Few riders have dominated the world of cycling like Eddy Merckx. Known to all who feared him as the “Cannibal” because of his voracious appetite for devouring opponents, he is also often cited as the world’s most famous Belgian – that’s if you don’t count Jacques Brel, Eden Hazard or Jean-Claude Van Damme. In all he won five Tours de France, the first coming exactly 50 years ago, just as Neil Armstrong took that first small step on the moon. In honour of Merckx, and maybe all stellar performers, this year’s Tour started in Brussels, not far from his place of birth.
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Before he became cycling’s Mr Big, Eddy was famously sponsored by Peugeot, a car brand still synonymous with the sport. In fact, Peugeot’s relationship with cycling is more than a century old and its black-and-white chequerboard jersey is a retro classic. Today, Peugeot is still on the Tour, not among the sea of carbon frames and aero skinsuits, but in the flotilla of colourful vehicles transporting the race’s officials, VIPs and media.
I was covering the Tour for the Observer and Guardian this summer, so it seemed only appropriate to be chasing the pedal strokes of so many elite riders in a new Peugeot 3008 – a car that offers a ride as smooth as the bike pros making up the peloton.
Despite the frantic excitement of the most thrilling race in a generation, the French SUV remained composed, cool and unruffled. The car boasts so many driver aids and safety features that even during 4,500 miles of driving, I didn’t feel I truly got to grips with all of them. The 3008’s startlingly knowledgeable satnav didn’t put a foot wrong as it guided me to the right hotel each night and even helpfully alerted me to the fact that the Tour was in town and may cause disruption. Its search function also knew how to spell “nearby pizzeria”. It had a banging sound system, a relaxing cruise control for the many hours spent on the autoroute, and a merciful aircon for the 40C-plus days that baked the country. A chilled glove compartment for chocolate snacks became a life-saver.
Rising star: the Peugeot 3008 is put through its paces on a mountain pass.
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Rising star: the Peugeot 3008 is put through its paces on a mountain pass. Photograph: Pete Goding/The Observer
The original 3008 was a curious-looking crossover with a great cage of a grille that made it look like an ice-hockey goalkeeper. The new car is an altogether different beast. Its bold design and look-at-me paint job turned heads all along the route. Cycling is a sport obsessed with weight and this new model is 100kg lighter than the outgoing car – pro riders tend to measure weight loss in mere grams. Step inside and you’ll find a comfortable, roomy cabin with lashings of high-end electronic tech to take the schlepp out of even the longest trip – and I should know.
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Powering me up the mighty cols of the Alps and down the death-defying passes of the Pyrenees was an award-winning PSA turbo diesel – offering consumption of almost 70mpg and just 109g/km of CO2. With those kind of figures, I began to wonder if my ride might be using performance-enhancing drugs…
In many ways this year’s Tour belonged to French rider Julian Alaphilippe. His flair and pace initially left Team Ineos and their sports-bots scratching their heads in incomprehension. His early performances set the tone for an unpredictable Tour, of freakish heat and sudden storms and that most rare event, a possible French winner. Away from the race, there were other highlights: we had dinner by the Rhone under swaying lanterns, followed by a scare the next morning when the credit card was almost swallowed at a malfunctioning petrol pump. I always knew the tweezers in my Swiss Army knife would be handy one day…
High on the Col du Tourmalet, we worked until late in a windblown tent, writing Geraint Thomas’s epitaph and anticipating Thibaut Pinot’s coming of age, before descending through the hairpins behind a police convoy of flashing lights and burning rubber into the valley and just making dinner — cassoulet in case you wondered — at the foot of the Pyrenees. By the time we reached Uzes, it was hot enough to fry an egg on the bonnet. Heat exhaustion floored colleagues in the “press room” — a sweltering airless gymnasium in 43C heat — while Danish star Jakob Fuglsang’s broken hand reduced him to a wounded animal as he quit the Tour, sobbing uncontrollably.
The final major challenge came in the Alps. The race would be decided there, careers made and broken on the crucible of stress and fatigue that is the Tour’s final week. Yet the 3008 motored serenely on, even as I finally wilted.
Landslides and apocalyptic storms swept through the high passes, reminding me of the great laundry disaster of the 1996 Tour when I shunted the rear end of the Ouest France car in a blizzard and they couldn’t get their suitcases out of the boot for a week.
There was a long, lone, late-night drive, up and over the remote Col de Petit St Bernard, to my hotel in Italy, that tested both me and the Peugeot, but we got to the hotel intact. Exhausted, I slept like a baby with the window open, an overflowing mountain torrent raging in the ravine below. After that, it was almost all downhill, to Lyon, then Paris, and at last, the Champs Elysees. It was champagne for a wide-eyed Bernal, a very cold beer for red-eyed me – and a grateful pat on the bonnet for the trusty Peugeot.
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