He won six !

Samuel Johnson was of the opinion that when a man is 'tried of London, he is tired of life,' well having experienced London and Paris in the same day twice over the weekend before last I'd happily admit to being tired of a filthy city with a geriatric transportation system, rude inhabitants and crowded streets. Give me Paris over London anyday.

Having not experienced Rome or Madrid (which were also mentioned by people I talked to during my stay in the French capital) I can't comment on how 'safe' they feel but having spent time in Paris over the past three summers I have to say I love the place, the people, the general vibe. Of course I'm sure it's different in the Banlieu to the leafy streets of the 8th and 17th Arrondissement but my limited experience of the less salubrious parts of Paris suggest that if you don't look scared you have little to worry about, you are more likely to get pick pocketed in Victoria Station waiting for the coach home.

Sunday 26th July 2009 is a day that will live long and fresh in my memory, from waking up at 6 p.m with all the excitement of a teenager on his first date to crashing down onto my hotel bed some fourteen hours later unable to move an inch - having stood for ten hours on the same piece of French real estate.

The first decision of the day I had to make was what time should I leave the hotel and walk the two hundred yards to the Etoile (the top end of the Champs Elysees where the Arc de Triomphe is) for the start of my search for a place to watch the race. The time of my departure was partly determined by the hotel breakfast room not opening until 7:30. Knowing that a long day lay ahead and that it was going to be hot and dusty breakfast wasn't something I could do without.

I arrived at the top of the Champs Elysees at just after 7:50 and the sight that greeted me made me smile and literally laugh out loud (ah zee mad Englishman, he laughs alone, haha - as Bill Bailey would say if he had written a sketch based on my experience). Union Flags were already in evidence and the hotspots at the point where the peloton would turn and head back down the Champs Elysees towards the Place De Concorde were already being snapped-up.

I'd decided back in England that I wanted to be down at Concorde, this was because it gave me the chance to photograph the cyclists as they exited the Rue De Rivoli and head across Concorde and up the Champs Elysees and then three or four minutes later they'd be back down and heading towards the Seine and the Louvre Underpass. Well Robbie Burns once said something about the plans of mice and men and the French police are obviously great fans of the Scottish writer. The road below Champs-Clemenceau Metro was closed to anybody who couldn't do the Wayne/Garth scene from Waynes World 2 and flash their press badges before gaining access to the inner sanctum, I tried to get past a policeman but he held his arms out and pointed me in the direction of the two 'Palais'. I crossed the road heading for the Petit Palais and was met by a policewoman who, given the size of her, probably wrestles bears for fun, I asked if I could walk behind the press vehicles to Concorde and she politely say no and suggested I try a side road on the other side of the Champs. When I reached the other side I met the policeman who had told me to head in the direction of Le Grizzly Adams, he smiled at me, the sort of smile that you feel foreign policemen reserve for tourists. Anyway I began to walk in the direction recommended by the 'Bear Hunter' and saw another Policewoman about seventy yards in front of me waving her arms and pointing in the direction away from Concorde, I made a 'you mean me' gesture and she nodded her agreement. Bugger. To get into France I only needed to show my passport at St.Pancras, it seemed the only way I would get to Concorde would be with a French baton up my arse. I turned around and made my way back across the road to Champs-Clemenceau and decided to find a pitch about a hundred metres from the station. It was important to me to be on that side of the road because the sun would be behind me when the race arrived some nine hours later.

The first thing you notice about the set-up on the Champs Elysees is that its double barriers all the way down the tree lined section - this means that wherever you stand there is about ten to fifteen feet between you and the road, this gives the riders extra protection from any prospective nutter. At that time of the morning I somehow managed to have two barrier widths to myself for a good half an hour. There was a young lad chatting on a mobile phone about twelve feet to the left of me and I quickly determined that he was talking English and when he finished his call I went over to talk to him.

Brendan is a twenty something Australian builder from Sydney who is working as a barman in Shepherds Bush for a year. We got talking and I asked him if he'd tried to get down to Concorde. He told me he'd been there with about a dozen or so other Aussies from early morning but that at around eight o'clock the Police had moved them all on and said no-one was allowed to stand there - I would find out on my return to England that this was because of the VIPS and the park Ferme for the caravan - he'd decided to split from his mates and pitch up where he now was. We got talking about Paris and how we'd both noticed the proliferation of Bosnian beggars this year, groups of them who sneek up on you ask if you speak English and then present you with a piece of cardboard with a hand written message on it which says that they have a family to feed and could you spare some change. Brendan told me that he'd been approached by two different 'Bosnians' who were both carrying a photograph of the same child, when he pointed this out they quickly moved on. I was just opining to Brendan that I couldn't understand how, despite their apparent lack of money, clothes and food, they had made it across Europe to Paris when a voice behind me said "ingenuity," this was Nancy. Dressed all in black, with black hair and a with a wonderful smile, Nancy looked like a French widow who had taken the wrong turn on the way to Pere Lachaise and found herself waiting for a cycle race to flash before her eyes. Nancy had flown from Canada just for four days in France to see two stages of Le Tour, what a gal! She'd been in Annency for Thursday's time trial and was flying home on Monday.

The scene was set. Here I was in Paris waiting, and waiting, and waiting, for the last stage of this years Tour to arrive and I would spend it with two of the nicest people I have ever met. It was actually thinking (on the coach on Monday night) about the ten hours or so I spent with these two genuinely friendly and enthusiastic cycle fans that made me realise I get on so much better with people I have no emotional attachment to - sad but true, I enjoy the non-commitment of the company of strangers.

