Gallery
Clearing Out the Gap
The race referees have a number of different functions as the peloton rolls along French roads for the first time in the 101st Tour de France. When the time gap between riders falls below a minute he will call all of the vehicles out of the gap between the racers. This is done to prevent those behind having an unfair advantage, drafting off of the cars and motorcycles, using them to get up to the man ahead. I was taken with the apparent fearlessness of the referee as he stood on the pegs of the motorcycle to better signal the drivers in the gap. For the bike racer up front, it is always discouraging to suddenly see all of the cars zipping by. Thomas Voeckler (Europcar) had last seen the peloton 140 kilometers ago, he would have preferred to have never seen them again.