For the past several years now, I’ve been watching the Tour de France bicycle race on TV. It takes up most of the month of July, running about 21 days and due to the time zone difference it comes on around 7 am, sometimes a little later, each day.
Now I don’t give a hang about who wins this thing, or what team is in the lead, or even who was the most recent pedal-phile to get caught blood-doping. I watch it for the scenery. It’s a beautiful travelogue every morning for a month. And since the route of the race is completely different each year, there is no repetition.
The race course is designed to include X-number of days, or stages, in mountainous regions so we’re treated to some lovely landscapes. The entire stage is covered by a helicopter and the tv production utilizes it frequently and we get to see many medievel towns and tiny burgs that we’ve never heard of, many of which are placed alongside a photogenic river.
The race itself is rather baffling to me. They have all kinds of ways of accumulating points, not just the fastest time. And it leads to some racing strategy that makes no sense whatsoever to someone who travels about by automobile all the time like I do. When the 150+ riders push off each morning they soon divvy themselves up into two groups. The lead group is called the “peloton” for some reason. This gaggle of about 40 riders suddenly bolts out about a ½-mile ahead of the rest of the pack. Why all those guys in the second batch are content to remain there is incomprehensible to me. Why don’t they catch up? What good is it to just trail along a few minutes behind the peloton? Why bother with it?
Another puzzling tactic is the practice of one of the peloton leaders to suddenly dash out about 100 yards ahead of the rest of them, pedalling himself along like crazy as if the finish line is just a block away. Then after a minute or so, the rest of them, after watching this dashing rider with some amusement, will expel a little effort of their own and catch up with him. They’re all right back where they started except they’ve used up more energy to do it. Crazy, eh?
Team colors and jersey designs are something else again. Most of the designs are rather complicated with not much in the way of style. Odd-ball colors and mish-mash lines are the preferred choices. And the sponsors are mostly outfits that I’ve never heard of. Although Skil Saw is one of the major sponsors this year. We’ve all heard of them. But what in the world is Robobank? There’s one team whose jerseys are covered by a design that looks like a bunch of paw prints all over them.
And then there’s one special uniform that is worn by whoever is the current points leader for the “King of the Mountain” trophy that is awarded at the end. This poor guy has to wear a uniform that is all white and covered with bright red polka-dots all over the jersey and his pants. Even his socks are the required white with polka dots. I’m wondering if maybe the sponsor for that award is some French porno film production company.
I’ll never understand all these confusing rules , roles and strategies. But I always enjoy the scenery. So let’s get this equipment checked out while I go start the coffee and then we can watch the rest of today’s stage. I’ve noticed that nobody has been “texting while pedaling.” But Lance Armstrong has a Twitter account ( http://twitter.com/Lancearmstrong ).
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