Tour de France 2025

[SteveN]

I’ve really enjoyed the ITV coverage over the years a shame it won’t be on terrestrial TV

[Gareth]

Agree Steve, from the iconic tune, Imlach presenting and the commentators / pundits over the years Liggett, Sherwen, Millar, Boardman…even Ned are great

Hopefully they will find a way to get a highlight show at least on terrestrial nearer the time of next years tour

[frankmosswasmyuncle]

I’ve really enjoyed the ITV coverage over the years a shame it won’t be on terrestrial TV

This.

I've been away over the two weeks but set up the telly box to record ITV Highlights.... a binge fest for when I get home later today!

[TonyD]

It won’t be the same. 

[aj2k77]

Phil Liggett spend years sucking off and making up excuses and perpetuating Armstrong's lies. Imlach's voice is synonymous with The Tour, do they not have a highlights package?

I gave up watching it as a sporting spectacle years ago but still enjoy the scenery and the commentary as background noise sometimes.

[Meanwood Villa]

I heard Ned Boulting recently saying him and Millar are doing some sort of online broadcast that won't feature any race footage! It didn't sound like a terrestrial highlights package had been agreed yet.

My earliest TDF memories are the half hour C4 programme, straight after Blossom.

[aj2k77]

I started watching it when Miguel Indurain first started to dominate The Tour. I was only a child but disliked his riding style. As I got a bit older I wanted a climbing maverick to win against the odds. As Indurain started fading I was really behind Pantani and Virenque and loved they way they danced on the pedals. I got my first job, saved up and bought a, what was then, incredibly expensive Bianchi bike and then found anything with an uphill gradient to pretend I was Marco.

In 98 I booked 2 weeks off work to culminate with the last 2 weeks of The Tour and to sit at home every day and watch it on Eurosport from the start of each stage to the finish. Pantani had already won the Giro but Ullrich was a machine and a different beast to the likes of Tonkov that would race the Giros. My first day off started with Ullrich decimating the field in a time trial. Ok tour over.

A week later and I was watching one of my fondest sporting memories. It was bleak in England but the weather in the Alps was on another level. Torrential rain and fog a day after sunshine had turned the stage in to Les Deux Alpes a war of attrition. The weather was disrupting tv signals so the pictures were grainy and intermittently poor. Pantani attacked early and solo with a huge gap to make up on Ullrich. It was the days before GPS timing so nothing was ever totally clear and the moto bikes would show the estimated gap times on boards held by a passenger seated on the back of the bike. Ullrich cracked in the rain and time slipped away, not just from him but every other rider in the peleton. As Pantani clapped his hands over the top of his head, looking exhausted in triumph I had found my sporting hero.

As anyone who watches cycling knows the years that followed were a series of first rumours, then doping scandals, cynicism, disbelief and blind trust. Eventually everything came out in the wash and those feats that I saw in the mountains were shown not to be tests of how far the human could push their bodies against gravity but Dr Jekyll experiments with concoctions of drugs and chemicals pushing their natural bodies and talents in directions that they'd not normally be capable of.

I loved that period and you can't alter the feelings your memories give you but it did ruin Cycling forever for me after that. I do still have it sometimes on in the back ground, listening to the relaxing commentary like old acquantances on a radio show but I don't take any of it seriously or marvel at the exploits any more. The trust is gone. How can you stay married to a Wife that betrayed you?

I would like to see a home cyclist, a french Grimpeur finally end their drought though.

[Somniloquism]

I started watching it when Miguel Indurain first started to dominate The Tour. I was only a child but disliked his riding style. As I got a bit older I wanted a climbing maverick to win against the odds.

So about the same time as the Tashkent Terror was causing sprint chaos.

[Meanwood Villa]

That's my era too ajk and I love your description of that tour. I also disliked Indurain and one of my greatest sporting memories is Bjarne Riis leaving him for dead in the mountains. It was the first time Big Mig had ever shown weakness, the commentary "and Indurain is cracking" was tremendously exciting.

On the drugs front, Riis, Ullrich and, most famously, Pantani have all been proven to be cheats. Strangely I don't think Indurain has but you can't help thinking he must have been.

