'I don't want it to die' - the untold story of ITV's Tour de France theme song, and the person who created it

It’s the soundtrack of the summer. Each July, the theme song to ITV’s Tour de France coverage becomes one of the most played songs in British living rooms. You’ll be familiar with it, I’m sure – you can probably hear it in your head now. It begins with a few midi notes, then comes a swooshing sound, before the anthemic accordion melody erupts. Da DA da DA DA DA DA.

There are few songs you could play for three weeks on repeat and never tire of – ITV’s Tour theme is one of them. That’s because it’s more than a song; it symbolises the start of the biggest bike race in the world, the moment the season has been building up to, and summer afternoons spent on the sofa. When played after an ad break, it also brings a welcome end to plugs for donkey sanctuaries and cremation services. It is, to put it in common parlance, a proper feel-good tune.

Sadly, this year might be the last time we hear it on our televisions. ITV has relinquished the rights to the Tour, and, following this summer's race, their free-to-air coverage will disappear from our screens, the theme song likely going with it.

So, in homage to the sport’s great jingle, I did some digging and tracked down its maker: a Surrey-based music producer called Jeff Ashitey.

The story starts more than two decades ago. At the time, Ashitey was in his late thirties, flicking through the channels, when he came across the theme song for ITV’s MotoGP coverage.

“I thought, ‘This music is crap’,” he says. “I got in touch with the people doing the production on it, and said, ‘You know what, I’ve got a great rock act, I’ve got a great track, and I reckon you’d would like it.’

Ashitey was right. “They loved it,”, he says, “and then they got the highlights shows for the Tour de France, and they came back to me and said, ‘Could you do it?’”

In 2001, Ashitey gathered with a sound engineer and a French accordionist in a flat in south London to put the song together. The melody, he says, came alive "organically".

“It came from us sitting in a room,” he recalls. “Once we put the accordion down, it kind of steered it in a direction. It grew on its own.”

For years, fans have wondered if other songs served as inspiration behind Ashitey's tune. Some likened the melody to ‘Road to Nowhere’ by Talking Heads, others to ‘Enola Gay’ by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark.

The reality is it came from neither, Ashitey explains. He had just finished working with the label behind Darude’s 1999 hit Sandstorm, and was “really in that dance mind”, he says. “That’s sort of what inspired the track. It’s got quite a dance-y element to it as well.”

The finished project was named ‘Beat Route’ – a meaningless play on words – and the production was over in a couple of weeks.

Ashitey cut together the master track, adding chainwheel noises he found online, and recording other “bike bits” he merged deep into the mix. He also trimmed down shorter versions to be used for the ad breaks, and later, a ringtone, which rose to third in the iTunes ringtone charts in 2019.

The song was a hit. Tasked with following Pete Shelley’s dreamy Tour theme for Channel 4, Ashitey had triumphed.

Was he surprised by how well it was received? “It didn’t even occur to me that it would really resonate with a lot of cyclists,” he says. “It wasn’t until [my wife] Dawn went to work for Cycling Weekly that I realised it had become the Match of the Day for cyclists.”

Ever since, whenever the Tour gets underway, Ashitey makes sure he’s in front of the television to hear the accordion’s first notes.

“I’ll probably watch it more this year, purely because it’s the last year,” he says, before his tone shifts, and the realisation kicks in. “I don’t want it to die. I don’t want it to just disappear. It represents the Tour, and especially for a lot of British people who don’t necessarily have Eurosport or TNT.

“I’d love to be able to do something else with it,” he adds. Fortunately, he can.

Now in his early-sixties, Ashitey continues to work in the music industry, managing acts and putting on shows. Crucially, he explains, he has retained the rights to Beat Route, which he can continue to sell as he pleases.

“I’ve made a few quid out of it,” he says, holding back the figures. “They always used to laugh at Dawn in the office coming up to the Tour, saying, ‘Where are you going on holiday this year with your money?’”

The royalties might soon run out, but the notes of the accordion will live on. Turn up the volume a few extra notches when Beat Route comes on this month. It might well be the last time you hear it.

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