It’s a hotchpotch of English, French, Italian and Dutch expressions that will confound the unsuspecting channel surfer who stumbles upon one of the three major professional Grand Tours.

Fortunately, Tour de France coverage on ITV4 has broadcaster-turned-cycling-scholar Ned Boulting and four-time Tour de France stage winner David Millar spelling out the intricate action in layman’s terms.

Tune into their commentary long enough and the race (and all those races within the race) – once obscured by the vivid blur of the peloton – will come into sharp focus. I’m guessing you already know what peloton means thanks to those smug exercise bike adverts, but you’ll soon learn your GC contenders from your domestiques, and your breakaways from your grupettos. 

You’ll probably need the primer for their podcast, Never Strays Far, hosted by Boulting and Millar alongside another former pro, Pete Kennaugh, who used to ride for Team Sky. While they’re covering a stage race like the Tour, they publish a daily post-race debrief. Although casual, this tends to assume some knowledge.

But once you’re in the know, it’s a fun listen, full of hipster takes and wild digressions concerning life on Le Tour. One second, they’ll be questioning whether the King of the Mountains jersey (the spotty one won by the best mountain climber) is redundant in “the era of the Pog” (Pog being Tadej Pogačar, a rider so dominant he can beat pure climbers at their own game while still winning the overall race). The next, they’ll be unpacking the strange lunches dished out to the press: apparently, once a week, the Tour organisers “roll out the whelks.”

The idea is that conversation “never strays far” from bike racing. Digressions are built into the title just as the sport “fits within the real world”, said Boulting on announcing their mission statement for the podcast in 2019. Perhaps this is more so than any other sport, added Millar, given that it isn’t “confined to stadia”, and thus sparks conversation about the wider histories and cultures of the many places it visits.

In fact, pro cycling resists easy delineation in almost every aspect. For stage 18, Boulting took listeners behind the scenes of ITV’s live coverage with an audio tour of their OB truck. One of the most difficult jobs, we hear, is choosing when to cut to an ad break. The racing is so unpredictable there’s often no “right moment” to cut. 

I can imagine a lot of non-cycling fans baulking at listening to yet more commentary after a five-hour stage. But it’s this very length and flux which means that, no matter how extensive the camera coverage or perceptive the real-time commentary (and Boulting and Millar are very perceptive), the big picture only reveals itself in retrospect. Or in a podcast like Never Strays Far.