TdF Files: Presse in knots

If the Tour de France visited only Brittany and nowhere else, Anthony Tan would not care one bit, as he writes from Cap Fréhel.

Why the Tour waited so long to visit Cap Fréhel, the finish town of the fifth stage, and the most stunning coastal landscape I have ever witnessed in this magnificent land, is beyond me.

The last few days, the Breton hospitality has been simply overwhelming. I have eaten enough 'Galettes bretonne', the buckwheat flour pancakes filled with everything from ham, cheese, eggs, sausages – basically whatever's around – to last me for the rest of the Tour. Or maybe I haven't, because I had one again today for lunch. And then another, with just lemon and sugar, for dessert.

I have become the embodiment of sloth, and I fear my name no longer is associated with cycling and writing and fantasising about blond podium girls when I'm supposed to be working but instead has become a byword for 'gros porc' (fat pig).

Yesterday in Cap Fréhel, the information sheet on 'le buffet en salle de presse' was rather wordy, and read as follows: "Restauration ambulante payante. Espace détente avec massage et relaxation. Sur inscription: balade en mer pour découvrir le Cap Fréhel."

The short translation is that you had to pay for lunch (the option was seafood paella or Galettes), but far more importantly and for the very first time since I've been covering the Tour de France, a space for relaxation with a massage service available to the press corps.

Massage? Relaxation? Yeah, baby! Hook me up NOW! (And yes, I said this out loud.)

And so, after those pair of Galettes slid down my throat far too easily, I stumbled back to my desk, put my laptop in 'standby mode' (note to SBS head honchos who pay my wage: there was still more than 100 kilometres to go; actually make that 200km, even though the stage was only 164.5km long…), and went looking for this "Espace détente avec massage et relaxation".

Down the front of the press room and to the right, there it was…

An oasis of calm among the furious blik-blik-blik sound of tapping keys that makes me think I've got a curious strain of tinnitus (by the way, why do some journalists have to thlap their keyboards so hard? And can you believe there's still one journalist still using a typewriter?!), I stepped into the man-made beach of tranquillity and made a beeline for the massage table.

Just before that, though, I had to choose an appropriate masseuse. Gentlemen (which, when required, I can be) prefer blondes, as the 1953 film starring Marilyn Monroe suggests, and I am no different.

"Where would you like it?" asked the alluring mademoiselle with a cute-as-hell upturned nose.

'Er, how about my back and legs and feet and arms and neck and shoulders?" I suggested, not caring that such a session would deny anyone else from enjoying the same pleasure.

"Where are you hurting most?" she then asked.

'In my heart,' I said, happy that I came up with such a seductively witty line.

"Okay," she said, ignoring my tragically pathetic charm, "I will do the first thing you said – your back. Take your shirt off."

'Er, the other journalists can see me (read: my man boobs),' I said, as Justin Davis of Agence France Presse looked across at me, grinning.

"Take your shirt off," she repeated.

(Ah, stuff it. Almost all journalists have 'moobs', anyway, I thought.)

Seconds later, I was lying face-down on the table, soothing hands circling around my heavily muscled back whose profile resembles the rugged Breton coastline, made rock-hard from years of chin-ups (yeah, right) and having my own lateral pull-down machine at home (yeah, right).

"Oh la la, what a strong back you have!" she said, working on a stubborn knot in my Schwarzenegger-ripped trapezius.

'I do 100 chin-ups a day and have my own lateral pull-down machine at home, where I do 10 sets of 50, again each day," I said, lying as easily as Riccardo Riccò.

I could feel my nose grow suddenly longer.

Throughout the 20-minute massage and before I dozed off, I heard at least three journalists (I counted Andy Hood from VeloNews, Brecht Decaluwé of Cyclingnews, and some other jealous scribe) walk past, uttering a hurtful slew of jibes. Something like, "TanMan, you f**king bastard," before walking off.

I ignored it and treated the jibes as spam, as I do all my hecklers on Twitter.

"C'est bon?" asked the masseuse, as I struggled to get off the table, having fallen asleep towards the end.

"C'était très bon! Il était superbe!" I enthused. "Je me sens très relaxed!"

A hour later, my best friend, Mark Cavendish, won the stage to this cliff-side paradise perched atop a luminous emerald sea backdrop, and after I had just tweeted, "Do not be surprised if Cav' doesn't win today – last 2km are not easy..."

I was all in knots again. Merde!

Follow Anthony on Twitter: @anthony_tan