Blood, sweat and gears: a dummy’s guide to Tour de France lingo

Tour de France: a HC climb, or "hors catégorie"

As promised, here’s my cut-out-and-keep dummy’s guide to Tour de France lingo, 30 essential words and phrases to have beside you while watching this year’s race.

1. à bloc – going all out, riding as hard as you possibly can, giving it a lot of welly
2. autobus, un – no, not the 6.30 from Parnell Square to Monasterevin but the large group of stragglers, also-rans and domestiques (see below) who are riding behind the peloton (see below) but who stick together to beat the elimination time and have much more camaraderie and crack (as in fun, not banned substances)
3. bidon, un – water bottle
4. cadence, la – pedalling rhythm, with musical overtones
5. (en) chasse patate – riding between two groups. Literally, chasing spuds, or a potato hunt
6. classement, le – standings
7. comportement incorrect, le – taking a leak where lots of people can see you, and ending up with a fine
8. contre-la-montre, le – time trial (“against the clock”, or literally against the watch)
9. course par étapes, une – stage race
10. course, une – race
11. cycliste, un – rider, cyclist
12. départ fictif, le – a rolling start, without racing. The real start, le départ réel, is announced when the Tour director lad waves his white flag
13. dépasser – to overtake
14. domestique, un – support rider (literally a servant – as in “Me granny was a domestic”)
15. échappé, un – breakaway (literally escape)
16. echelon, un – a line of riders seeking maximum drafting in a crosswind, resulting in a diagonal line across the road. It’s a technical term
17. équipe, une – team (L’Équipe is also the brilliant French sports newspaper, whose predecessor l’Auto came up with the race back in 1905)
18. flamme rouge, la – the red triangle marker, a kilometre from the finish
19. hors catégorie, or HC – (a climb which is) beyond classification, extremely difficult, “a right hoor of a category of a ride  altogether”. Most climbs are designated from Category 1 (hardest) to Category 4 (easiest), based on both steepness and length
20. lanterne rouge, la – last rider. Literally a “red lantern” at the end of a railway train. For some years the organisers experimented with sending home the lanterne rouge every day, to encourage more competition among the other lanternes
21. maillot à pois, le – polka dot jersey (worn by best climber, the “king of the mountains”)
22. maillot blanc, le – white jersey (worn by best rider under 25 on 1 January that year)
23. maillot jaune, le – yellow jersey (worn by overall leader – the rider with the least elapsed time the previous day gets the yellow jersey)
24. maillot vert, le – green jersey (worn by leader in points / best sprinter). Sometimes you’d wonder whether there’s a maillot for every colour in the rainbow
25. peloton, le – the pack, the main bunch near the front of the race. Deserves a full page of an explanation in itself
26. pneu crevé, le – the flat (tyre, not apartment)
27. prix de la combativité, le – yet another jersey, going to the rider who most animates the day, usually by trying to break clear of the field. The most combative rider wears a number printed white-on-red instead of black-on-white next day. But it’s a bit of a poison chalice: since 1981, no rider who got this prize went on to win the Tour
28. soigneur, un – rider’s assistant
29. tête de course, la – leader, literally “head of the race” – the leading cyclist or group of cyclists, when separated off from the rest of the peloton
30. Tour de France, le – literally, the tour of France. Not la Tour, which would mean “tower”

“I really gave it all in the last kilometres, although I didn’t think it was possible until I crossed the line. I just went ‘à bloc’ “
- Alexander “positive homologous blood transfusion test” Vinokourov, describing his win of the final stage of the 2005 Tour