Tour de France hero: Jens Voigt

Jens Voigt: a Tour de France legend. Just don't take
his water bottles and lock up your bike

It is now only 24 hours until the Tour de France rolls out of Liège and I for one can’t wait.


You will no doubt get caught up in the excitement of Cavendish, Wiggins et al – and justifiably so. But, for me, some of the best stories happen away from the glare of the frontrunners. My favourite stories involve the same rider: Jens Voigt. A burly, eccentric German, he is often at the centre of the more bizarre incidents of the race. Here are my two favourites:


The child’s bike incident

Voigt crashed hard on Stage 16 of the 2010 race in a descent of the Col de Peyresourde. With the team cars long gone and his front tyre exploded, he fought hard to avoid the broom wagon (the vehicle which signals the cut-off point of the race and, ultimately, elimination).


Determined to finish the race (Voigt had crashed out of the year’s previous race), he had only one option: borrow a child's bike to ride the remaining 15km until he reached a spare one.

‘By the time you get up and your brain starts working again, I realised that all the team cars had passed me and there would be nobody there to help,’ a bemused Voigt said on completing the stage.

‘I think there is this children's program where they do part of the Tour de France stages. One of those cars came by and they gave me one of their bikes.’ For information, the bike was painted yellow and equipped with good old fashioned toe clips.

‘It was way too small for me, it didn't fit with my pedal system and it didn't really work the way I wanted it to work,’ Voigt said. ‘But it was something to move and I took the chance.’

Voigt went on to finish the stage – and the race.


The water carrier


Now everyone knows that one of the many jobs of a domestique is to distribute water to the rest of the team. This often leads to the ridiculous sight of a rider with bottles shoved everywhere on his person. Even Mark Cavendish was drafted into duty at the Tour of Qatar in February this year.

As a super domestique, Voigt is more used to this task than most. It is not surprising then that supporters often see him as an ideal man for a souvenir bottle to take away from a race. In fact, bottle collecting is becoming a sport in itself on the sidelines of bike races.


Praise then for Voigt. I’ll let him recount the story from Stage 19 of last year’s Tour where he took an over-zealous bottle collector to task whilst riding up Alpe d'Huez:


“With about three kilometers to go I emptied my last bottle and was looking for some kid to give it to. Finally, I saw a young boy standing with his daddy. I rode over to him and slowly and carefully aimed at the kid – not trying to hit him! I just wanted to drop the bottle at his feet so he could pick it up and have a nice souvenir. And that’s exactly what I did.

But then, to my total disbelief a middle-aged guy just tackles the kid like a defensive back in the Super Bowl! And then, while the poor kid tries to regain his balance, the man grabs the bottle and starts putting it away. I watched this and kept on riding, but I was just steaming in disappointment and anger – yes, anger!

So i thought, “No this is not going to happen!” Until then I was having a super day. I was feeling good. The sun was bright and it was just one of those moments when I was proud to be a professional cyclist. I just wasn’t going to let this guy spoil my day.

At that point I just decided to stop my bike, turn around and start rolling down the hill again. All these people on the side of the road are watching me in awe and silence. They were probably asking themselves, “Is Jens going to abandon? Is he injured? Why is he turning around in the final of a mountain stage?” But I was just looking for that man who tackled that little boy. All this time, the crowd remained silent, waiting for would happen next.

Finally, I saw the guy and stopped in front of him and just pointed at his bag and told him that the bottle he grabbed was for this kid standing next to him. Of course at that point he hands over that bottle and I get back on my bike again, and I have to admit I felt pretty good about it.

But then the crowd just erupted and I am sure that at this moment I was getting about as much applause as the guys in the front group with the yellow jersey.”

So, there you have it. Whilst you’re watching Cavendish break into another sprint, or Wiggins cover another attack in the mountains, remember that back in the main field there are people like Jens.


For me, it is guys like him that make the Tour de France the great spectacle that it is.