Stage 21 of the Tour de France, the last day and the big finale and it is a 115.6km long flat race that starts in Paris la Défense Arena and ends in Paris Champs-Élysées.
The Map
Sights and points of interest along the route
The race starts at one of the largest arenas in the world. It should have had a retractable roof but has a permanent roof instead because too much noise in terms of decibels would have escaped during concerts and disturbed the lives of so many people who live in the vicinity.
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| Inside the arena, set up for an event |
I'm pretty sure most people are familiar with most of the sites of Paris, even if they have never been to Paris themselves but today's route goes out toward the suburbs before turning back toward the main central part of the city. Paris is in the Ile-de-France region, with Ile-de-France being a breed of sheep from the area.
Along the route today they will pass Puteaux, Suresnes, Nanterre, Rueil-Malmaison, Saint-Cloud, La Celle-Saint-Cloud, Noisy-le-Roi, Villepreux, Fontenay-le-Fleury, Bois-d'Arcy, Saint-Cyr-l'Ecole, Versailles, Chaville, Sèvres, Meudon, Issy-les-Moulineaux with the race ending Paris, usually with a couple of circuits around a specific route within the city before a final sprint along the Champs-Élysées to the finish line.
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| Basilique du Sacre-Coeur on Montmartre Hill in Paris |
Who Won the Stage and Who Won What Jersey
The Stage winner is Jasper Philipsen for Alpecin-Deceuninck/BEL.
The Yellow Jersey won by Jonas Vingegaard for Jumbo-Visma
The Green Jersey won by Wout van Aert for Jumbo-Visma.
The Polka Dot Jersey won by Simon Geschke for Cofidis/FRA.
The White Jersey won by Tadej Pogacar for UAE Team Emirates.
Combatif Award won by Wout van Aert for Jumbo-Visma.
Leading team: Ineos-Grenadiers
This concludes the 2022 Tour de France and the overall winner is Jonas Vingegaard.
The Challenge: Here we go everyone! This is your last chance to catch your goal (or smash it), so let's gather the remainder of our spinning strength and grab that yellow jersey... or in our case, fluff! As is traditional, use any yellow fibre or blend to carry you over the finish line.
Suggested Fibre: It's yellow, it's glittery and we love it, Tale as Old as Time.
What I did
I knew we would have to have yellow at some point and when the shopping list was distributed a few weeks ago and I saw the suggested yarn I knew that I wouldn't need to buy any yellow this year as I have some beautiful Merino/Mulberry Silk that fits the bill.
Again, another simple spin by splitting the fibre into two equal halves, pre-drafting it and spinning singles then plying. It is really really soft and beautiful and is 80% Organic Merino, 20% Mulberry Silk. The fibre doesn't have a colour name so I am going to call it Lemon Sorbet.
The final yarn is sport weight and 100g/321m which in terms of the TdF length calculations is 963m - 2 singles plus the plied length = 3 x finished yarn length.
The total length of yarn that I have spun for TDF2022, the length of 2 singles plus the ply length, pre-wash measurements is 12,804m. We always submit the pre-wash measurements as this is what you have actually spun as when you soak/wash and set the twist in the yarn you always encounter an amount of shrinkage, which varies depending on the fibre, the type of spin etc.
The total length of yarn that I have spun for TDF2022, the length of 2 singles plus the ply length, post-wash measurements is 12,357m, which is a loss of 447m overall across 3 measurements, which in real terms of actual finished yarn length loss is 149m across 18 skeins, which isn't bad really when you average it out to 8m per 100g skein.
I've enjoyed watching the cycling, cheering on certain cyclists, feeling sorry for those that got in a breakaway in the hopes of winning a stage and then only to have it snatched away from them right at the end. I've enjoyed my spinning, for the most part, there were one or two that I wasn't so happy with but they are done now so that's that fibre that I don't have to avoid when selecting fibre from my stash.
In a last minute decision some of the team have decided to carry on with the spinning for the Tour de France Femme. I won't be able to do that as I am having a break away with the family for the week, first holiday since summer 2019 due to Covid-19 Lockdown.
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