Tour de France, Day 474

(In which fifth-string announcers fill in for the real guys as the Tour mysteriously goes off track.)

 Bill: And welcome to day 474 of the legendary Tour de France. We pick up as the world’s best cyclists start the day by tackling the Sahara Desert.

Hank: We are certainly out of the mountains now; actually, we’ve been out of the mountains for some months now.

Bill: The terrain is flat on this leg of the Tour, you can see on the topographical simulation on your screens just how flat this one stretch is, and then twenty miles further on it is flat still.

And then flat for the next few miles after that, and as the riders turn south again the landscape becomes flatter still.

Then some more flatness after that, and so on.

Hank: Some of our viewers might be wondering, Bill, how a flat landscape becomes flatter still.

Bill: An honest question, Hank.

You see, as this race goes on and on, perhaps into infinity, the landscape comes closer and closer to the Euclidean Ideal of Flatness that you might remember from high school geometry, a purely mental or philosophical representation of reality. We are told, if you remember, that in geometry lines extend into infinity, circles are perfectly round, and the surface of a sphere is the very perfection of uniform equal distance from the center.

That’s how we’re seeing flat landscapes get flatter still. In fact at some point I expect that you and I will turn into two-dimensional representations ourselves. Things that last into infinitely will do that to you over the long run, I am told by our crack research team. Does that answer your question?

Hank: Yes, perfectly so, Bill, I don’t think I’ve ever heard it so well explained.

You know, while we’re on the topic of questions, some of our viewers might be wondering how it is that this race just seems to go on and on and on.

I mean, under ordinary circumstances it seems to go on and on and on, granted, but this is, unbelievably, day 474. The organizers have to keep inventing stages to account for it.

Bill: Hank, a lot of our viewers have indeed gotten in touch with us via social media asking how it is that this race just keeps going on and on.

As you are aware the Tour often roams, strays you might say, outside the boundaries of France itself. For instance, this year it started in Brussels, worked its way down the Pyrenees — whatever those are, Hank, whatever those are — over to the Alps — I have heard of those — and then down into that big French city.

Hank: Paris?

Bill: Yes, Paris, that’s exactly right, it slipped my mind for a moment. Paris, the large city in the country of France.

Hank: And?

Bill: And? I don’t follow you, Bill.

Hank: Well, that can only take a certain number of days, even if you have lost a bet and are cycling backwards. And yet here we are past the year’s anniversary of this one stinking race.

Bill: Oh, I take your point now, Hank. Yes, you are exactly right, it would only take a certain amount of time even if, as you say, you were cycling backwards.

Hank: Or maneuvering on a pogo stick.

Bill: That is fancifully put, Hank. Yes, even if you were on a pogo stick.

Hank: Going backwards.

Bill: I think we can all agree that the Tour is lasting somewhat longer than expected, Hank. Well, from what I have been told, members of the peloton were at one point…

Hank: Excuse me, Bill, that word, peloton. I can’t quite figure out what it refers to. It is not, as I previously assumed, the French word for pelican?

Bill: No, it is not, as a matter of fact.

Hank: I see that now, it just wasn’t hanging together. People were all ‘peloton this,’ and ‘peloton that,’ and there I was looking around for a long-beaked bird with a large throat pouch. Nowhere to be found!

Bill: No, peloton refers to something else entirely.

Hank: Well, you can’t know everything, can you?

Bill: No, you certainly cannot, Hank. You are a perfect example of that.

Anyway, the peloton was circling one of those roundabouts at full speed and in a demonstration of the dispersion of matter under changing conditions of momentum they lost their center of gravity and went spinning off wildly in an obscure direction as if they had been shot out of a cannon.

Hank: Well, then, again, what exactly is a peloton? You haven’t quite gotten to the point of defining the term.

Bill: I see this is still troubling you, Hank.

Hank: I know I’m behind the times on this matter, but we didn’t even know we were going to do this gig until we got the phone call this morning telling us that the sixteenth and seventeenth commentary crews had retired due to advanced age. You can’t know everything!

Bill: You certainly can’t, Hank! And I say again that you are ample proof of that.

To return to your question, the peloton, as I understand it, is this group, or clump, or clique I suppose, of riders that stay together near the front of the pack. They’re about the population of a small city.

