Cycling: William Fotheringham looks at the many and growing problems facing the Tour and how it is losing touch with its roots, the rural poor

Once over, each Tour de France boils down to a set of images, snapshots in the mind. This year is no exception: Joseba Beloki lying on the road near Gap as if he had dropped from the sky; Lance Armstrong jumping over a ditch with his bike on his shoulder; Tyler Hamilton's grimace; sparks flying from Jan Ullrich's bike as he hit the tarmac in Nantes.

However, homelier images from the French countryside have their place too. For the Tour's centenary, each village council had gone to immense trouble to faire la fete more flamboyantly than the next, whether it was with vast ceremonial arches made of hay bales, dozens of bicycles hanging over the road, or a massive poster proclaiming this was the town of Bernard somebody (who the aficionados might remember rode the race in the '60s without making headlines). Many of the signs simply said Merci le Tour.

The connection between the Tour and la France profonde remains as strong as ever. Few sporting events are so rooted in place. The interest of the wider world grows annually too. The strength of the 100-year-old grande dame of cycling is in no doubt, but most centenarians have a fragility about them too and the Tour is no exception. What was striking about this Tour was that it returned to the big cities which hosted the stage finishes of the first race in 1903 - Lyon, Marseille, Toulouse, Bordeaux and Nantes - and it was a salutary experience.

Apart from Bordeaux and Paris, the Tour now rarely visits the huge centres, and this year's race showed why. The race does not take over a city as it does a medium-sized provincial centre such as Albi. Apart from in Nantes, the Tour felt pushed to the margins, particularly in Toulouse, where the finish was shunted off to an airfield to which few of the public turned up.

In Nantes, however, another problem with the large centres was put in the spotlight: it rained, so the vast quantities of road furniture - islands, roundabouts, slip roads - made racing impossible. It may be that soon, caught between indifference and sheer logistical difficulty, the Tour ceases to visit cities altogether.

That will not affect the number of people at the roadside but, as France increasingly moves from being a rural to an urban society, it will cut the race off from its people. There are worrying signs too in the way the public is treated. The race remains free for all, but there is a tendency to pander to corporate guests: at a stage start, Joe Public may be squeezed on to a pavement, while the prawn cocktail crowd have the run of the town square.

The Tour, in the worst-case scenario, might turn into an event which is run primarily for television, takes place in France, but is watched largely by people from outside the country.

The biggest bugbear facing the Tour is a lack of French success in the race. It is 18 years since a home cyclist won, and nowadays a French stage win is treated as if it is a miracle. The devil, as ever, is in the detail. Enter a bike shop such as Velocite on Pau's ring road, and it is thriving. What has changed, says the manager at the shop, is the customers: they are now older people, who can afford cycling. The amateur racing calendar is crumbling.

Cyrille Guimard, who managed three different Tour winners between 1976 and 1984, concurs. "We have about 35 per cent fewer young cyclists at present, and about the same reduction in races. Cycling has become a sport for the well to do, although its roots are with the rural poor.

"The countryside is emptying, and at about £3,000 in travelling costs for the average amateur, it's not possible to race. Add to that the fact that getting on a bike is dangerous, and you can see why the supply of young cyclists is drying up."

In the short term, the lack of a French winner is a worry, as it all takes the race further from its roots. Laurent Jalabert retired last year; Richard Virenque will go after next year's Athens Olympics. Then, whose name will the old ladies at the roadside write on their bits of cardboard, and who will 10-year-old boys want to emulate? And of course, it all makes the race harder to sell to sceptical city councils.

The institution is vulnerable in another way, due to its great strength: its public gets as close to their sport as it is possible to be. This year saw a low-key running battle between the organisers and actors' unions who threatened to stop the event, while militant agriculteurs did manage to bring the peloton to a halt, albeit briefly.

The security presence becomes ever vaster, but last year, could not stop a madman who believed he was in touch with the Almighty from driving full-pelt into the finish. Terrorist fears are ever present.

Rumbling in the background is the old bugbear, the doping issue. The scandal of 1998 showed the fragility of the great institution, and the weaknesses of its management team in horrifying clarity. It has not impacted on the public but two of the biggest sponsors, Coca-Cola and Fiat, have reduced their involvement.

The Tour's organiser, Jean-Marie Leblanc, has said a second Festina-type drugs affair would fatally wound the event. But something similar to the Festina scandal was averted last year only because of the seizure of drugs - in a car driven by the third finisher, Raimondas Rumsas - on the final evening of the race. Robust the great institution may be, but it remains at the mercy of events.