Significant milestones During a ride there are many things that appear at first glance insignificant but when taken as a whole make being in the saddle a unique experience – small details that we find both of no real importance and fascinating at the same time. When I go for a ride in the mountains around Nice I’m fascinated by the old milestones (les bornes in French) that I encounter by the roadside. Some of them are so old and weather-beaten they have clearly played witness to generations of Niçois riders passing by. Seeing one usually sets off a train of thought that keeps me occupied for kilometres. That may sound strange – but yes I do find myself thinking about a yellow-white painted stone for kilometre after kilometre! The locations listed on them are other people’s homes, lives and memories, something you don’t normally consider, but something I find a milestone can make me aware of. The bornes are of particular interest to me, with one of my favourites being located in La Redoute (in the hills – not to be confused with the Grand Col de la Redoute), it marks the very edge of the agglomeration that is Nice and the start of legendary roads leading to famous places such as Aspremont and Levens or Duranus and Saint Blaise. I even often find myself stopping to take a nice picture, which I’m sure gets me many odd looks from passing motorists. I often wonder about the riders that have cycled past in days gone by. How heavy were their bikes? How itchy were their jerseys? How basic were the road surfaces they were riding on? And how many more riders will these posts impart their knowledge to in the future? Many milestones have suffered through the years, and bit by bit they are being replaced by aluminium ones. These are of course much easier to maintain than the classic stones, and they won’t degrade in the same manner, but they do not have the same character at all. They somehow feel at odds with the meandering roads of the ‘arrière pays Niçois’. Fortunately for me (and milestone enthusiasts everywhere) the most characterful here were seemingly hewn out of especially tough Côte d’Azur-weather-resistant stone and give the impression of having a good many years left in them yet. If there are little things like this out on the road that interest you/cause your mind to wander, let me know in the comments section below-and make me feel a little bit less weird with my milepost love!

Lanterne rouge Last night Cheng Ji of the Giant-Shimano team went to sleep as the last-placed man in the Tour de France. He will spend today, the first rest day, still in last place, and wake up tomorrow and take the start line for stage 11 still in last. Ji is the lanterne rouge, the nickname for the last man in the Tour – only in the world's greatest stage race can a guy stay in last place for long enough to for there be a folklore and a cult around the loser. But wait a minute: are the last-placed men losers? In a Tour of 198 riders, only eight or 10 are aiming to win the yellow jersey… and maybe only three or four realistically have a chance. The other 190 or so men have different goals – winning the other jerseys, perhaps, or going for stage wins, or working for their team leader to achieve the team's goals. Cheng Ji isn't a loser. He's the first ever Chinese rider in the Tour de France, a pioneer from a population of 1.35 billion bike-riding people. He's also one of the key domestiques for Marcel Kittel, an integral part of the well-oiled machine that has launched the German sprinter to his three sprint stage wins so far. So for Ji the General Classification does not matter at all. Often the lanternes rouges are domestiques but they can also be sprinters, whose heavy muscles weigh them down in the mountains, debutants whose time at the right end of the peloton may yet come, or even victims of accidents, struggling on with injuries. In the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s some riders would engage in a race to be last: the lanterne rouge position had become famous (or infamous), and because the fans loved the underdog so much he would get invited to the post-Tour criteriums, where he could double his salary over two or three weeks of evening racing. These days, now that salaries are better and the post-Tour crit circuit has withered, riders don't pay the lanterne rouge the same regard. If they're in last place it's probably because they've had some bad luck, but they're determined to stay in the race, not to give up. They want to get to the end and join that select club of men who've finished the Tour de France. Their experience of the race is very different from the leaders – who are protected by their team and often only see the empty tarmac ahead of them – and their stories can be funny, sad, absurd and inspiring. So as the peloton get going again tomorrow, think of the unsung heroes of the Tour, and give Cheng Ji a cheer as he diligently makes his way to Paris.