every day about 4, i look at a random fact online. usually this is just some random thing that pops into my head and i wiki it, which then leads me to 333 other things — one of which will hold me.

today the word i wiki’d was "derailleur," which led me to henri desgrange, the founder (or one of the founders) of the tour de france. quickly, i picked up his quote on derailleurs in my sig line, and then moved on to today’s topic, the tour de france itself.

now, i’ve long poked and prodded WR with my declarations that a team car with extra bikes on it is cheating. this is mostly just cause i know it raises his neck hairs, but in the end, i’m the kind of guy who doesn’t go out on the road without a full field-kit of tools anyway, so i do somewhat maintain a disdainful feeling about the concept of the team car.

(as subsequent to that, one of my favorite stories of the tour was sometime in the early 1900s when a guy broke his fork, hiked several kilometers into town, asked a blacksmith to let him use his shop for a few, FABRICATED A NEW FORK, and finished the race. likely in last place, but still. awesome.)

another thing i’ve never understood (though i DO admire it) is the concept of a cycling team. since i’m an old BMX kid, i’m an individualist on pedals. i don’t really support the idea of several people racing to support only one. but again, that’s just me. in the end, my opinion and three bucks’ll get you across town.

aaanyway. my point here is this single piece of the wikipedia article on the TOUR DE FRANCE, in which it turns out that tour founder desgrange and myself share some beliefs…

"Desgrange and his Tour invented bicycle stage racing. Desgrange experimented with judging by elapsed time and then by points for placings each day. He stood out against multiple gears and for many years insisted riders use wooden rims, fearing the heat of braking while coming down mountains would melt the glue that held the tyres.

His dream was a race of individuals. He invited teams but forbade their members to pace each other. He then went the other way and briefly ran the Tour as a giant team time-trial, teams starting separately with members pacing each other. He demanded riders mend their bicycles without help. He demanded they use the same bicycle from start to end. He at first allowed riders who dropped out one day to continue the next for daily prizes but not the overall prize. He allowed teams who lost members in the team time-trial years to recruit fresh replacements.

Above all, he conducted a campaign against the sponsors, bicycle factories, he was sure were undermining the spirit of a Tour de France of individuals."

it AMAZES me to think of a guy climbing the fucking alps on a fixed-gear with wooden rims held together with fromage and filles se suicider.

encroyable!

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