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Wednesday 10 July 2013

Stage 16: They Shoot Horses, Don't They?


‘We are not cyclists we are professionals’
Jacques Anquetil (?)

Back in the old days. The not so good old days, the Tour de France was a war of attrition. Henri Destrange, the founder of the race, said that his ideal Tour would be where only one man finished. The early tours were designed with this in mind. They were made so difficult, inhumanly difficult, so that it would be last man standing.
Stages were hundreds and hundreds of miles long, over mountain passes that were little more than tracks cut into the hill by sheep. Stages could last upwards of 24 hours. There are tales of riders quitting the race because they were so scared of being attacked by bears in the mountains.
Riders rode fixed wheel bikes, the road illuminated by candle lanterns on their forks. They had two gears, to change gear they had to flip the back wheel round. To call it tough would be an understatement, it was sadistic.
It is little surprise that the competitors were pretty much exclusively drawn from the lower echelons of society. Why would you put yourself through that unless you absolutely had no choice?
It is little wonder that when faced with such a challenge riders would resort to what ever means that would get them through the race, some early winners were disqualified when they hopped on a train during a stage, others banned when they were caught being towed behind a car. The car had a tow rope with corks on the end of it so that the riders cold hold on with their teeth.
Then there were the drugs. Drugs weren’t banned in those days. Although they weren’t so much performance enhancing as performance allowing. Forget any Corinthian spirit, these guys were putting themselves through hell, not for glory, not to seek fame, not for some idealised notion of sporting endeavour, but through their pain and through their sweat they hoped to earn enough money to raise themselves out of poverty. They were in it to win it and would do whatever it took.
The Tour has always been a commercial endeavour. It was originally founded to boost sales of a failing newspaper, L’Auto. The famous yellow jersey comes from the colour of the pages of the paper.
It has improved through time, but even on the day that Tom Simpson died on the Ventoux in 1967 riders were not allowed more than 2 bottles of water. They had a team around them and part of the responsibility of their domestiques was to go on bar raids – ride ahead of the leaders and literally raid bars to try and get whatever drinks they could, often only alchohol was available. When Simpson died, he had a cocktail of amphetamines and alcohol coursing through his blood. He was badly dehydrated and that was only partly due to the stiflingly hot Provencial sun, one of the last things he supped on was a bottle of brandy.
There is something mawkish about us, the spectators glorying in the suffering of the athletes. We (and I use ‘we’ advisedly) demand ever more difficult courses to encourage drama and produce excitement.
I can’t, and I would never condone drug taking in the peleton, but having ridden these hills (ridden and not raced, mind you, and there is a huge difference) and cycled day after day, I can certainly understand the need for a helping hand, whatever its source. And what if your livelihood, and those of your family depended on your performance?
As soon as you introduce money into sport you remove all that is good and noble about it. To think otherwise is naive. You cease to be sportsman when you become a professional.
We are now in the closing stages of the tour and the thing that has struck me is how it ebbs and flows. Although I have a confession that I am not sure the difference between an ebb and a flow, so I am never sure if we are in an ebb or if we are in a flow.
We started in Corsica with three tough stages, then the pressure eased as we back to the mainland then gradually increased until we reached the Pyreneees. Where it built to a crescendo. Then we had the TT and the long flat stages to the Ventoux. Again the tempo of was gradually increased until by the time we hit the slopes of ‘The Giant’ we were at fever pitch again.
Then a rest day, a transition stage today and a time trial tomorrow, slowly building once more until we hit the mountains once more for an Alpine triple whammy. These promise to be the three most difficult days that I have had on a bike.


Today was a gorgeous stage. We climbed back out of Provence, the fruit groves being replaced by lavender fields then pine forest as we progressively climbed higher. Looking back we were treated to spectacular views of the Ventoux, before descending once more through the most magnificent gorge and then the Alpes loomed into view. Rising snaggle toothed, from the valley floor.
Today was supposed to be an ‘easy day’, a transition from Ventoux to the Alpes. However, I felt terrible on the bike. Perhaps it was the rest day previously, perhaps the after effects of the Ventoux, or maybe the oppressive, thundery atmosphere, however for the first time my legs felt heavy and I could not get comfortable on the bike. I felt tired, lethargic and could not wait for the stage to end. There was a climb at the end of the stage where I tried to ride my legs back into form, by going hard. Did it work? I guess I will find out tomorrow.
I will tell you this though. Had someone offered me something to get me through today, to ease the pain in my legs and the discomfort on the bike, I wouldn’t have taken it, but I would have thought about thinking about it. It’s just as well my bad day happened on an ebb rather than a flow, or maybe it’s the other way round…
From Gap



This kinda encapsulates what I was trying to say above.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=h7wPa1Hl5ZA


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