You know the Tour de France is coming when…

…special adverts appear to promote goods and services linked to the race.

Here are three adverts, the first is in French, the second doesn’t involve much speech and the third is in Dutch. But don’t worry, you don’t need to understand the language to get the message. Be sure to watch to the end.

French Eurosport has Virenque and the Devil:


The South African Tour de France guide is ready:

Belgian TV promotes its high definition Tour broadcasts:

Note the a common themes, the use of humour and the juxtaposition of normal events with the animation of a bike race. It’s a point that you can repeat with other examples but there simply is no other bike race like the Tour de France, just look at the ad spend here. It might not be big budget stuff but it doesn’t happen for many other races.

19 thoughts on “You know the Tour de France is coming when…”

  1. Great choice of clips. Nice to see the range and geographical spread. The second one (LeTourRSA) is the funniest. Simple but effective.

    And picking up on MT Dave’s point, I’d really like more about TDF drinking games. Perhaps this is one just for the comments section, not necessarily the posts themselves? Some suggestions: commentators resorting to tired nicknames like ‘Ale-jet’ and ‘The Manx Missile’ or more general, catch all phrases such as ‘The little man with the big heart’, which is exclusively used to describe a plucky climber going full gas. ‘Street furniture’ is another one, only sprinkled into the commentary as the peloton approach the finish of a flat stage or (more rarely) during a time trial.

  2. re the Drinking games, if your watching British Eurosport you can have drinking games whenever they use the terminology “turning himself inside out” or “pedalling squares” thats a eurosport favorite.

  3. If you’d do a shot every time a decoration in a farmfield is shown on tv you would be facing acute Ricco-esque kidney failiure by the end of stage 3. 🙂

  4. Saw my first TdF tv ad tonight (for the SBS coverage in Australia). I was bouncing around the lounge room with excitement, while my wife and kids just looked at me with a confused look…

    “It’s just an ad, honey”… *lol* Oh, if only they knew… 😉

  5. Engine room to bridge; no more power available
    The little prince
    Taking command of the peleton
    Thanks boys, we’ll take it from here.. (as one of many teams moves to the front during a transition into the mountains…)
    Dancing on the pedals….
    (insert cheese/wine/bread…) is the specialty of the region and they’ve been making it in that shed over there for 3000 years. The same family. Magnificent…..

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