Former Cycling Weekly magazine editor, and now northern France resident, Andy Sutcliffe takes The Good Life France readers along for the ride as he focuses on this year’s Tour de France Grand Départ in Lille and shares everything you want to know about the Tour de France in Lille 2025.
Everything you want to know about the Tour de France in Lille 2025
In the nascent days of Channel 4, some bright spark decided it would be a great idea to acquire the rights to broadcast the Tour de France in the UK, with the channel airing a 30-minute-long stage highlights show each day. And to the executives bemusement viewing figures started healthily and then soared. Slightly stunned, they commissioned research to find out why this minor, in the UK, sport was capturing such a huge audience each evening.
France was the answer. Of course, cycling fans were tuning in. However, the research made clear, the vast majority of viewers had switched on to watch a French travelogue. The riders and the Tour itself were simply the vehicle that allowed non-cycling fan viewers to feast on a constantly changing backdrop of Alpine passes, Pyrenean plateaus, lavender and sunflower fields, vast pine forests, breathtaking coastlines, and all the other visual treats that France offers visitors and residents alike.
It’s Big, Very Big
Channel 4 had discovered what many people already knew. The Tour de France, mighty as it is as the sport’s most famous race, is one of those rare events that transcends its category. Put simply, it’s so much more than a bike race! Certainly, at the centre is an Olympian battle between the 184 participants, in 23 teams of eight. Of which, as they line up on the start line in Lille on July 5, perhaps only four or five have any hope of wearing the famed Maillot Jaune when the race finishes on the Champs-Élysées in Paris three weeks later.
Along the way, over the race’s 3,320km, the sport’s elite will conquer Europe’s highest mountain passes, battle with the vagaries of the weather, fight off extreme fatigue, dance with lady luck and, put starkly, try and stay focused on actually reaching Paris on July 27. And this is not hyperbole! When the peloton puts the hammer down, 184 riders hitting speeds of +50kph, far faster on mountain descents, the risk of crashing is very, very real.
Akin to a touring rock superstar, the riders are simply part of the show. Surrounding them is a huge entourage of team personnel, officials, sponsors, the famous – and bonkers – publicity caravan that precedes the race, with over 150 vehicles and itself taking up a rolling 10 kilometres each day. Plus a media scrum in the thousands.
You want more? Three hundred permanent Gendarmes. Another 28,000 police officers deployed along the route. Ambulances, doctors… an x-ray bus. Team cars, neutral service team cars, motorbike marshals… Oh, the irony! Cycling, that greenest of transport modes, surrounded by thousands of cars, motorbikes, vans, buses, helicopters and the rest!
Throw in spectators lining the roads in their millions each day. And over one billion watching on TV in 190 countries; 40 million French people alone watched last year’s event! You get the picture? It’s big. Very, very big. The world’s largest annual sporting event. But so much more because it takes place (mostly) in France and traverses an awful lot of this beautiful country.
The 2025 Grand Départ
And now in 2025 it’s the turn of Lille and the Hauts-de-France region to shine. ‘My’ region! Centred on a Grand Départ in Lille, stage one on July 5 takes the riders on a loop through the old mining region around Lens down to France’s largest military cemetery at Notre-Dame-De-Lorette, before heading north to the famous village of Cassel, the high spot of Flanders, and returning to Lille along the Belgian border.
Stage two takes the peloton from Lauwin-Planque, near Douai, land of the Geants, about 15km south of my home in Templeuve-en-Pévèle, west to Boulogne-sur-Mer. Along the way passing through Arras, Montreuil-sur-Mer, Étaples, home to the largest CWGC cemetery in France, and onto Boulogne.
Stage three starts in Valenciennes, best known for its lace industry, and meanders northwest back to the coast at Dunkirk. Passing five kilometres from my home, as it traverses a couple of sections of Paris-Roubaix pavé along the way, and another ascent of Mont Cassel; though truthfully, by Tour standards, to call anything in the region a ‘climb’ is slightly stretching the point.
History lesson
This is the fourth time that Lille has hosted the Tour’s Grand Départ. The last time was in 1994, to mark the opening of the new TGV/Eurostar station at Gare Lille Europe, when – fanfare – a friend of mine, Chris Boardman, won the opening prologue (short race against the clock) at a record speed, catching his ‘minute man’, the hapless Frenchman Luc Leblanc, in the process.
Watching Chris, as editor of Cycling Weekly, with my team, from our office in London, is a vivid memory for me. For a rider to catch the rider who set off one minute earlier than him over just 7.2 flat kilometres was literally unprecedented. I partied then and hopefully Lille will rise to occasion again in July.
Cue a Party!
It’s no exaggeration to say the Tour’s Grand Départ is a big deal. Towns and cities and countries (!) bid for the right to hold the opening stage. Bringing with it the guarantee of a huge boost to visitor numbers and the local economy; trebles all round for any hotels and hospitality businesses in the area. This year the teams will roll into town a few days before Saturday’s opening stage, possibly reconnoitring some of the route as the build-up starts.
First up is the opening on Thursday, July 3, of the three-day-long Fan Zone on Lille’s Place de la République. And that evening the fans get to see the riders for the first time. Starting on Grand’Place the teams will slowly ride a short circuit up to Gare Lille Flandres along Rue du Molinel and then back to Place du Théâtre, to be introduced on stage to the watching thousands. If the crowds at the recent Lille3000 ‘Fiesta’ parade are anything to go by, it’s going to be insane!
Predictions and Where to Watch?
Three short(ish), flat(ish) opening stages usually means two potential outcomes. A mass bunch sprint as the whole field
hurtles to the finish line, tailor-made for the pure sprinters; Britain’s Mark Cavendish being the most successful example. Or a long breakaway by a group of riders with no hope of the overall victory. Catching the main group sleeping and being just too far ahead when the peloton eventually wakes up and puts the pedal to the metal, so to speak. The latter being an example of how the Tour de France has long been fully aware of its commercial side. Whilst the team leaders will stay safely protected in the bunch, lesser riders – domestiques – will be ordered to sprint up the road; the lure of wall-to-wall TV coverage being crucial for the teams’ sponsors, and ultimately the teams’ survival.
Cycling fan or not, get yourselves to Lille this July. Watch Stage One’s start and finish in the city; following the race on the big screens at the Fan Zone. Head out to Cassel for a Flanders spectacle. Or make for the coast, catch the race at somewhere like Hardelot, or along the Opal Coast, then amble back to the beach and the seafood.
Or, be like Janine, The Good Life France’s editor. Sit in your garden and watch the race come through your village.
Jealous? Not a bit of it!
Looking for more information? Head to my fans’ website at: www.tourdelille.com
Andy Sutcliffe lives in Templeuve-en-Pévèle and teaches English at various colleges, universities and companies in Lille. He was formerly editor of Cycling Weekly. And launched Cycle Sport and Procycling magazines.
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