Joe Theobald, aka DJ Captain Wormhole, Looks at all things vinyl 

AS many of you will be well aware, this year’s Tour de France is being hailed as the friendliest race for sprinters in many years.

We’re all accustomed to an introductory week of long, flat boring stages, punctuated by climactic bunch sprint apogee, and despite the ‘five’ separate mountain ranges en route for 2017, the sprinters really have been well catered for this year.

On the vertically challenged stages, when I’m watching the live coverage for hours on end, glued to the telly with baited breath, awaiting the next inevitable en mass pile caused by a cocky neo-pro getting blasé with his hands off the bars, touching a wheel, or perhaps falling foul of a rogue ‘support’ bike, I like to turn down the commentary and add my own soundtrack to the world’s most beautiful and encapsulating race.

As with most things in life, cycling (whether you’re observing or partaking) is generally improved by the addition of techno and/or house. Kraftwerk anticipated the pairing with their 1983 electronica tribute to le Tour and the steady, constant cadence of the peleton drifting along level roads in benign northern-France is well accented by the trusty thump of a Roland 808 and heavily compressed snare.

If electronic music isn’t your thing then why not put on some jazz funk and watch the flocks of technicolour helmets soar amongst the sun flowers to the sounds of Lonnie Liston Smith, Bob James or Idris Muhammad? When Tommy ‘the Tongue’ Voeckler or Stevo Cummings decide to make their inevitable solo breaks you might even like to play Running Away by Roy Ayers on repeat.

As the Flamme Rouge comes in to view you’ll want to line up a builder with a good climax, a track that’s going to match the crescendo of the sprint trains drawing out the peleton; if you can pull off the timing then Jefferson Airplane’s White Rabbit or Vitalic’s La Rock 01 would work wonderfully.