it in there.”

Bars and sandwiches are kept for the flat stages, with gels and drinks used on climbs as it’s more difficult to take on food then. Bottles with a sports drink and three gels taped on are picked up from team cars, with sandwiches and gels available from support teams on the side of the road.

Food consumed off the bike is just as important. Most teams travel with their own nutritionist and chef, a practice that has helped improve the quality of food and prevents one of the biggest blights of the high calorie regime — food fatigue. The chef and nutritionist work together to plan menus, taking into account rider preferences, with some requiring gluten or lactose-free meals.

Providing food that the riders like helps ensure that they eat enough for the efforts they have coming up and this is why the teams put effort into making functional food into a package that looks good, such as pizza.

“Food is also more than just functional,” Scheirlynck notes. “It gives you the energy to do the race but if you’ve had a bad day, or you crashed, it can make you feel better.” 

Avoiding dehydration in hot weather is another challenge — sweat losses can be in excess of three litres during hard stages, and riders may need to consume up to 10 litres a day to maintain fluid balance.

Fluid is lost through sweat and breath, and losses are exacerbated in hot weather. But it’s not just fluid — electrolytes such as sodium and potassium also need to be replaced to avoid the risk of hyponatremia, or low sodium levels, a potentially fatal condition that can be caused by overdrinking plain water.

“The sodium content in an electrolyte drink is crucial in helping the riders keep fluid balance in their body. Up to a litre an hour can be lost in the heat at altitude in the mountains,” explains Barraclough.

“Pre-hydrating starts in the morning by putting extra electrolytes in the rider's drinks,” Scheirlynck says. Taking on fluids then becomes an all-day task whether the riders are on their bikes or not.

On particularly hot days, Trek-Segafredo also freezes the gels to help riders cool from the inside.

After each stage recovery takes precedence, with the priority on replenishing glycogen stores and helping muscles recover as quickly as possible.

Most teams drum into their riders the importance of the nutritional 20-minute ‘golden window’, which starts as soon as exercise stops.

Recovery involves three parts: carbohydrate, protein and fluid. A cyclist’s body needs carbohydrates to replenish depleted glycogen stores, high-quality protein for repairing the damaged muscle tissue and fluid plus electrolytes for effective rehydration.

A recovery drink is ready to go so riders can consume while cooling down. 

As training techniques and bike design advance, so do the nutritional products that support the riders. “Research findings are translated into practical application — not just the ingredients but also factors such as mouth feel, taste, packaging and application — for example, how easy a product is to open and consume during a ride,” says Mäder.

Many transportable carb-based products contain multiple forms of sugars (glucose plus fructose) which help riders absorb and use more carbohydrate per hour than conventional nutrition products, maximising delivery to the working muscles.

Multi-day racing batters immune function, but probiotics can bolster the body’s defences. “Probiotic drinks are also used to aid immune function, as the rider’s body will naturally be under a lot of stress,” explains Slater.

While the team nutritionist helps the riders judge how much carbohydrate and protein they should take to recover and fuel for the next day, Scheirlynck notes that some things aren’t easy to calculate and that the riders have control here.

“If you’ve crashed you need more energy to recover and we can’t really estimate how much, but if the riders listen to their body they can at least take a bit more if they feel like they need a bit more.”

Caffeine is one of the only legal performance-boosting aids available, and riders will often have a coffee with their breakfast or take a caffeine gel before the start of the race.

“It helps lower the perception of effort,” says Barraclough, “so it can be useful on a long hilly day.”

Riders will also take another caffeine gel during the race, around 30 to 45 minutes before they need it.

“The timing depends on your task,” Scheirlynck points out, “because sometimes you need to start working earlier than someone else.” 

This is also why many riders start with a caffeine gel in their jersey pocket and keep one reserved for when it really matters.

“If you’re suddenly in a position where you didn’t expect to be, but you have the opportunity to win, you can be flexible,” says Scheirlynck.

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I’ve been hooked on bikes ever since the age of 12 and my first lap of the Hillingdon Cycle Circuit in the bright yellow kit of the Hillingdon Slipstreamers. For a time, my cycling life centred around racing road and track. 

But that’s since broadened to include multiday two-wheeled, one-sleeping-bag adventures over whatever terrain I happen to meet - with a two-week bikepacking trip from Budapest into the mountains of Slovakia being just the latest.

I still enjoy lining up on a start line, though, racing the British Gravel Championships and finding myself on the podium at the enduro-style gravel event, Gritfest in 2022.

Height: 177cm

Weight: 60–63kg

'On my way back' says the Belgian, as he builds back up to Tour de France form with almost-100km ride

By James Shrubsall Published 26 April 24

British rider to line up at eight-stage race on Sunday, less than a month on from crash at Tour of Flanders

By Adam Becket Published 26 April 24

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Free Play Days bring you Embr, Goat Simulator, and Tour de France 2022

published on October 14, 2022

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Spice up your weekend with the games you can play on this week’s Free Play Days until Sunday, October 16, at 11:59 p.m. PDT. Three games of different genres – Embr , Goat Simulator , and Tour de France 2022 – will be playable by Xbox Live Gold and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate members. And if you are still not a part of the community, it is probably the right day to join.

Standard Edition $19.99 (Free Play Days)

Enjoy firefighting with your friends in this multiplayer game, where you have to save lives, salvage goods, and even earn money! But be careful: entering those burning buildings isn’t your only challenge. The place will also be filled with traps and dangerous hazards. But if you are pro enough to survive each stage, you can expect high-tech tools and fresh outfits you can buy for your upgrade. So, invite up to four friends this weekend and enjoy the game’s dynamic difficulty that adapts to the size of your team.

