Some Things the tour riders don’t have to cope with
After watching the Tour de France I really get inspired to go out and ride my bike. The problem is I half expect to be able to replicate the tour on English roads. But, riding in England makes it very difficult to replicate a stage of the Tour. For example, after 1km of the stage starting, you suddenly have to come to an abrupt halt as a double decker bus gets stuck between two inconsiderately parked SUVs on station road. I mean, this isn’t supposed to happen on a tour stage. Perhaps a flying picket by French farmers indignant at the cut in their EU farming subsidies to a mere £100,000 a year, but, not double decker buses and SUVs.
A thing that looks really fun in the tour is being able to fling empty water bottles across the road (I always wonder why a discarded water bottle doesn’t cause a crash) and then after discarding a water bottle a team mate with 17 bottles stuffed down his jersey will come up and give you a spare. Somehow stopping in a petrol station and fumbling around for change makes you lose your rhythm – it just doesn’t have the same elan as chucking a bottle casually into waiting crowds – who suddenly lose all interest in the race and dash for a water bottle worth £2. (I can never understand that, imagine spending £1000 to go and watch the tour, you wait for hours and then when the riders actually come past you ignore the race and scramble to get a cheap plastic water bottle you could have bought at local bike shop for a fraction of cost of going to Tour – Maybe having to buy your own water, would help spruce up the tour rankings a little. It may even give a chance for French to win, as they could benefit from local knowledge. It would be like the good old days, when if your bike broke down you had to fix it yourself, even if meant visiting a local steel forger to make yourself a new frame- those were the good old days – anyway I digress).
Then there is the climbs of England. In France they talk about a climb with a gradient of 8-10% as being really steep. These riders should try climb Fleet moss (20% looking like 25%) – that’s a real climb. These Alpine climbs may go on for quite a long time, but, I reckon they have it easy. They should put a few proper climbs in the tour like Rosedale Chimney or Hardknott pass. The only chance we have of alpine style climb is the bridge over the motorway, the gradient is about right, but, somehow, it doesn’t really count as a mountain pass, no matter how many times we might go over it..
Another thing is riding at the back of a peleton of 200 riders looks pretty easy, some of them seem to be hardly pedalling at all. And if you get tired, you can always feign a little road rash and go back to hold onto medical car for a few KM. And I bet the Italian riders get a little push from the Tifiosi up the Alpine climbs. Riding here, you have to always simulate the lone breakaway, and the only chance you have of a little push, is the sideways push into gutter – courtesy of Mr White Van Driver, the idea of getting pushed up a hill by supportive bystanders in England is a joke.
This year, an interesting stage of the tour was riding over the cobbles of the Ardenne classics. It split the peleton and made the race interesting. But, if they really want to test the riding skills of the rider, I think they should bring back the Tour to Britain and make it go through rush hour traffic in London or on the local Sustrans cycle path. That would really sort out the men from the boys. It may even give an Englishman a chance of winning. - When you watch the Tour, you never see the pros having to leave the road and negotiate a tiny cycle path at 12mph watching out for pedestrians with dogs on a lead. They have it easy.
So there you go a virtual Tour de France on England’s roads is surely much more challenging than riding the real thing. I reckon the best thing to do is just to hang up the bike and resign yourself to spending three hours a day watching it on Eurosport.
Related
Besides having steep climbs, the British are excellent at humour.
cheers, Patanga