“Quel est l’écart?” – what’s the gap? Dorian Godon asks the driver of the broom wagon, the last vehicle on the Tour de France route, essentially the peloton’s backstop. Fall behind it and you’re out.

“Six minutes,” Stéphane Bezault, the man who drives the Tour’s most feared vehicle, replies. Godon bows his head. He takes another bidon from Bezault, drinks a splash of it, and pours the rest over his head. It’s only 19°C, nothing like the infernal heat of week one, but he’s suffering like a dog.

Godon’s still got 15km left to the top of the Col du Galibier, one of cycling’s hardest and highest climbs. And he’s bereft of support from his Netcompany-Ineos teammates. He’s got a mountain to climb – literally and metaphorically. His Tour de France participation is so cruelly hanging in the balance – on the penultimate stage.

But he’s not alone. Luigi from Super Mario pushes him up the 8% gradients for 50 metres. Ditto a man dressed head to toe in polka dot. Three young men dressed in hot pants follow suit. Likewise three young men dressed far less revealingly.

This is Godon’s solo battle against the broom wagon, but the tens of thousands of fans by the roadside, many of whom recognise Godon for being the French champion until just one month ago, are with him every slow, sluggish, weary pedal stroke. It takes an entire mountain to resist the broom wagon.

But even the broom wagon, that most anxiety-inducing of vans for cyclists, is here to help. Thanks to this white van, the Frenchman will make it to Paris – it will not scoop him up in a ball of anguish and heartache.

Others won’t be so lucky on stage 20, however.

This article was published by Cycling Weekly in July 2026. To read the full article click here.