Ned Boulting reveals new Tour de France project for 2026 – and it's free

There seemed little doubt that ITV commentator Ned Boulting would be returning to the Tour de France, in some capacity for 2026, following the news last year that the network would be retreating from the race and sport at the end of the year.

Boulting has worked at the Tour every year since 2003. How else was he going to spend his Julys?

“The day the news broke, we said 'there’s no way we’re not going to be at the Tour de France',” Boulting tells us.

“It’s unimaginable sitting at home and watching it.

“All of us were bowled over by the reaction to us [leaving ITV]. There were so many people who were suggesting, wishing, hoping that this kind of thing gets off the ground.”

• Read more: Ned Boulting: The Tour de France is absurd, beautiful and unforgettable – I’ll miss it profoundly
  

A new venture

‘This kind of thing’ is the new venture that Boulting – alongside co-commentator and soon-to-be-ex-pro Lizzie Deignan – hopes is a new way for fans to experience the Tour, both the men’s and women’s races.

Boulting describes it as a “watch along” – fans at home watching them watch the race. If that sounds ominously like a video game YouTube channel, the difference, he says, is that “gamers tend to be locked away in some bunker somewhere, but the point about this is that we’ll be at the side of the road at the Tour de France, along the route somewhere different each day.”

Also available as an audio feed, the new project will combine what Boulting and David Millar have done with their Never Strays Far (NSF) podcast (their show about pro cycling that's rarely about pro cycling), but with more focus on the racing itself.

“We’ll still be chatting about this, that and the other, but the journey around France will share centre stage with the race," he says.

"When we’ve commentated in the past, it’s been for television. There are certain restrictions, on how you behave, the tenor of it and I think we can be a bit more relaxed in our approach.”

For Millar’s part, he says it’s going to be something “completely different”. “We’re not going to be there in official capacity in the zone technique [the restricted area at the finish line for media].

“We’re going to go as fans, with our own vehicle, and we’re going to position ourselves with the fans, set up camp and we’re going to be filming, we’re going to be watching the race and talking about it.”

Being among the fans – as one of the biggest fans himself – is the big appeal for Boulting. “One thing we could never do on television is the interactivity element. It’s a chance for us to engage with them, and they with us, as well as the guests we rope in throughout the race."

The project, called NSF: Live in France, will be free to access – important to the three of them with cycling’s imminent paywall restrictions in the UK.

“I think it’s important that cycling is still an accessible sport. I’m really passionate about that,” says Deignan, who worked with the pair on commentary at a previous Tour while pregnant. “Women’s cycling is growing and growing but I don’t want all the hard work that I’ve done in my career to disappear, I think it needs to stay in the mainstream. This is the way to do it.”

You can sign up to register interest for news on the project at neverstraysfar.com