I’ve never been interested in racing a bike. The seats look like shoehorns, I’m not a fan of the hats, you spend the whole time hunched over as if your back has snapped midway up and those bike shorts would make my legs look like half-filled sausage casings. I’m all about the glamour.
But I am absolutely hooked on the Tour de France. This happens every year —a sport I normally care nothing about lures me in with the promise of horrendous crashes, nail-biting finishes and this weird desire of mine to see a top racer inhale a bee at high speed. (So far, no luck.)
It is a fascinating race, full of tactics and strategy, not just mindless pedaling. Riders have to be thinking about all manner of things like, “do my legs look like half-filled sausage casings?” or “I wonder how bad it would hurt if my bike seat broke off and I didn’t realize it.”
And the viewer has many things to ponder, as well. For instance, why if you’re the top climber through the mountain stages — these incredible, arduous, thigh-bursting mountain passes that tax every ounce of your energy and attempt at every moment to launch you over the guard rails — is your big reward nothing but a red polka dot jersey.
Man, do you know how mad I would be if I risked life and limb to beat the top climbers in the world only to be handed a skin-tight clown suit? Why not just give them a cheap T-shirt that reads, “I went to the top of the Alps and the Pyrenees and all they gave me was this lousy T-shirt”?
Give them a crown or a cape or a stick you could poke in other riders’ spokes. Anything but silly looking polka dots.
It’s so much fun to watch — the competition, the endurance and stamina of these dozens of riders, and the knucklehead lunatics who line the sides of the roads cheering on their favorite riders and generally ruining the beautiful French countryside.
Fans are a constant hazard in the Tour, and it’s amazing more of them don’t die. There are few if any barriers along most of the stages, and this allows miles of loonies to drift dangerously close to the riders as they fly around corners and down stretches. Because some have camped out along the roads for days waiting for the chance to see essentially 11 seconds of actual racing, they’re worked themselves into an absolute frenzy that cannot be contained. And they have precious few seconds to make an absolute fool of themselves on international television. So they have to work quickly and make a complete spectacle.
I saw a guy running down the road with an American flag while wearing a football helmet with horns sticking out of it. I saw several guys in neon yellow wigs and Speedos that wouldn’t fully cover a mouse. Most of them are on the cell phone. I always imagine the conversation going something like this, “Can you see me? I’m the one in the Superman suit with the exposed butt cheeks. Yeah, the one weaving in and out of the bikes. You see me! That’s amazing. OK, gotta go, the police are coming.”
For some reason — maybe alcohol — Tour de France fans love to run along with their favorite riders or their fellow countrymen. I don’t understand this, and I really wish they would give riders pepper spray. The rule should be: spritz a fan, win points.
I don’t know how the riders navigate it all — the roads, the fans, the cars and the motorcycles with cameramen, all while at top speeds. I saw one guy racing down a mountain at 50 mph — his hands weren’t on the handlebars, but instead were busy zipping up his jersey. I wet my pants watching it.
It was simply astounding to watch. The whole thing has been. But you won’t see me hitting a racing bike anytime soon. I’ll keep my tuckus firmly planted here on the sofa where it belongs, and nowhere near seats that might accidentally come off, giving me an unscheduled colonoscopy.