The moment of the day came at around 1400BST when all the phone lines from the finish at Plateau d'Bonascre went down and stayed down for the rest of the day.

We have heard it may have been a wayward paraglider who collided with cables.

The end result reduced broadcasters of this multi-million pound event to gabbling into mobile phones all afternoon while praying their batteries did not run out.

Alas poor Eurosport.

Their commentary team of David Duffield and Sean Kelly lost mobile contact long before the finish, leaving the studio to fill in over the pictures.

Fast talking

Meanwhile, upstairs in the radio area you could hardly notice any difference when standing near the Spanish stations.

They talk just as quickly and loudly whether on a proper line or a tiny little mobile.

The line outage affected the tour in other ways too.

The computers in the pressroom stopped working and were unable to provide minute-by-minute updates of the race.

While the tour's mobile bank was unable to provide any financial services.

As we all know, mobile phones can be very irritating, especially in restaurants or on a train, but for the assembled media they saved the day when the tour went to Ax-les-Thermes.