VIDEO. She does 20 final stages of the Tour de France in one month

BICLOU, EPISODE 13 - Every two days, Bettina, goes up the avenue des Champs-Élysées at full speed. "I know it by heart this avenue now," she says, slaloming between Vélib 'and electric scooters on the cycle track.

This 35-year-old German cyclist achieves a real sporting feat: doing all the last stages of the Tour de France of the last twenty years. Each time, the course differs, but the finish is always done with the Arc de Triomphe in sight, as is the tradition at the end of each Great Loop. All in just over five weeks.

On the day of our shooting, Bettina remade the final stage of the Tour 2008. The start was given at Étampes, in the south of Île-de-France. Today the Bettina team repeats the route twice: the outward journey, then the return. A double ration which makes the odometer go up to 195 kilometers, and it is not nothing.

A team of expatriates

"I had the idea during confinement," says Bettina, pedaling. Since then, she has copied all the routes on Strava, the favorite application for cyclists, to organize her own Tour de France in Paris.

On each stage, it is joined by other amateur cyclists. Many come from its expatriate triathlon club in Paris. During this remake of the last stage 2008, the team is very international: "We have French, Colombians, Germans", describes the cyclist.

After an hour of racing at high speed, the group arrives on a forest road. This is where Orlando asks everyone to stop, his wheel has just burst. Bettina takes out the stopwatch, the challenge is to repair it in the shortest possible time.

This little forced break is also an opportunity to look on the internet who was the winner of the Tour de France in 2008. "It's the Spaniard Carlos Sastre" said Philippe to the rest of the group.

"She is determined and she is motivating"

This year, Bettina decided to change jobs, to devote herself fully to her passion for sport. After a career of ten years as a consultant and project manager, she became a triathlon trainer. Today, she leads a group of men, and sometimes gives advice.

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"She is determined and she is motivating" sums up Maxime, one of the teammates of the stage. "She has a sense of sharing," adds Camille.

VIDEO. She does 20 final stages of the Tour de France in one month

Aim for the Women's Tour de France in August

With its women's cycling club, "Let's give them to the bike", Bettina will soon launch a new challenge: to do the real Tour de France 2020, a month before the men. "This initiative is called D-1, we usually do the stages a day before the men," says Bettina. "But this year, because of the postponement of the Tour we will do it a month before them".

It is also a way to claim the creation of an official women's Tour de France. And the idea is gaining ground. Christian Prudhomme, the boss of Amaury Sport Organization (ASO), announced in May that the organization of a women's Tour de France was not excluded for 2022. Watch the other episodes of the Biclou series