Anyway if the Australian and the Canadian weren't enough we were joined an hour later by three female students from Atlanta, Georgia. Two 22-year olds and an eighteen year old, I would refer to them (in my head) as the Cycle Tour Barbies. They had the sort of accent that you would find a turn-on for the first couple of days but you'd soon wish you had a pillow to smother them with. Later on we were joined by a young lad and his moll from Herne Hill, who would bizarrely miss the arrival of the peloton because he was booked on the seven o' clock Euro Tunnel shuttle.

Now it's hard to explain how you can talk almost non-stop from eight thirty in the morning until five o'clock, if you aren't a woman, but given so many different backgrounds and several common interests it wasn't difficult at all.

One of the more surreal happenings was the relaying on a giant television screen of the previous days stage on Mount Ventoux. I'd watched this in my hotel courtesy of Eurosport and TF2 - strangely in France you have a choice of French or German Eurosport. Anyway back to the big screen, the commentary was by Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen who as any race fan will know are the ITV4 (formerly Channel 4) commentators, when the voice of Gary Imlach also washed over the tree lined streets of Paris the illusion was complete - we weren't in France at all but some cycling nirvana where the commentators were English, where the sun shone all day and where the stage winner would be an Englishman.

The riders always look so much smaller on TV

The arrival of the Tour Caravan an hour before the peloton provided some much needed visual relief, there are after all only so many times you can watch Gendarmes or members of the Press whizzing by showing off. Unlike the Tour Depart in London two years ago, and the daily Caravan on the tour, there weren't any freebies, no sweets, bottles or hats thrown into the crowd. The race was now being screened live and there was a growing sense of excitement as the peloton approached the outskirts of Paris and then entered the suburbs. The aerial shots meant that we quickly identified the Bastille, the Gare De Austerlitz and the Ille de Citie. The television director switched to his motorbike crew and we were with the riders passing the Notre Dame and heading along the left bank before switching across towards the Louvre Underpass for the first time. As the riders emerged from the dark underpass into the bright sunshine of the Rue De Rivoli you could hear the sound of the crowd cheering half a mile away, it sounded like a thousand children waving flags at a passing monarch. The marshalls car sped past us doing around 45 m.ph, then the outriders, then there they were - the peloton arrivee.

Armstrong leads Contador through the streets of Paris

Astana led the race, as we knew they would, with Lance Armstrong leading Alberto Contador on what was essentially a parade lap, the chance for the crowd to honour the 2007 champion reclaiming his crown from the very disappointing and petulant Carlos Sastre. The peloton flashed by in about twenty second from first rider through to the 159th or so. We all looked at each other and somebody said "Wow!" A couple of minutes passed and then the marshalls car sped by on our side of the road shortly followed by the peloton. There were seven laps to be completed, on lap two there was a breakaway by seven riders which lasted three laps and then the boys of the Columbia Hi-Road team started to reel them in.

Now there is something wonderful about being in a big crowd at a sporting event. It's great when it's your team, your ground and your supporters but to be in another country, with people you didn't know a few hours earlier watching a future sporting great and several current sporting greats coming to the end of what is, for me, the greatest sporting event outside of mens track events at the Olympics is something I will treasure forever. As Mark Renshaw led Cav around the small kink in the road that joins Concorde and the Champs Elysees I could feel the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end - for a moment this felt like the closest a man could get to having sex whilst fully dressed in the company of strangers without money changing hands.

"Cavendish," the French PA announced and we went mad, English, Aussie, Canadian, even the Norwegians cheered (knowing that their man had 'robbed' Cav of the green jersey through petty politicking). The "Cycle Tour Barbies" had left before the final lap to get their flight back to Madrid and miss a million or so people trying to get on Metro Lignes One.

We stood silent for a minute, exhausted both physically and mentally. I realised I couldn't lift my feet they felt so heavy. I looked down and noticed that Brendan was wearing flip-flips, he must have had feet of steel, although given that he'd already run with the bulls at Pamplona and spent every morning back home in Oz surfing I guess he was used to some pain in a macho Hemingway sort of way. I was wearing walking boots and they were obviously meant for walking not boulevarding- or standing still.

Brendan said his goodbyes. I said that in 2010 we should meet on the same spot opposite the bus stop at Champs-Clemenceau by the Avenue De Selves. Nancy and I walked, in my case walking is an approximation of the method used to transport myself, the hundred metres or so to the presentation area. We saw the backs of various heads and the screen showed us the fronts, there were cheers and tears for Alberto, a vigorous singing of the Spanish national anthem and shouts of "Contador, Contador." Andy Shleck was cheered and Lance Armstrong was booed. When Armstrong was booed there were glances to see who was doing the booing. Cav was cheered and by the time the Astana team climbed onto the presentation stage I was knackered and said goodbye to Nancy.


"Did you see Cav's face?" I shouted down the phone from my hotel room to Janis and Nathalie (listening on the extension) "Unbelievable."

I fell asleep just after 8 and woke at ten o'clock just in time to watch the re-run on Eurosport. I didn't realise until that moment that Cav had won six stages, this was because I was on the train when the stage was being cycled on Friday and on Sunday everybody was talking about Ventoux, nobody mentioned Friday's stage. I lay on my bed, a can of Lipton Ice Tea in my hand, a stupid grin on my face and said out loud, "He won six. Six!"

Then I fell asleep and didn't wake up until just after 6:30 a.m on Monday morning. It was time to go home.

* The photographs of the 'yellow jerseys' were taken by me, the one of the Manx Missile crossing the line clearly wasn't!