I first watched le Tour as an exchange student in Orleans, staying in an unfamiliar environment where around me people spoke incomprehensibly. I hadn't asked to go, and would not if I had been given a chance. it probably helped my french, particularly my accent, something I have never used in the intervening years. The exchange was in July, the month of le Tour, and in France le Tour is on television every day. At the time there would have been no other chance for me to have seen it. It was a magnificent race, two frenchmen (Bernard Hinault a three time winner, and Laurent Fignon a twenty-three year old) battling through amazing scenery, climbing mountains and hurtling past chateaux. It was something very different, a sporting event that covered an entire country, that took place in the country, passing by locals who simply stepped out of their houses to see the greatest sporting event that their country has to offer.
Since that year we have both watched le Tour each year, each stage on each day for a three week period. It is an annual event, a shared experience, and something we treasure. How can this be? A bike race in France.
The first thing to realize about le Tour de France is that it takes place in France, a beautiful country. The route is different each year and, while the constraints of a bicycle race still apply, the organizers plan things to show as many beautiful parts of France as possible. One day you might have a race start in a fortified medieval town square, pass along a wooded river valley, and then climb up through stunning mountains to an alpine ski resort. The race is covered by cameras on motorcycles (many of them) and helicopters following the race. Every half hour or so a chateau, or monastery, or field of daffodils, or plateau, or ancient church will be lovingly photographed. The announcers are given a little piece of information on each sight. So, regularly you will get a helicopter circling le Abbeye de Fingumbergh built in 1438 and burned in the hundred years war housing the famed statue of St, Sassifras, then back to the race. Something like this:
The second thing about the race is that it renders competition down to its most basic form, who can take the most pain. To begin, the Tour this year is a total of 3,497 kilometers in length in 21 stages over 23 days. That's an average of 166km, or 104 miles a day. There are serious bicyclists who train through a year in order to complete a single "centurion" 100 miles in a day. A professional cyclist once suggested that each Tour completed takes a year off your life, simply from the stress of the event on your body. Tis is one of the very few sports in the world where the main goal of a substantial portion of the best 200 athletes in the world is to finish. The overall race is largely determined in two places, in individual time trials where you ride as fast as your body can possibly take for about an hour, or in long stages climbing multiple mountains. To win le Tour you have to be able to climb giant mountains and hurtle along at an average speed of 30 miles an hour, for an hour, on a bicycle, and you must never have an off day. When the winner has crossed the finish line there are people whose job is to catch them, so that they don't fall off the bicycle. If watching people do something amazing, as hard as they can, interests you then le Tour has bags and bags of it.
Then there are different competitions within the race. There is the race for being the best mountain climber. A race for being the best sprinter. An award each day for being the most aggressive rider. A race for the best young rider. Obviously there is the race for who completes the whole thing in the shortest time, the overall winner. Each of these races has their own jersey to be worn by whoever is winning that competition at the time, the polka dot for the mountains, green for the sprints, white for the young rider, a red number for the most aggressive, and le Maillot Jaune, the yellow jersey, for the overall race leader. This isn't simply seeing who gets over the line the fastest at the end of the third week. Every single day there are at least four (five, see below) races happening, in the same race.
The fourth thing about bicycle riding you have to understand is that aerodynamics really matter. A rider closely following another rider uses about 30% less energy to go the same speed. Someone riding within a large group will use even less than this. This entirely alters the strategy, since cycling is mostly about who can have the most available effort during the race. So, it makes no sense at all for someone who wants to win the race to simply go as fast as they can. everyone else will simply line up behind them, coast along using less effort and then beat them at the end. This is half of the reason that cycling is actually a team sport. Le Tour de France is contested by teams of nine riders. Most of these riders are there simply to help one guy win (these are called domestiques) and they do that by cutting the wind in front of that rider, bringing him food and water, taking care of him. There are other riders trying for the other competitions and people to help those riders.
In almost every day of racing a relatively small group of riders (called the breakaway), most of them going for that single crowning achievement of a stage win, will break off from the main group (called le peloton which rides together in a huge group to reduce the effort) and ride for 100km or more trying to keep away. Usually these riders are all from different teams, but must work together in order to stay away from the main group. However, if they manage to stay away each of them will be trying their own attempt and method to win the stage. It is a game of cooperation and ultimate betrayal, all while pushing themselves to such a limit that they finish tens of minutes behind everyone the next day.
Then there is the commonality of experience in riding a bicycle along a road. There has been only one exception to the rule that everyone I have known has ridden a bicycle down the street. There are very few of us who haven't felt the gasping breathe, the pain in the chest, the effort to make the bike go up that hill, to work, as fast as possible. We know what these guys feel, and that forms a connection. There is a deep empathic understanding of a man on his bicycle exhausted but determined to drag his aching body up that hill. It is almost impossible not to will on a stranger in latex in a foreign land making that desperate break for freedom against the screaming of his body.
Cycling is dangerous. You can fall off your bike and hit the ground, which hurts like a son of a bitch. Professional cyclists do this pretty regularly at about thirty miles an hour. They are in groups of riders of more than a hundred, and so if someone crashes in front of you it can go very badly. Most of them get back on the bike and keep going, knowing that they will have that road rash going up mountains for the next two weeks. Often they break collar bones.
Finally, there are descents. After going up mountains it is necessary to go down them. In a professional bike race it is necessary to go down them very quickly indeed. This is filmed by people on motorcycles, who often can't even keep up. You get to see things like this:
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