Well, here it is again eh (almost).
Doesn’t seem like two minutes since that great carnival of colour, sweat and masochism was fondling the senses of all true sports lovers everywhere.
The salivating crowds, the pride and the passion, the demon’s and the saints, the tales of bravery and cowardice, the mythologies passed down from father to son in hushed whispers.
And those names, yes the names…Anquetil, Merckx, Hinault, Lemond, Indurain, and of course, Lance Armstrong.
Tour De France champions one and all.
Of course I wasn’t talking about the Soccer World Cup, that’s a multi-media mass circle jerk for pussies.
Give me a Tour cyclist, a boxer or even a rugby player as a role model every time over some, thick, soft, bimbo-shagging narcissistic dullard who collapses in agony at the sound of a 5-year old unscrewing his Vimto at 50 yards.
I mean football is like tennis with a shed-load more jingoism and a bigger ball.
(Plus the charisma bypasses are not nearly as evident.)
Yeah baby, give me the dance of the two-wheeled ‘toasted whippets’ through the mountains and molehills of the Gallic countryside in July, above the static banal nationalism of that slowly dying feverish pitch any day.
I first became infected by the Tour bug back in the ‘70’s, when as a mere unsuspecting waif, I was exposed to wobbly colour highlights of the occasional stage on ITV’s World of Sport programme.
Like a benevolent but slightly dodgy ex-spitfire pilot-mad uncle, Dickie Davis’ grinning face would be the precursor to the multi-coloured man/organism of the peloton, as it snaked and whipped through the very quaint villages and towns of France.
(I found out many years later that my sister had a crush on Dickie – what a sick perv!)
The mountain stages were the best though, and still are of course.
The race was decelerated by altitude and incline, the riders strung out like refugees from a fire-stormed city or characters from a Beckett play: ‘I can’t go on, I’ll go on’.
As they wound up the endless switchbacks on the volcanic steppes of Mount Ventoux, or were buzzed by marshals and photographers on motorbikes on Alpe D’Huez, it was an opportunity for us in our armchairs to witness the gaunt faced suffering and surreal loneliness and isolation of the Tour cyclist in all its cinematic gore and glory.
Never has the phrase ‘you can be lonely in a crowd’ been so well illustrated as in those images (both moving and still) of the sun baked agony of climbing a mountain on a bicycle while thousands of people scream in your face, exhaust fumes sting your throat, and everywhere you look there’s a camera lens ready to capture your always imminent, physical and psychological breakdown.
That’s stress.
These people really are gladiators.
But of course, the sight of sweaty cyclists hammering through Birmingham on a wet Tuesday afternoon, or even a sunny Lake District doesn’t have the same kudos and romance as the Romanesque meets medieval sights and settlements of France.
The signposts and shop fronts, the advertising slogans and riders names, all written in this alien but seductive language.
Another world - familiar, but slightly off kilter, angular…interesting.
The Tour de France is a moveable feast of course, that’s its attraction for so many people I think. Yes there are other tours – the Italian Giro, the Spanish Vuelta etc – but the original gallic flavoured banquet, with its incredibly diverse sauces and seasonings, landscapes and architectural features from all those regions and departments, make it endlessly fascinating and dynamic – both for spectator and rider.
(Although I doubt if most riders have time to appreciate the scenery during the race.)
The Tour has something of the medieval carnival about it, the gypsy caravan, the mystery play and the renaissance masque all rolled into one.
It’s a drama with real life and death scenes on a constantly moving stage, packed with tall tales and surreal moments.
It is as much about the spectators and places as it is about the race itself: the two form a beautiful hybrid, a celebration of the human condition in both its tragic and comic aspects.
I was something of a keen cyclist myself in my twenties, and even joined a club for about 5 years and spent seemingly endless Tuesday and Thursday evenings battling up dual carriageways in a headwind.
I was a Time trial rider: ten or twenty five miles against the clock.
The French call it ’The Race of Truth’, and unlike road racing where you can hide behind someone’s wheel or get encouragement from a team mate (tactics), the race against the clock is lonely and very, very hard: biggest gear, head down and push!
These experiences made me appreciate (in my small way) what it must be like for the guy struggling up a mountain pass on his own, being chased down by the hounds of the peloton when on a lone break, or having the embarrassment of failure: finishing poorly or last - ‘The Lantern Rouge’ as they call the last rider to finish in the Tour.
Now I cycle more for pleasure than the hope of getting a wild card entry to the great Velo Odyssey.
I’ve actually gone full circle, I’m the armchair enthusiast once again, lost in boyish admiration for the heroic exploits of people with foreign names in a foreign land.
But no silver streaked Dickie Davis this time, just media slickness through and through. But hey, the coverage is loads better, you can spend weeks lost in a timeless…okay, better not go there eh.
I’ll tell of my personal competitive cycling adventures at another time – I’m still experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder from that last ‘25’ in ‘97 I think.
Anyway, sod the World Cup, get on your bike!
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