Stopping Le Tour Becoming Le Bore

Amidst all the euphoria and tub-thumping following Bradley Wiggins’ emphatic victory in the world’s toughest sporting event, let’s not lose sight of one important thing – the 2012 Tour de France was one of the most boring ever.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m as joyous as the next overweight, sweaty MAMIL at Team Sky’s success. I just wish they hadn’t been able to crush the opposition quite so mercilessly.

But the fact is their seemingly bottomless pockets – they even took a helicopter between stages 18 and 19 instead of the train like everyone else – gave them such an advantage over the opposition it was a bit like watching Barcelona v Accrington Stanley for 21 consecutive days. Exactly.

David Millar summed it up perfectly when he opened his hotel curtains one morning to find the Team Sky bus parked outside and called it “The Deathstar”.

Only Thomas Voeckler’s dogged pursuit of the Mountains jersey, the Phantom Tack Thrower and Chris Froome’s apparent barney with his team leader at the end of the final Pyrenean stage stopped Le Tour from being consigned to history as Le Bore.

So here are five ways to make future Tours more exciting, no matter how great the financial disparity between teams:

1.  Most Combative Rider

Instead of just throwing their empty bidons to the side of the road, riders will be encouraged to use them as missiles aimed at any spectators wearing a Borat-style mankini. Time bonuses of one minute, 45 and 30 seconds will be awarded respectively for direct hits to the head, genitals or torso.

2.  Intermediate Banana Tag

This will replace the Intermediate Sprint. All riders will be obliged to carry a banana in their back pocket from the start of each stage. At a clearly marked part of the route, riders will compete to nab as many bananas from their rivals’ pockets as possible. The Banana Tag Zone would typically be a two-km stretch of road. Each banana would be worth 50 points towards the Green jersey, but ONLY if they remain intact and uneaten all the way to the stage finish.

3.  Gurners and Tweeters Jerseys.

These two new classifications will see points awarded based on the quality of gurning and tweeting during a stage. Any rider who can pull a more comical face than either Thomas Voeckler or Chris Anker Sorenson will be awarded a one-minute time bonus at the end of each day’s stage.

The Tweeter’s Jersey, also carrying a daily one-minute time bonus, will be awarded to the rider who manages to post the most tweets from their bikes during a stage. Mark Cavendish, David Millar and Jens Voigt are already early favourites to win this classification.

4. Mountain Stages

Rich teams like Sky gain a massive advantage by being able to carry out detailed recces of key stages once the route has been announced. To level the playing field, the exact profile of each mountain stage will only be released the night before.

Furthermore, to prevent unauthorized leaks, the profiles of these stages will be generated randomly, based on the previous day’s graph for the Footsie 100 Index or – in the case of largely downhill stages – the minute-by-minute TV ratings for the previous day’s edition of Loose Women.

5. Team Cars

The order of team cars following the peloton will no longer be decided by the teams’ points totals. Instead, it will be decided by a giant game of charades between all directeurs sportifs the night before each stage.

6. Feed Zones

Rich teams like Sky have the edge over rivals with the quality of the energy gels and rehydration drinks they can provide. In a bid to make the situation fairer, Feed Zones will be scrapped. Instead, riders will be expected to stock up with whatever they can smuggle out of their hotel’s breakfast buffet each morning.

Your thoughts…

What do you think?  Has Le Tour become Le Bore?  How could it be made more exciting?  Let us know…..