The other morning I got an email from a well known brand asking if I could be “illuminating” about the Tour de France. Most mornings I am about as illuminating as a dusty lampshade cosying a forty watt bulb that’s about to go ping. So I poured another cup of coffee and waited for the caffeine to spark something.
What do I know about the Tour de France?
Actually, apart from where and when it starts – and I’m not one-hundred-percent, rock-solid, stake-my-shirt-on-it confident on the kick off if I’m strictly honest – pretty much nothing. Do Bike races even have a “kick off”, and if not what is the correct term? Push off? Pedal on? I don’t even know that. In fact I only recently discovered that cycling is a team sport, which puzzles me enormously. It makes as much sense as if I’d been told that Grand National jockeys jumped in teams. I can see why something like a boat race is sorted into sides – rowers would look a bit silly and wouldn’t get very far all paddling at their own chosen speed! But it doesn’t seem that a racing cyclist is a natural or logical candidate for collective effort against the competition. Isn’t the point of cycling to get your bum on the bike seat and pedal as fast as your individual legs will push you? The location of other people’s bums and the activities of other people’s legs surely has no effect on how fast you can go on your bike. And the sole point of a bike race is to beat everyone else’s bike? You get a shirt or something. One shirt. Which isn’t like a cup or something sensible that could be kept in the team trophy cupboard. It’s a shirt. The winner will take home and probably stash in a wardrobe. I’ll never understand cycling, but never mind. I’ll still be cheering on our lads … Come on England!
And what about the peloton, which I was pronouncing pill-Oh-tun till I was rather rudely corrected in public by in a chap in some very unbecoming lycra shorts – it’s hard to take rebuke seriously from a man who vacuum packs his privates. Phonetics aside, friends have attempted many times in the past few months to enlighten me about the meaning of the peloton. The majority opinion would have it that cyclists bunch together into one long, slender strip of sinuous lycra as that is the best way of overcoming wind resistance. “Like a flock of wild geese” as one of them helpfully put it. Wild geese fan out in a vast and majestical V formation, don’t they? I have googled images of the peloton. It looks more like a single-file psychotic stampede than a stately progression to an avian holiday destination to me. I rather think my friends are having a laugh at my expense. Whatever their intention, they are woefully ignorant of the facts of migration.
One thing I have noticed is that all elite cyclists appear to share the same genetic material. Is there a private clinic deep in the French Alps that specialises in sport cyclist reproduction? It’s not that they are identical exactly – I’m sure their mothers could tell them apart. Though perhaps not from a distance. But when they are zipping along, head down with that tormented gape-mouthed expression, like they have swallowed a hornet’s nest and it’s coming out the other end, then there’s no telling one from the other.
So, that’s more or less what I know about the Tour de France. I hope it’s been illuminating.
The last rider in the Tour de France is called the Lanterne Rouge (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanterne_rouge)
This is not because the rider is accused of dawdling in houses of ill repute, but is meant to represent the red light that hangs (hung?) on the back of a train.
(It’s actually quite hard to finish last – because it’s very hard to finish inside the time limit).
My first year of watching Le Tour was 2011. I had flu at the critical time, and lying on the sofa watching the very beautiful Alps roll past on TV (behind some bikes) was about as much as I could cope with.
The race was completely incomprehensible. On the first stage I watched, Tommy Voeckler pushed himself to the brink of collapse on an incredible alpine climb with apparently no chance of winning the race, or even the stage, but he got to wear the yellow jersey the following day. It seemed inevitable that he would lose the jersey, but he and the crowd were overcome with emotion, simply because he could wear it for one more day.
“People’s reaction to opera the first time they see it is very dramatic; they either love it or they hate it. If they love it, they will always love it. If they don’t, they may learn to appreciate it, but it will never become part of their soul.”
This might help you get started:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7wPa1Hl5ZA
Drugs in sport – look no further than the TdF
Only Yorkshire could get into bed with the most corrupt sporting event on the planet.
The event has become a farce now that few of the last decade’s “Winners” can be acknowledged by the organisers and the race has been ridiculed as a mobile parade for the benefits of the pharmaceutical industry.
I think they give up and recognise things have gone too far now and have an “open” category where you can take what you like and assume the risks.
What’s more heroic than trying to race up mount ventoux on a mixture of brandy and amphetamine and dying of a heart attack as a result.
grand depart in the pouring rain in Leeds PAH
I am rather looking forward to seeing how the city copes with the event. Couldn’t care less about the race by enjoy a bit of crowd control mayhem.
Absolutely hilarious post, the kind of miserable parochial moaning nonsense you’re more likely to see in the comments section of the Evening Post.
Tell you what, John, you stay at home, shaking your fist at the sky and muttering darkly, and we’ll get on with enjoying one of the biggest sporting events in the world on our doorstep.
I am not so bothered about the race but I am a keen connoisseur of the fine art of crowd control … and I think this will be an event to remember.
If you want to understand the Tour de France – ask a 9 year old… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTjBu4bbmBY
Thanks Dave – you took the bait perfectly.
I guess the racers will pass you in about 30 seconds then you can get back to the rest of your life.
The average Tour de France rider burns a whopping 123,900 calories over the course of the 21-day race – 123,900! That’s the calorie equivalent of eating 252 double cheeseburgers from McDonalds or 619 original glazed Krispy Kreme doughnuts.