We have football widows. Golf widows. Racing car widows. Even video game widows. Yet now I humbly suggest we have a new category: Tour de France widowers.

And I should know. I am one of them.

Each year my wife travels to foreign lands via the television to spend time with elite athletes in colourful jerseys as they travel through fairyland locations for the Tour de France, the world’s most prestigious bicycle race. She puts on her special yellow (or should I say “jaune”? ) Tour de France socks and joins the “couch peloton”, blocking out three weeks to watch riders cycle through some of the most beautiful areas on Earth.

Slovenia’s Tadej Pogacar in the mysterious ‘maillot jaune’ after the 20th stage of the Tour de France on Saturday. Credit: AP

It’s the only sport she truly adores and I fully support her enthusiasm. Indeed, I am in no way threatened by these dashing younger men with their perfect buns and seemingly endless stamina. “Just think of them as racehorses,” she says.

She knows exactly what is going on in the Tour de France: the stakes, the terrain, why........

© The Sydney Morning Herald