Tour de Fleece 2026: If They Spin We Spin
What is Tour de Fleece?
In 2006 knitwear designer and spinner Star Athena started Tour de Fleece with a group of friends. Star felt there was a gap in community building events for spinners. So, she hosted her own online spin-along around the schedule of the Tour de France cycling event following the simple mantra “if they spin, we spin”. By 2008 the event had grown to over 400 participants, and now, 20 years later, there are more than 10,000 spinners taking part worldwide, many of them on the Ravelry group.
The premise is simple, Tour de Fleece runs alongside the Tour de France, a three-week cycling race made up of 21 stages across varied terrain. This year that’s July 4 through July 26. While cyclists tackle the roads and mountains of France, spinners set their own challenges and spin along for the ride.
You can learn more about the history of the event in an article by Star for Spin Off magazine.
How To Participate
Tour de Fleece is a “choose your own adventure” type of event. You can be as active as you would like on any number of teams you would like to take part in. There are teams running on many different platforms like Ravelry, Facebook and Discord. Some teams will be entirely virtual, some will host zoom calls or voice chats, some may even have in person meet ups if they have enough local people or are locally focused. You can also take part without a team. I have seen someone go so far as to cook a meal and have a glass of wine from the region the cyclists are currently in, something I wish I could manage my time and family’s palates well enough to do. The goal of Tour de Fleece is to challenge yourself, spin, and have fun, as simple or elaborate as it may be.
Whether you choose to go with a team or on your own, you need to set a goal. That could be as simple as spinning for 15 minutes every day of the Tour, you could challenge yourself to spin with a new technique or spin more yardage than you have before.
My Tour de Fleece
During my first Tour de Fleece or two I actively took part in some large teams on Facebook. It was a lot of fun, some of them had a lot of participation prizes and fun things going on. The last couple years I took a different approach while my schedule was less flexible and just did my own solo challenge. This year, I might try to follow the race news a little more and keep my goals simple. I want my primary focus to be consistency rather than speed, quality over quantity, so a certain number of minutes a day with a focus on quality might be my base goal. For a stretch goal, maybe I’ll pick a different type of art yarn I’ll try by the end of the Tour de Fleece. I feel like that makes it easier to embrace the times where life just can’t help but be in the way, which will inevitably happen over the course of three weeks. For now, there’s still a little time left to set my goals.
Preparing for Tour de Fleece
I currently have just under three weeks until Tour de Fleece kicks off. I have three top priorities as we get closer.
Set goal(s). I’ll need at least a base goal before day one. However, if I plan to do anything specific for a stretch goal, it is best to have some ideas started on that ahead of time to be sure I have the right materials. This year is particularly key since I’m considering doing some art yarn.
Get Fiber. I almost always have a lot of fiber available to me, but I do like to support other artists and pick up a couple new braids or batts leading up to Tour de Fleece. The balance here is tricky; I have to remind myself if I seem ahead of schedule, I can always get more wool.
If you need some extra spinning fiber, visit my Etsy store to pick up some extra batts or rolags.
Clear bobbins (or spindles). Some people always clear their bobbins when they finish a project, I’m a little haphazard. As the countdown shortens, I’ll have some decisions to make about leftover singles so I can go into Tour de Fleece with a fresh clean start. Will I have some crazy ply combos or just a lot of itty bitty two and three ply skeins? Only time will tell.
A fourth bonus priority would be to find your team if you want to take part in one. If you aren’t sure or haven’t found the team that is right for you, I invite you to join the informal Team Evening Spin. I’ll be using #TeamEveningSpin on Instagram during Tour de Fleece when I share updates. Leave a comment if you’ll be joining Team Evening Spin for Tour de Fleece, and I hope whether this is your first or your 20th Tour de Fleece that you have a fantastic time.
