For clean cycling: the men hunt for penis graffiti during the Tour de France

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There are jobs whose description sounds very funny at first. They are still exhausting. And maybe they also make you doubt a little about the spiritual state of humanity.

Patrick Dancoisne and that of Joël Gautriand is one of them. When the latter is at work one morning in the Tour de France, the statement from one of the officials is clear: “Guys, you are going to see a lot of penises.”

They paint about what might startle TV viewers

Dancoisne and Gautriand have a very special job during the «Grande Boucle»: they drive a van in front of the stage, making sure that the TV cameras do not catch the insults and controversies painted on the road by cycling fans. After all, you don’t want to scare off TV viewers in the more than 100 countries in which the tour is broadcast.

Equipped with scooters, brushes, a road map, the marching table and buckets full of paint, they paint everything about: insults, political messages – and especially penises. Lots of penises.

Penises every few hundred yards

The cycling magazine «Pedale!» joined them for a day two years ago. And discovered that cycling fans not only draw encouraging messages to the address of their favorites in the field on the street – but also scribbles, such as can be found in many a public toilet. For any reason. “As the van drives off, the penis appears in all sorts of shapes as far as the eye can see,” the author describes the scene. “Sometimes flying in formation every few hundred meters,” the text reads. So: a lot of work for the men in the van.

It turns out that the task is also artistically not without it. A male genitals painted white on asphalt gray becomes a butterfly or a bear thanks to a few brush strokes – the spot for the TV broadcast has already been cleaned. “We transform as much as possible,” says Gautriand. Sometimes that doesn’t work – then you have to work with a dark color.

EPO becomes EPQ

If you are wondering about strange letter combinations for the TV, you may also have one of the works of the two in front of you. In the case of Gautriand/Dancoisne, the doping charge “EPO” also becomes “EPQ”, the “SOS”, referring to the mass deaths of refugees in the Mediterranean, becomes “888”.

During the three-week tour, the two together smear 350 liters of white paint on the streets of France. It’s hard work, a little art. And hopefully a little funny at times too.

Source : Blick