Tour de France a confusing race but a fascinating travelogue
I don’t understand the Tour de France.
The world’s most famous bicycle race strikes me as an incomprehensible mass of spandex jerseys, occasionally exploding into a frenzy of gyrating handlebars and broken wrists.
So, why am I hooked on it?
Because the Tour de France is the best European travelogue on TV. Every morning, I float vicariously over the villages of the Ardennes, the vineyards of Champagne, the rocky canyons of the Pyrenees and the alpine meadows of the, well, Alpine meadows.
I have never been to France and I probably never will. Yet every morning I feast my eyes on quaint villages, stately chateaus and bucolic farm fields in which the farmers have, inexplicably, arranged their haystacks into a map of France.
They probably did it for the sake of the helicopter. A copter hovers over the entire race and the camera is more prone to circle lovingly over the Notre-Dame de Reims Cathedral – or a work of haystack art – than over the surging peloton (the big lump of bicycle racers moving monotonously down rural roads like a rabbit through a python).
And it’s educational, too. Did you know that we get the word “spa” from the hot springs resort city of Spa, Belgium? Well, you would, if you had been watching the Tour de France. The race’s second stage ended in that storied city.
Why would the Tour de France be taking place in Belgium? This is yet another thing that I find incomprehensible about the Tour de France. Still, it’s fine by me. I’ve never been to Belgium, either.
So this is why I eat my oatmeal every morning with Lance Armstrong and Alberto Contador. You’d think that after watching the Tour every year for 10 years I’d have the actual race figured out by now. Yet this year, I finally realized the problem: Even the announcers have no idea what is happening.
If they can’t figure it out, what chance do I have?
About 90 percent of the time, the expert commentators seem (1) baffled, (2) confused or (3) wrong.
As I write this, the announcer has just uttered these words: “What’s going on here? These are not the sprinters!”
That’s typical of the incisive insight we get on the broadcast. A few days ago, the same announcer said this: “And here’s Tyler Farrar. No, that’s Robbie McEwen. No, I mean that’s Robbie Hunter.”
Look, I don’t blame him. They’re all wearing jerseys in clown colors, they all have helmets and sunglasses, and they all have the same amount of body fat (none).
Yet no matter how many stages I watch, I’m still waiting for the experts to clearly and concisely explain the principles of road-racing strategy. I still have the impression that it consists of sitting in the pack for 130 miles, hopping on something called the “lead-out train” in the last one-eighth of a mile and then pedaling like crazy for the last half-block.
Yet despite my almost total lack of understanding of the sport, I have a tremendous amount of respect for bicycle racers, the toughest athletes in the world. At one point, the announcers mentioned the peloton was going 36 mph. On the flat. And they weren’t even sprinting.
Yeah. These guys could get pulled over for speeding up High Drive.
Still, the appeal is only peripherally about the racers or even the race. I’m simply enjoying my own little monthlong helicopter tour de France, and, bizarrely, de Belgium.