Strikes

There have been several instances unhappy riders striking in the Tour

1. 1978 Valence-d'Agen

Whereas in the early days of the Tour de France, the route was continuous, most modern Tours include at least one long transfer, from one stage finish to the start of the next. The riders hate them and in 1978, the Tour organisers had been particularly insensitive.

Stage 11, a killer, finished on a Pyrenean col. The cul-de-sac road is narrow, getting off the mountain and on to the next start, some distance away, was tedious and protracted, most riders didn't get to their hotels until past 9pm. By the time they had had a massage and a meal it was gone midnight. Reveille was set for 4.30am ahead of a split stage, 254km in total.

Animated by the champion of France, Bernard Hinault, riding his first Tour, the peloton rode the first half into Valence at 20kph then, a kilometre from the finish, dismounted and walked. The local mayor was furious, and gave Hinault a right tongue-lashing - Hinault promised to return to ride a criterium, gratis, but would not be moved. The Tour organisers had tried to chivvy the riders back on with promises not to annul the stage, but they refused and there was nothing the officials could do about it.

2. 1984 Stage 5 and Stage 16

Civil disobedience is something of a tradition in France. The national day, 14 July, celebrates the fall of the Bastille, the hated symbol of royal oppression in Paris, and French riders love nothing more than a win on that iconic date.

Since the Tour de France has such a high media profile, it is not uncommon for disgruntled French workers to draw attention to their grievances by blocking the race. It happened twice in 1982. The ironworkers of Denain, in the industrial region of northern France, in the First World War battlefields, extended their strike across the road in front of the first individual time trial and would not be budged. Workers' rights took precedence over sporting frivolity.

The stage had to be annulled. The rash of protest spread and, in Orcières, at the head of a fertile alpine valley, at the start of the stage to l'Alpe d'Huez, local farmers blocked the route. Riders climbed off their bikes, sat on the ground in the sunshine, waited patiently behind the barrier of protest banners and, a second time, the Great Bike Race bowed to a labour dispute.

3. 1998 Tarascon

Before the start of the Tour, the soigneur of the Festina team, Willy Voets, was arrested by police after they found growth hormones, testosterone-based steroids, boxes of EPO masking products…in his car: a damning haul of banned substances.

A week into the race, on the eve of the individual time-trial, the Tour organisation announced the expulsion of the Festina team. Most of the Festinas protested their innocence but all the riders in the peloton now felt themselves under suspicion, whether voiced or implied, of illicit doping. The mood was distinctly nervous.

News then leaked that the Dutch TVM team lorry had been stopped by customs in Reims and quantities of EPO impounded. Accordingly, after the stage finish on 23 July, the TVM riders were hauled out of their hotel and detained by French police, without substantial refreshment, until midnight.

Next day, shocked by this ill-treatment, the entire peloton sat by their bikes on the road at the start in Tarascon and, for two hours, the Tour de France ceased to be. One rider said that the Gestapo couldn't have done better than the gendarmes. The race did eventually restart but to what dire consequences has the Festina affair led...