Goat Simulator

Standard Edition $9.99 (Free Play Days)

What are goats good at? Wrecking things. But your job in this sim game is not about controlling them to prevent destruction: you’ll be the goat itself. You can score points by breaking things in Goat Simulator, and if you are a true master of chaos, you can get bigger rewards for delivering creative techniques!

Tour de France 2022

Xbox One Edition $39.99 (Free Play Days)

Xbox Series X|S Edition $49.99 (Free Play Days)

Enjoy the challenges you’ll face in Tour de France 2022 , whether in its new online mode with weekly challenges and leaderboard or its Solo mode, where you’ll be constantly injured during the 92 stages of the game as you aspire to become the best cyclist in the world. Aside from those things, the game offers new features, including a new preparation system and interface on cobbled sections, more intense races with a more aggressive peloton and more collaborative breakaways, 21 official stages of the Tour de France 2022, three new teams, and more.

More about the topics: cloud gaming , Free Play Days , games , xbox , Xbox Game Pass

Sharron is a tech reporter at mspoweruser.com. She covers most tech news from brands like Sony, Samsung, Google, and more.

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Rediscovering Jean Robic, “Kid Goat” of the 1947 Tour de France

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They're The First Black Africans To Ride In The Tour De France

Eritrea's Daniel Teklehaimanot competes in a 13.8 km individual time trial, the first stage of the 102nd edition of the Tour de France cycling race, on July 4 in Utrecht, The Netherlands. Eric Feferberg/AFP/Getty Images hide caption

Eritrea's Daniel Teklehaimanot competes in a 13.8 km individual time trial, the first stage of the 102nd edition of the Tour de France cycling race, on July 4 in Utrecht, The Netherlands.

Few places are as rich in cycling lore as the Col du Tourmalet, the brutal 6,939-foot pass in the French Pyrenees that has been a mainstay of the Tour de France since 1910. This is where history is written and legends are made.

Eugene Christophe, for example, famously broke the fork on his bike in the 1913 Tour de France but, rather than quit, jogged 6 miles down the mountain carrying his bike on his shoulder until he found a blacksmith's shop in the village of Sainte-Marie-de-Campan. He fired up the forge, repaired the damage himself, filled his pockets with bread from the local bakery and rode on, still managing to finish in seventh place when the race concluded in Paris two weeks later.

As the peloton snaked its way over the Col du Tourmalet this afternoon, on the 188-kilometer stage between Pau and Cauterets-Vallée de Saint-Savin, two equally indomitable riders were writing themselves, their country, even their continent, into the rich history of Le Tour.

Eritrean riders Daniel Teklehaimanot and Merhawi Kudus are not only the first black Africans to compete in the tour but are also racing for the first-ever African-registered team to compete in the race, the South Africa-based MTN-Qhubeka.

Although Africans have been competing at world-class levels for decades in distance running, poor roads and the high cost of racing bicycles were barriers to the sport of cycling. And there was a social stigma to riding a bicycle as well. "There is a perception in Africa that if you own a bike it means you're too poor to own a car," says Douglas Ryder, the founder of MTN-Qhubeka. "So you'd rather walk."

In Eritrea, however, because of its Italian connections from colonial days, cycling — at least racing — had a certain cachet. Teklehaimanot grew up watching the Tour de France and fantasizing about riding in the peloton one day. He was talent-spotted by officials at the International Cycling Union in 2009 and sent to Europe to learn to ride like a pro. After stints with a Canadian team and an Australian team, he signed on with the African-based MTN-Qhubeka and found himself in the peloton at the Tour de France, this afternoon pedaling up the iconic Col du Tourmalet in the wake of all the great names of cycling he heard as a child.

Neither he nor Kudus is there to fill out the field. Until yesterday Teklehaimanot held the iconic polka-dot King of the Mountains jersey — awarded to the best climber in the field — while Kudus, at 21 the youngest rider at this year's tour, already has significant palmares — the cycling term for wins, places and accomplishments — earned in races in Rwanda, Malaysia and Spain. Already the two have acquired a fan base; a smattering of red-blue-and-green Eritrean flags have been seen fluttering among the crowds lining the course (although Eritrea's government has come in for criticism in articles about the race).

Former UCI @WCC_cycling trainee @DanielTeklehai1 makes @letour history. Read the full story http://t.co/XCrdWIS2Ur pic.twitter.com/d9UwSDZ6Z4 — UCI (@UCI_cycling) July 10, 2015

Their team, MTN-Qhubeka , presently in fifth place in the team classification, hopes this year's race will be just the beginning and that Africa will turn out to be as dominant in cycling as it is in long-distance running. Certainly the talent is there, according to Nairobi-born-and-raised English rider Chris Froome, the current race leader and 2013 winner of the Tour de France.

"I believe riders from East Africa are potentially the best endurance athletes in the world," he said in an interview with the Mail & Guardian Africa last Saturday. "At the moment the biggest problem they are struggling with is infrastructure, roads to train on and equipment."

Noting some of the cycling initiatives that have started up around Africa, he said: "I don't think it will be too long before we see some real results coming out of East Africa."

To that end, Teklehaimanot's team, MTN-Qhubeka, is working with a global nonprofit organization called World Bicycle Relief to raise funds to buy and distribute 5,000 bicycles to African schoolchildren as part of a campaign called Bicycles Change Lives.

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Qhubeka — which means "to carry on" in the Nguni language — hopes it will not only usher in a wave of talented new African riders in the peloton but also make cycling a cool form of transport back home.

• Daniel Teklehaimanot
• Tour de France

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So wait, who actually won all those tour de france titles.

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