JOURNAL

With crowds back at the Tour, Kate Wagner joined those on the roadside

Image: Jered Gruber.

The mood at the base of the Côte de la Fosse aux Loups, the final climb of the 2021Tour’s first stage, is electric. Whenever anything passes by, be it the police on motorcycles or an advertising float for olive oil, something sizzles and sparks in the crowd, most of whom are clad in those cheesy Leclerc polka dot shirts. Everyone is happy, thrilled to be here waiting, together after so long. Breton flags dangle and mingle with cutouts of yellow jerseys strung from roof to roof. Children in bucket hats stumble about on the hillside. People put away their umbrellas, staples of the unstable Breton weather, the mottled sky still threatening rain. Around the curve at the base of the climb is a stone berm, massive; behind it, cloistered, is the hotel where Alpecin-Fenix are staying. Down that road - lined with people, throngs of them, young, old, travellers and natives, sober and drunk - is Landerneau, pretty and neat along the river, pastel-painted windows and moody slate-roof stone chateaux, architecture piled on top of itself.