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The weird and wonderful places to have hosted a Grand Tour stage
Stage 6 of the 2024 Vuelta a España began inside a Carrefour supermarket. Green jersey Wout van Aert and race leader Primož Roglič lined up by the checkouts with the smell of the butcher’s counter and vegetable aisle still in the air. Yes, the French supermarket chain sponsors the race, however, the choice of a southern Spanish supermarket feels very bizarre.
That’s not the only wacky stage location at the 2024 Vuelta. The riders are still to visit a business park on Stage 10 and a telecommunications office on the final day’s time-trial. Grand Tours don’t shy away from making rogue visits to niche local landmarks.
The 2015 Vuelta started with a neutralised team time-trial on a beach promenade, Mark Cavendish won a 2016 Tour de France stage at a bird sanctuary, and the Giro d’Italia visited the home of San Pellegrino sparkling water in 2011.
All three Grand Tours have beaten vineyard tours, motorsports tracks and royal castles to death. UNESCO World Heritage sites have had the pleasure of hosting these races from Mont Saint Michel to St Peter’s Square. Although it was strange to see the Giro start in Denmark, and equally in the holy city of Jerusalem, this list will honour the wackiest and strangest places to have held a Grand Tour stage.
Disneyland (Tour de France)
The 1994 Tour de France concluded with a stage from Disneyland Paris to the Champs Élysées. The race also returned for two stages in 1997 to mark the fifth anniversary of the park.
The theme park was described as ‘cultural Chernobyl’ by Parisian critic Ariane Mnouchkine. To counter the negative impact of the European franchise of Disneyland, the unapologetically French Tour came to town. Or at least, to the newly built Main Street USA in the park. It also gave the park some important TV time to advertise the latest Disney attraction. Given that we got shots of Miguel Induráin with Minnie Mouse, it was most likely worth it.
Mickey Mouse came out for the flag drop and wished the riders all the best on their final journey to Paris. With the 50m-tall Sleeping Beauty Castle in sight, the Tour de France never felt less French. Why have a real château when you can have the fake one Walt Disney built?
Don’t worry, Mickey and Minnie returned to the Tour in the mid-2000s with their own floats in the publicity caravan. They have not been seen at the race since.
EuroTunnel (Tour de France)
The 1994 Tour de France was all about celebrating the big redevelopment efforts around Lille and northern France. The opening prologue started and indeed finished outside the Euralille shopping centre, now run by Australian conglomerate Westfield. Very un-French if you ask me.
Stage 3 of the 1994 race took the peloton to another landmark of the modern age, the EuroTunnel. To honour the construction of the cross-Channel connection between France and the UK, the Tour de France headed to the transit station for a team time-trial.
If you’ve ever been to the EuroTunnel, you’ll be aware of how bleak it is. A sad lagoon of concrete and electricity wires, the train terminal was hardly chosen for its natural beauty. However, the site was included to mark the opening of the tunnel earlier that year. Perhaps this was a symbolic gesture given that the following two stages ventured north to British shores.
To this day, this is the only stage to have ever taken place at the EuroTunnel terminal. The race against the clock was won by Johan Museeuw’s GB-MG Maglificio-Bianchi team. In 2014, Team Sky did a promotional stunt in which Chris Froome rode from the UK to France through the tunnel. However, there has sadly been no suggestion of this being added to the Tour’s parcours. A great shame for railway enthusiasts the world over.
El Pozo ham factory (Vuelta a España)
One of the more recent races to be included on this list, the 2017 Vuelta a España appeased its sponsors by finishing a stage outside a ham factory. Yes, El Pozo, the official charcuterie provider of the Spanish race, hosted the arrival of Stage 10.
On the day, Matteo Trentin was a cut above and took the stage win ahead of Grand Tour stalwart José Joaquín Rojas. Sadly, no interviewer interrogated Trentin on the significance of winning in the shadow of the ham factory. We’ll never know what it smelt like, sounded like or even whether there were extra slices of jamón provided at the post-race press conference. That said, Trentin did describe the day as a ‘steady grind’. He really missed the chance to call it a ‘meaty day’.
Venice’s canals (Giro d’Italia)
Venice has rarely held the Giro d’Italia. Looking at a map, it’s easy to understand why. The city is spread across an archipelago with small canals and bridges cutting across the islands. As one of Italy’s most popular tourist attractions, it was only a matter of time until the Giro pulled off a stunt in the city.
In 1978, the race headed for the floating city. On Stage 14 of the Giro, a 12km time-trial was organised throughout the city of Venice with a grand arrival at the Piazza San Marco under the iconic Campanile.
The race organiser Vincenzo Torriani was very adamant about having Venice on the route. The short course around the city required a lot of temporary roads and ramps to be built. Four existing bridges required ramps to allow riders to cross the canals. In order to tackle the big watery obstacle of Venice’s biggest canal, a 200m-long floating road was propped on the Grand Canal. The bridge looked pretty sketchy – particularly in the wet conditions that day. However, this pontoon allowed the race to cross the canal and make it to the final straight at the Piazza San Marco.
Aircraft carrier (Vuelta a España)
The 2014 Vuelta a España started right in the south of the country. On Stage 3, the race set out from Cadiz. Rather, they set out from the Juan Carlos I aircraft carrier.