Hank: Why do they do that?

Bill: Well, you’ve got me there, Hank, I can’t quite say.

Hank: It seems a funny way to do business. I mean, it is a race after all.

Bill: (after a long pause.) Anyway, as I was saying, the peloton took that roundabout too fast and spun off in an entirely different direction, and everyone followed, figuring that they knew where they were going, pretty soon here we all were scrambling to keep up, across the steppes of Russia, the swamps of The Everglades, the expansive grounds of the Taj Mahal. It’s been quite a ride, I can tell you that much!

Hank: Something similar happened to me once, Bill, if we have time for a personal story.

Bill: The way the race is going, Hank, we have time enough to tell several personal stories for every individual on the planet.

Hank: I was in a funeral line once, just driving along on our way to the cemetery, when I recalled that I had left my hat back at the church. I cut out of line to go back and get it, and do you know what?

Bill: Tell us, Hank.

Hank: All the people behind me thought that I knew where I was going! All of a sudden a good 90% of the cars in the funeral line were headed directly away from the cemetery, following me! I’ll tell you, that was quite a feeling.

Bill: I expect it was, Hank, and thanks for sharing that insight with us.

Hank: (Reflectively.) Sad in it's own way, that story.

Bill: I should say so.

Hank: Never did find the hat, is what I mean. Makes a man think. (Long pause.) And so, here we are, Bill.

Bill: Yes, here we are.

Hank: In the middle of a race that just goes on and on, following rules that seem to get made up on the spot, and which no one outside of what you might call cycling nut club, absolute cycling nuts, know or care anything about.

Bill: That is just about it in a nutshell, Hank.

Hank: So really, not that much different that the ordinary Tour de France.

Bill: You make a good point, Hank, not that much different at all.

Hank: Just think, each of these riders has an inspiring back story, people cheering for them in their native lands, reservoirs of inner fortitude that we can only guess at. Game! That’s what I call that attitude; game!

Bill: Indeed, I’m with you there, Hank. ‘Game’ is exactly the word. (long pause.) But not bright.

Hank: No, not bright at all.

Bill: You couldn’t say that about them on their best day. I mean, look at them: they just keep cycling, they’ve been going on these thousands of miles now.

It’s like one of those French existential plays they made us read in high school where people just keep doing the same things over and over again for no discernible reason. Makes you wonder if we’re just scraps of protoplasm floating through a mindless universe, doesn’t it, Hank?

Hank: That’s a little rich for me, Bill! I was a phys ed major! I will say that there are some things you can always count on. Look there, just to the right of The Pyramids…

Bill: The Pyrenees?

Hank: No, those are something different, though I still don’t know exactly what. I’m talking about the extremely large triangular-faced structures that have endured here in the desert from ancient times.

You see here that excited spectators are emerging from the shadows of the Pyramids, not Pyrenees, to run alongside the racers for some stupid-headed reason of their own.

They’re an odd people, the Europeans, don’t you think, Bill? I don’t suppose they can help it. I wonder if they run alongside buses, trash trucks, moving trains, anything that moves, in their everyday lives, like a dog I once had? Drunk, I suppose.

I should explain: them, I mean, the Europeans, drunk, not the dog.

Bill: Drunk indeed, Hank.

Hank: The dog didn’t drink at all, as far as I knew.

Bill: This observer at least is surprised that the racers don’t just…oh, wait, I spoke too soon.

Hank: Don’t just start beating the fans about the head with anything they can lay their hands on, perhaps their bikes themselves?

Bill: Exactly, but as I say, I spoke too soon. The game youngster from Canada is laying into the guy with an impressive right hook and now all the cyclists have turned on the spectators running alongside, including those bystanders waving those – again – stupid-headed long clacky balloon things.

Hank: I think we’re seeing some excitement that we didn’t expect on the Tour this year, which can only add to the inherent interest of the sport.

Bill: Can’t hurt, Hank! Can’t hurt!

Hank: Tune in tomorrow for Day 485 as we track the peloton down through Africa and perhaps to Antarctica itself.

Bill: Whatever that is! The peloton, I mean. All I can say is that from here on out, it’s a wide open contest!