Better to arrive on time: the best places to follow the Tour in Catalonia

BarcelonaThe Tour de France advertising caravan is a carousel of 180 vehicles with commercial brands of all types and colors that travel the entire 21 stages of the race at 30 km/h, throwing products and gifts to the public waiting for the cyclists' arrival. All the vehicles together occupy 12 km of the route and a person in a fixed spot watches the show for 40 consecutive minutes. The caravan moves 700 people who, on top of all sorts of brightly decorated vehicles, warm up the public who wish to be part of it. Barcelona will experience from Saturday the first passage of the caravan 90 minutes before the start of the team time trial, which is 19.6 km, starting at Parc del Fòrum and ending in Montjuïc. First opportunity for the Slovenian Tadej Pogacar, four-time Tour winner, to wear the yellow leader's jersey. To see the cyclists in action in the city streets, you need to take into account road closures and use the metro to reach the section you want to see. There will also be different giant screens along the route. At the Fan Park, on Passeig Lluís Companys, and also in Montjuïc, between the Olympic Stadium and the Gardens of Ramon Margalef López.

Big party on Sunday and Monday stages

This year, cycling fans who want to watch Sunday's (Barcelona-Tarragona 168 km) and Monday's (Granollers - les Angles 196 km) stages online will have to change their approach because everything takes longer compared to a stage of the Volta Ciclista a Catalunya or La Vuelta. It should be noted that four and a half hours beforehand, access by vehicle is no longer possible as everything is closed.

The caravan arrives two hours before the cyclists and one hour before the promotional parade passes, it is also not possible to enter by bicycle or on foot. "Therefore, arriving by car, you can get there four and a half hours in advance, and by bicycle or on foot, three hours before," explains Carles Vallès, coordinator of sports events at the Barcelona Sports Institute. "If on Monday you want to go and see the ramps that the cyclists will climb after Toses station, which will be the steepest climb of the Tour in Catalonia, you have to move with enough time to be able to get there and know that you will have to wait a few hours".

To ensure the passage of the advertising caravan, which has quite tall vehicles, digital meters had to be used to know if the caravan could pass where it was planned without touching anything sensitive. “In Olesa de Bonesvalls, we found an electric cable catenary that had to be raised because it was below the four meters necessary for the caravan's passage,” comments Vallés.

Avoid long trips to see the Tour

We must favor the local spectator and the popular audience who can go near their town or within their own town, if they are lucky enough that the Tour passes through their home. The roads will be quite crowded as spectators approach the official Tour route.

A large part of the towns through which the race will pass on Sunday and Monday have been specially decorated for the occasion. In El Vendrell, next to the castellers monument, as the cyclists pass by, there will be a performance by cellist Mireia Camats which the international television signal plans to broadcast live. At this point, five large yellow bicycles have been installed as decorative elements.

At other times during the route there will be a batucada to create atmosphere and liven up the passage of the caravan and cyclists. Also in Puigcerdà, Molins de Rei and Santa Eugènia de Berga, different actions have been prepared for the passage of cyclists. In Torelló, in the Osona region, its name has been used to put up a poster to welcome the Tour: "06/07 the Tour passes through Tourelló". Semantic humor also reaches the French tour, and in the Tour de France shop in Plaça Catalunya in Barcelona there are tourvenirs, the merchandise of the race.