For once I’m the first one awake. The open skylight lets in enough breeze to wake and cool me, the first light of the day creeping into the attic room, last night’s beers gently fogging my brain. I quickly get myself organised, make just enough noise to say goodbye to Graeme and, leaving the house mouse-quiet, slip out on the bike. In a few hours, 40km to the north, I will be boarding my ferry back to Portsmouth; and shortly afterwards the Tour will be gearing up for the next stage a similar distance to the south.

I roll through the village, test my legs, adjust the straps on my handlebar bag, and cross the main road heading towards Dinan. The stillness is bright and eerie, and the light warm and soft. I have only my thoughts for company.

The Tour has passed.

Our journey here started over 18 months ago, when it was announced that the Tour would be starting in northern France and making its way across Normandy and Brittany before, as is usual, diving south for the mountains. We anticipated, correctly, that it would wind its way along some of the roads we knew, and that it would take in the great wall of Mûr-de-Bretagne, a climb we rode ourselves back in 2020. Every year the Tour tries to capture the essence of this surprisingly big country, but it isn’t possible to please everyone all the time. Even a glorious climb like MdB only features every four or five years, and it can be decades between visits for the smaller provincial towns and villages. The Tour coming to town is a rare treat.

Dinan is like a ghost town when I pass through, with barely a car on the street. I exchange bonjours with a dog walker, snap a selfie with a cart from the caravan, and drop down the Côte de Cassepot, which was climbed in the opposite direction by the riders yesterday. I find myself at the port, and rolling gently north along the Rance as the sun starts to illuminate the valley with an impressionist’s palate.

The route of the Tour is revealed slowly over a period of months, with the location of the Grand Départ being announced to great fanfare a couple of years in advance and the rest of the detail being filled in during the autumn before the race. For the next nine months or so, the anticipation builds through those places lucky enough to find themselves en route. Villages plan decorations to show their part of the countryside in the best light. Schoolchildren make dioramas for roundabouts and design flags to wave. Supermarkets dish out t-shirts. Teams recce routes. Farmers get bales of hay ready, for landscape-scale artwork and occasionally for protest. As the big day approaches, the route through any habitation is lined with the iconic yellows and red-and-white polka dots of the Tour. Every village square hosts a mini-festival with parking plans, extra capacity for beer service and fundraising efforts for local causes. That thin black line on the yellow map of France hides a wealth of detail, of anticipation and planning for the Tour’s arrival.

Somewhere along the Rance valley I miss a climb and take a long, gravelly arc that saves my legs a little but delays my arrival in Saint-Malo by half an hour. The sun is lifting mist from the surface of the water, I still have the roads to myself, and the pedals are turning easily, so I don’t mind. I ease euphorically through villages that are still sleeping and cross the river at Plouër-sur-Rance. It is calm, like a blue mirror, still dawn-cool but warming under a cloudless sky. I realise I have an hour and a half until check-in closes, and still an hour to ride. I lift the pace.

On the day that the Tour comes through, there is a buzz everywhere on the route. The climbs fill quickly with spectators, and the roads close leaving motorhomes and fans to set up wherever they were when transit was stopped. Meanwhile, in the villages, bars get extra tables out and offer service at the bar only. the public spaces fill up, everyone eager for a good spot, whether for the freebies of the passing caravan or to cheer on their favourite. Some are honoured enough to have their name painted in the road. The carnival of the caravan passes, old and young alike scramble for hats and pasta and even mayonnaise samples, and on a sunny day this can become almost delirious. Then we settle, wander off for a beer or a sausage-inna-bun, and wait a little longer.

And then the Tour itself arrives, first a cacophony of horns, and then distant cheering, getting louder and louder, flags are waved and the roadside fans start to roar their heroes along. Fans hold flags and signs and selfie sticks, occasionally too close to be safe. On the flat the riders pass in the blink of an eye, so quickly you almost can’t believe it; on the climbs there are a few more precious seconds to pick out individual riders. Was that Yates? I think so. The breakaway passes, then the peloton itself, dozens of riders closely-packed to maximise aerodynamic benefit. The yellow jersey is always unmissable, streaking through, the icon of the race. On hillier stages there is often an autobus – a group of riders off the back, usually the muscular sprinters, less able to cope with the gradient, in solidarity just to get to the line. All are cheered, encouraged, and occasionally chased by the crowd. Roared along. Wow.

And then, as quickly as it came, it’s gone.

A strange emptiness follows. What now? Another beer? Or do we just head off? Nobody is sure. It has all happened so quickly. And gradually the squares and climbs empty. Cars and motorhomes now line the route, heading home or getting in place for tomorrow’s stage. What happens to the papier-mâché mannequins and urban art, so painstakingly and lovingly assembled, all for those brief flashing moments? I hope they become relics, kept in attics and garages, to be stumbled on in a few years time when this year’s passing will be retold. In Lesneven there used to be a display in the local pharmacy with that day’s leader’s yellow jersey from the Tour’s last visit in the 1960s, in pride of place in the window. So much love and nostalgia made in such a brief period of time. But I guess that’s just it for now? Will the Tour be back, in a year, or five, or ten?

By now I am on the outskirts of Saint-Malo. I’ve shaken off my earlier torpor and have made up a bit of time as I roll down the wide boulevards that lead to the ferry port and walled city. This morning’s ride has been pleasant enough, but all I have thought about is the Tour, and the next time I get to do this.