The ship, which cost an eyewatering €462 million, was used by the Vuelta to celebrate the Spanish Navy. Before the stage started, the riders played around on the 202-metre-long deck. Some got to sit inside fighter jets while others marvelled at the bonkers nature of this unique stage setting. With its high-tech capabilities, the riders popped up onto the top deck on a hydraulic platform to sign on and perform pre-race interviews and photos.
We also finally got the chance to see Alejandro Valverde have his Top Gun moment in the cockpit of a fighter jet, while Alberto Contador was seen wearing a sailor’s hat before the race. Only the Vuelta could pull this off.
The Titanic Museum (Giro d’Italia)
To mark the start of the 2014 Giro d’Italia – and the first pro bike race in the north of Ireland – the Italian race headed to Belfast’s Titanic Quarter. As grand as it sounds, the stage began outside the multi-million dollar Titanic Museum built at the beginning of the 2010s. Lightly put, the museum is a Hollywood memorialisation of a massive shipping disaster.
Perhaps my own distaste for the museum might be shining through, but the choice of starting the race by the Titanic Museum feels rather odd. You could argue that this sets a strange precedent for more Grand Tour stages to begin outside museums dedicated to disasters.
Also, it felt strange that, for one day, cycling and the Titanic mixed in the same circles. Commentators were left to scramble for facts behind the ‘unsinkable ship’ and the Hollywood-driven fame it became known for. 102 years after the Titanic sank, it was getting name-dropped left, right and centre courtesy of an Italian bike race.
I haven’t even mentioned the elephant in the room. Why was the Giro d’Italia even in Belfast? Italy is 1500km away. Catch yourself on.
Ford car factory (Vuelta a España)
Now, the Vuelta recently visited a ham factory. However, this is not the Vuelta’s first rodeo at an industrial finish. No, not at all.
Stage 15 of the 2006 Vuelta a España opted for a less rogue but less logical stage arrival at a Ford factory on the outskirts of Valencia. This is no mere factory, this is Ford’s biggest manufacturing complex outside of the United States. I’m sure there’s a joke to be made about motor doping here somewhere.
The factory, which has a production capacity of 450,000 cars per year, hosted a fierce sprint finale won by Gerolsteiner’s Robert Förster. Shockingly, this was not the first time the Vuelta visited the factory. The race visited in 2004 and was passed by during a prologue in the 1983 edition of the Spanish Grand Tour. They’re proud of that factory alright.
Toulouse Airport runway (Tour de France)
We have seen a few Tour stages finish on luxurious runways in the mountains. The well-trodden finishes to Peyregudes, Megève and Mende have all adapted runways into the final approach to the line. This is usually for convenience and parking rather than symbolic intent.
However, at the 2003 Tour de France, the race decided to honour the pink city of Toulouse’s aviation heritage. Toulouse is the seat of Airbus, one of the world’s biggest plane manufacturers. The city also hosted a stage start from France’s national space centre, the Cité de l’Espace.
That said, on Stage 11 of the 2003 race, the Tour headed for Toulouse-Montaudran Airport, Toulouse’s former flagship airport. Air France used to fly from Montaudran to Buenos Aires, Casablanca and nearby Barcelona. These glamorous locations were replaced by the arrival of a Tour stage. Oddly enough, Arnold Schwarzenegger was among the spectators on the roadside that day.
Juan Antonio Flecha took the win, the only of his long career. Flecha might have cursed the airport, however. It closed later in 2003 and has now been redeveloped into a new neighbourhood of the city that features an aviation museum, an animatronic exhibition and a very large Leclerc supermarket. Oh, how things change.
A cathedral (Vuelta a España)
The 2021 Vuelta kicked off in Burgos. In a race that finished in the pilgrimage city of Santiago de Compostella, it felt fitting that the race would start in a holy setting. This was taken all too literally with a time-trial ramp built inside Burgos’ Cathedral.
It might be a stretch to say that the race started inside the cathedral as the course opened up from its doorway instead of inside of brushing past the pues and confession box like organisers suggested before the race. The riders, therefore, set out from the cathedral for a short time-trial around the city. The Vuelta really missed the chance to play the time-trial countdown tones on the cathedral’s organs or bells.
The victory ceremonies were also conducted on the stairs of the cathedral, just as the final stage’s podium would soon appear in Santiago. A full circle moment for the Spanish three-weeker.
Warner Bros Park Madrid (Vuelta a España)
As you may have noticed, theme park stages pique my interest. The Tour’s visits to theme parks – Disneyland as well as Futuroscope, Puy du Fou, and volcano-themed Vulcania – are not in Grand Tour isolation. The Parque Warner Madrid in San Martín de la Vega hosted two stages of the Vuelta back in 2002.
After a successful visit to the Universal Studios in Port Aventura the year before, the Vuelta took on the mantle of embracing the galore of the garish American-styled theme park once again for the 2002 race. Judging from Grand Tours, it was all the rage to visit theme parks in the 1990s and early 2000s.
Nevertheless, the Vuelta rolled into Warner Bros Park for the penultimate stage finale of the 2002 edition. In a sprint, Angelo Furlan took the Looney Tunes-themed park. The rollercoasters must have been good because the race came back to the Warner Bros Park the day after for a time-trial roll-out. To add to the thrills, the final stage ended on a red carpet inside Real Madrid’s Bernabeu stadium. From Donald Duck to Zinedine Zidane.
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