VOIRON, France — Last week, my colleague Jonny Long from Escape Collective (EC) remarked that he speaks to more old people at the Tour de France than he does the whole rest of the year. It's true, and not altogether surprising: France has an aging population, so they have old guys, and cycling's culture is one of reverence for the legends of yore, so the old guys are here. Tour crowds aren't monolithic—I find myself pantomiming French toward all manner of locals and tourists alike—yet they skew white, Western European, and older.
But really, "old guys" is too narrow a descriptor. What defines the crowds here at the Tour is more the omnipresence and internal diversity of the uncs on display. We got uncs watching the race from the roadside, uncs strolling around with VIP passes, uncs gathering at the start to stare at the bikes, open-mouthed, with hands clasped behind their back like umarells. The press corps is largely composed of unc-type individuals. As I write this from the press room near the finish of Stage 17, I see the strange German reporter who exclusively asks terrible questions and exclusively wears capris and rhinestone-bedazzled shirts; the evil Italian TV guy who does Julius Randle moves while trying to box people out of press scrums; and the two Spanish reporters who keep falling asleep, to the delight of the rest of the Spanish press corps. If you want to know what sorts of people flock to the Tour de France, know the uncs.
I am now going tell you about some of my favorites, in the order I encountered them. For organizational purposes, I find it useful to judge our subjects on four axes: the Sunburn Index, Severity of Frenchness, the Indifference Quotient, and Poison Binary. All scores are out of seven, and are self-explanatory, except maybe the last one though it's a binary so you can probably figure it out. Allez.
Reclining Unc - Barcelona
Photo by the author
I encountered this guy on the first day of the race, and I knew I needed to see what his deal was the second I saw him. Most fans who flock to the side of the road are either in the camping-style chairs seen unc-left here or they're simply sitting or laying on the ground until, hours later, the race comes by for like 15 seconds. Not this guy. He had a whole-ass armchair. We were at the top of Montjuïc, which means he either found and occupied the chair like a hermit crab or he hauled it up there. I asked him what his deal was, and it turns out he's a Dutch VIP who runs a company that sponsors the Alpecin team. He was also wearing an orange Boston Red Sox hat.
Sunburn Index: 1. He was sitting in the shade and wearing, again, an orange Red Sox hat.
Severity of Frenchness: 4. Though Dutch, I found him quite French in his bearing and attitude.
Indifference Quotient: 2. You don't go through the trouble of rigging up an armchair situation if you don't care, though he did have his eyes closed for a while.
Poison Binary: No.
Poison-Sipping Unc - Granollers
Before the start of Stage 3 in Granollers, at like 11:30 a.m., I was all hot and tired, so I dipped out of team-paddock hobnobbing to get an espresso at a rundown corner snack bar. Next to me was a man in a cutoff t-shirt, with distinct unc-pattern baldness (receding airline, white ponytail), and a cup of mysterious green liquid in his hand. Again, I had to talk to this guy. There are three iron laws I abide by here at the Tour: If I see a cable car, gondola, or any similar conveyance, I'm getting on it; if I have access to a body of water, I'm splashing; and if I see a Weird Guy, I'm figuring out what their deal is.
Turns out this guy lived in the apartment block in Granollers that happened to be right next to the start of the Tour. There were thousands milling around the starting zone, braving inhospitable temperatures and road closures to catch tiny glimpses of indifferent riders, and also this guy, who didn't care. Was he having fun, I asked him in Spanish? Eh. Did he like the Tour? No. Was it annoying to have all these people around? No, whatever. What was he drinking? [Answer unclear, as he beckoned for a refill.] I said goodbye to him and he reacted like I told him some mild bad news.
Sunburn Index: 6. Exhibited classic faux-leather texture.
Severity of Frenchness: 5.
Indifference Quotient: 7. The epitome of the form.
Poison Binary: Yes, that was basically his whole thing.
Generous Roadside Unc - Somewhere Between Carcassone And Foix
Though I only saw this unc for five or so seconds, he left a big impression.
It was Stage 4, the hottest of the race. I was in the navigator's seat as we drove the course, which we chose to do because making it to the start was logistically impossible. To get something out of the first part of the day, we drove on the course for 50 kilometers, just to see what roads the riders would tackle and check out the vibes. The vibes were primarily brought by a mischevious-looking unc sitting in a decrepit camp chair by the side of the road. In many ways, he's the archetype upon which most derivative uncs are based. He was shirtless, the proud owner of a generous, well-tanned belly. Even driving past him, we could sense his aura of bonhomie, in part because his face seemed grooved by grin lines, and in part because he waved a bottle of red wine at us and invited us to take a pull. One can imagine this guy experiencing perfect contentment beneath the leaves of a scrubby poplar, and wanting to share it.
Sunburn Index: 7.
Severity of Frenchness: 6. Usually they aren't that funny.
Indifference Quotient: 2. He was jovial, but also you can't get a 1 if you're chilling in a totally unremarkable part of the course.
Poison Binary: Yes.
Hustling Unc Duo - Ussel
I have mentioned the diagonal of the void. For us, Stage 9 was also a diagonal of the boys, by which I mean that EC's Iain Treloar landed a precious spot in the cauliflower float in the caravan, so Jonny and I were the only two to man the car that day. We drove from the town of Malemort (a bad town) to the town of Ussel (another bad town) and, upon arrival, were greeted by two guys in orange vests who were stopping every car that passed into town and appearing to hand them something.
Driving at the Tour means following directions from every single one of the 10,000 gendarmes posted at every intersection, helpfully giving you instructions that basically all amount to Keep driving the car. The organizers of the Tour often treat those following it like children, sending us dozens of WhatsApp messages every day that amount to the logistical equivalent of Keep driving the car. You just kind of have to accept that a bunch of people in various uniforms are going to tell you to do stuff.
That's not who these guys were, though they were canny enough to present as such. Their tactic was to hand you a pair of flags, French and European Union, and a cookie, then demand payment and feign incredulity when you refused to pay for all that trash. Any car at the Tour is already inundated with trash; why pay for more? We told these guys to fuck off.
Sunburn Index: 3.
Severity of Frenchness: 3.
Indifference Quotient: 3. While indifferent to the race, they did know enough to figure out where the best bottleneck was.
Poison Binary: Yes.
Caley Fretz, Editor-In-Chief Of Escape Collective - France (General)
This guy handled all the logistics for all of July for our crew of four, then three, then four, then three again, then four again, then six, and now five, our final number unless something disastrous happens. One might wonder, why has the size of group changed so often in just 17 days of racing? To give a partial answer to that question, look to the second time we became three. That was when we drove across the diagonal, a barren stretch that Caley smartly abandoned us for, so he could go camping with his family in the south of France. He just so happened to rejoin the crew when we spent a night in a "nice" hotel. Convenient!
Sunburn Index: 4. Not his fault, he's just "like that."
Severity of Frenchness: 4. He used to live in Annecy!
Indifference Quotient: 1. He knows ball at a crazy level.
Poison Binary: No.