| | By Mark Shahinian
Special to ABC Sports Online
REVEL, France -- The Tour de France is unlike any American sporting event. It doesn't take place on a Sunday afternoon. You can't watch it from a stadium. It can't be force-fed to you in half-hour television spots. You can't get up and get potato chips between innings.
But the differences between the Tour and other sporting events makes it an electrifying experience for the few Americans who get the chance to see it live. This year, I'm one of those lucky few, and I plan to follow the Tour from start to finish.
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Lance Armstrong walks among the team trailers. |
A fan's view of the racing itself is very different depending on where they are standing on the course and what kind of stage it is. All stages but one have been flat so far, and on the flat stages, no matter where you stand, the field of 180 riders flashes by in less than 15 seconds.
I saw the finish at Loudun and the string of riders approaching at 40 mph was like a train on the Paris metro going by, with a buildup of air pressure and a whoosh of carbon-fiber wheels on the pavement. I could pick out a few faces, like Erik Zabel out in front, but mostly it was a blur of uniforms and bikes passing two feet from my face.
The mountain stages bring you much closer to the riders. They are moving much slower and the expressions on their faces bring out the human side of the race. I was on the Hautacam climb in the Pyrénées two days ago, at the end of the huge mountain stage.
When Lance Armstrong came by, I had two American flags ready and I ran next to him up the road, screaming at him to go, go. I'll have to admit I was disappointed he didn't flinch -- his concentration was too strong for my antics. Bobby Julich weaved up the road 11 minutes later, and turned to give me a wary, dazed look with one eye. It was another disappointment, since he obviously didn't recognize me from the day two years ago when I got his autograph.
Meanwhile, Italian racers somehow have neatly combed hair after five hours in the wind and rain, and Italian Salvatore Commesso even had the presence of mind to give a big wink to someone's video camera.
Before the start of a day's stage, the riders all get ready in their team buses, separated from the crowd by barriers. In Vannes, as at other stages, the crowd gleefully ignored the barriers, and I went in with them. Soon, in a small enclosed area, were all the team vehicles, the riders themselves, all the press and hangers-on, plus maybe a thousand fans. Right next to me were all the modern giants of cycling, tooling around on their bikes, chatting with the crowd and looking very human. Udo Bolts, a German on the Telekom team, was talking in English to a group of about five fans and a reporter. He is personable, he smiles, makes jokes about his advanced age, and talked about the mountains to come.
The U.S. Postal Service team was one of the last to get out of its trailer. Tyler Hamilton and Armstrong didn't come out until most of the field was lined up at the start. I've heard some press guys complain about their accessibility. George Hincapie gave me an autograph, but the Americans on the team didn't hang out and chat much. Kevin Livingston seemed like he was in a pretty good mood and ragged the Trek representative that he hasn't seen any of the mountain bikes that he was promised.
Groupie that I am, I loitered around the Postal Service bus the morning before the first stage to see if anything would happen. This guy showed up in a chef's uniform and introduced himself to a group of us as Willie, the cook for the Postal Service team. Willie is Swiss, and very talkative. I asked him what food the riders like best.
"With riders, it is always the same, spaghetti, spaghetti, spaghetti," said Willie in his pan-Euro accent, who carries 40 kilograms (88 pounds) of pasta with him for the Tour and buys more along the way.
Willie doesn't cook for the team all year. "Always spaghetti, spaghetti, spaghetti. After a while it is too much."
A Tour stage in the mountains is a celebration of local culture, sport and life itself. At the top of Hautacam this year was a crowd of more than 10,000 people. Everyone came to the mountain top for the same reasons, determined to enjoy themselves.
There are Spaniards, many waving the Basque flag.
A local farmers' group set up a bar and brought in a DJ, who had people dancing in the road. (I was pleased to find there is an entire nation that dances as poorly as I do.)
The next morning, I was huddled in the rain and the cold when three Danish guys gave me some coffee and invited me into their van. We started chatting with some Frenchmen, who plied us with various liqueurs as we watched race coverage on their satellite TV.
When the riders finally came, there was no booing. Fans cheered for every rider, even if the French and Spanish riders got louder cheers than everybody else. Fans often gave riders who were out of contention a friendly push up the mountain. Carrying my American flags around, I got multiple shouts of "Armstrong" followed by a thumbs-up.
The French love the Tour. It is more important to their culture than the Super Bowl is to ours. Before the daily stage, you see local riders out on the course, perhaps imagining themselves in another doomed breakaway with Jacky Durand.
I saw the race go through Chemille, a village in the Loire valley. On the side roads leading to Chemille, every village was empty and shuttered. They had all closed up shop and were lining the main road in Chemille, several kilometers long.
It is an annual ritual every summer celebrated in this lovely nation.
Mark Shahinian is a freelance writer based in the San Francisco Bay Area. He can be reached by email at markshahinian@hotmail.com. | |
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