TOUR DE FRANCE 2018
IN PICTURES
Being on the Tour de France with a team is a bit like being on the road with a band. The non-stop travel, the routine, living out of a suitcase, and countless nights in hotels, all punctuated with moments of excitement.
It can break you and at the very least test you. Each day you average 16 to 18 hours of working. It’s beautiful, challenging, bonkers, horrible and at times even rather wonderful. For a photographer it’s one of the most difficult races on the calendar to shoot due to the logistics of its sheer size. But it’s the pinnacle of our sport. It’s our Glastonbury.
I’ve completed seven Tours now, having first started at the race as Bradley Wiggins’s photographer in 2010. Back then, I was completely clueless but still managed to put together our ‘indie’ black and white book, OnTour. Then I got to experience the race in 2012, a high that will never be repeated, when Bradley won. In 2014, I nearly flew home from the race early as I was struggling. Then in 2016 it was incredible again. I was back at the race as Mark Cavendish’s personal photographer, and saw up close his success as he won four stages. I had shot him all year and knew how hard he had worked for it.
And here we are at the race in 2018. The trip for me this year was actually really enjoyable, even if it was less so for my then team Dimension Data, despite the great efforts they put in.
Some days your head is in the clouds and when you get the shot, it’s like winning a stage.
Here are some of my favourite images from last year’s race.Vive le Tour, Vive la République, Vive la France. 1. One stage completed for Mark Cavendish as the Tour gets underway in the Vendée
2. As the race passed through Brittany in the irst week, the Gwenn-ha-du lag was lown high and proud 3. Edvald Boasson Hagen, sporting the professional cyclist’s curious array of tan lines, enjoys a moment of peace 4. Caked in dirt, Romain Bardet slumps against barriers after a particularly trying day on the stage 9 Roubaix cobbles 5. Washing away the e fects of a day in the saddle
6. Cavendish refuses to quit, and rides the lonely road to the top of La Rosière despite missing the time cut 7. The Tour’s alternative Kings of the Mountains; the fans who patiently wait on the roadside 8. Steven Kruijswijk fends of the fans and la re sand tries to hold of the chasing rider son Al p ed’ Huez 9. Nairo Quintana salvages his Tour de France with a solo stage win on the 65km day that ended on the Col du Portet 10. Geraint Thomas, in the maillot jaune, on Alpe d’Huez and on his way to winning back-to-back mountain-top stages 11. The hotel room provides a moment of sanctuary for riders, like Dimension Data’s Julien Vermote 12. Bardet steps onto his bike ahead of the Tour’s last big test; the stage 20 time trial in Espelette