I never warmed to Armstrong even before the drugs stuff so I stopped watching for a lot of years. Loved British riders winning in the 2010s, never thought would happen in the 90s. Of course it seems like that era was probably quite fishy too. Despite all this, I can't help still liking Pantani and Wiggins.

[aj2k77]

I have probably read everything there has been written about Pantani. Taking my light blue and butter yellow tinted Bianchi spectacles off it's clear he was never really not fuelled by something from an early age. I can't unsee the attack on the Galibier though and he is my first love. Indurain worked with Conconi the pioneer of EPO, pretty conclusive. Riis, famously known as Mr 60%. The tired old excuse of everyone was cheating so we were all on a level playing field doesn't really wash. Money gained access to higher levels and more sophisticated methods and power gained immunity and turned the focus to others. As with all chemicals every human reacts differently to altering degrees to everything. There was no level playing field, the playing field was a cess pit.

On a brighter note, whenever my kids chalk on the paving in my back garden it always reminds me of the names chalked on the roads of The Tour and seeing DADDY, DADDY, DADDY is a nice reminder I'm one of their hero's

[Somniloquism]

That's my era too ajk and I love your description of that tour. I also disliked Indurain and one of my greatest sporting memories is Bjarne Riis leaving him for dead in the mountains. It was the first time Big Mig had ever shown weakness, the commentary "and Indurain is cracking" was tremendously exciting.

On the drugs front, Riis, Ullrich and, most famously, Pantani have all been proven to be cheats. Strangely I don't think Indurain has but you can't help thinking he must have been.

I never warmed to Armstrong even before the drugs stuff so I stopped watching for a lot of years. Loved British riders winning in the 2010s, never thought would happen in the 90s. Of course it seems like that era was probably quite fishy too. Despite all this, I can't help still liking Pantani and Wiggins.

Whilst not specifically mentioning Indurain, LeMond was vocal that the riders in the early 90s must have been on something as they were leaving him in the dust that year. Although Idurains tactics were to slaughter the time-trials and then defend the leads in the mountains without the need to actually win them so he might not have been, he did have definite cheaters he had to keep in contact with at least.

[AV82EC]

That's my era too ajk and I love your description of that tour. I also disliked Indurain and one of my greatest sporting memories is Bjarne Riis leaving him for dead in the mountains. It was the first time Big Mig had ever shown weakness, the commentary "and Indurain is cracking" was tremendously exciting.

On the drugs front, Riis, Ullrich and, most famously, Pantani have all been proven to be cheats. Strangely I don't think Indurain has but you can't help thinking he must have been.

I never warmed to Armstrong even before the drugs stuff so I stopped watching for a lot of years. Loved British riders winning in the 2010s, never thought would happen in the 90s. Of course it seems like that era was probably quite fishy too. Despite all this, I can't help still liking Pantani and Wiggins.

Whilst not specifically mentioning Indurain, LeMond was vocal that the riders in the early 90s must have been on something as they were leaving him in the dust that year. Although Idurains tactics were to slaughter the time-trials and then defend the leads in the mountains without the need to actually win them so he might not have been, he did have definite cheaters he had to keep in contact with at least.

Indurain = Wiggins (except Wighins wasn’t as good)

Froome much the better tour rider imv and Wiggins wouldn’t have won if Froome had been allowed to do his thing.

If we’re talking Tour memories though, that Roche comeback on Delgado up La Plagne was epic and a few Robert Millar mountain stage wins in the 80s were absolutely superb.

[UK Redsox]

Indurain was a physical freak, in terms of lung capacity

As for Abdu. He was great to watch. Drugged up and bonkers, but entertaining.

Sprint rules are a lot tighter this days

[UK Redsox]

I heard Ned Boulting recently saying him and Millar are doing some sort of online broadcast that won't feature any race footage! It didn't sound like a terrestrial highlights package had been agreed yet.

My earliest TDF memories are the half hour C4 programme, straight after Blossom.

In one of my posts lost to the server move, I mentioned that I thought I heard Imlach early in the tour that he was retiring.
I don't know what other presenting he does other than the TdF. Does he have a radio show somewhere ?

Hopefully Millar will move to the TNT coverage.

I'm not a fan of Ned's style of commentary, so won't miss him.

Matt and Dan are journalists/authors, so they should be OK