Pacharán for breakfast as I pay homage to San Fermin and Le Tour.

Every year is the same, and I feel it again: San Fermin and Le Tour. I understand there'll be numerous rejoinders to both, ranging from cruelty to animals to performance enhancing drugs.

At the same time, they're major annual markers in this Europhile's life. Some day ... anyway, first the bicycles in France and adjoining lands.

Frustrated Europhile, first of two: "Beercycling with or without Le Tour."

I’ve seen brief snippets of Le Tour in person on two occasions, in 2001 and 2004. Oddly, both glimpses came not in France, but in Belgium. The first viewing was in Lo, a very small town, and the second came in Liege, a very large city. Rural or cosmopolitan, the vibrations were identical, and it’s a thrill to be in proximity to the festive atmosphere surrounding the Tour, watching people of all ages gather to witness what can be the most fleeting of sporting seconds.

And, up in Basque country, so many fond memories.

Frustrated Europhile, second of two: "Red scarf, white shirt and San Miguel beer."

San Fermin is a primitive, almost mythological outburst balancing seemingly disparate elements. Confrontations between man and bull, gatherings of grandparents and grandchildren sharing hot chocolate, feasting and contrition, outpourings of religious and political conviction, incessant musical cacophony and extraordinary alcoholic lubrication all suffice as snapshots of the grandeur and debauchery.

Anyone around here sell patxaran?

Pacharán is a Spanish liqueur which is made from crushed and fermented sloes, the black-purple coloured fruits of the blackthorn tree. This particular alcoholic drink is almost exclusively made in the Spanish region of Navarre where it is also known as Patxaran in the Basque language. The drink has been made in the region since the Middle Ages and has since, begun to expand.

Lance Armstrong with Joe Rogan; two hours well spent.

This interview may be three years old, but I've finally discovered Joe Rogan of late and his chat with Armstrong is informative and enjoyable. Note the $100 million lawsuit of which they speak was settled in 2018 for $5 million. 

For those interested in the wider story, this BBC documentary is excellent. Be aware that the YouTube postings of it tend to disappear.

To be honest, all these sports juicing scandals continue to produce an ambiguous reaction in me. Quite a few banks cheated, prompting an international recession, then were caught ... and, well, nothing much happened to them at all, at least here in America. We routinely incarcerate minorities for far less.

Maybe money really does have something to do with it? Bogey man Barry Bonds asked the right question, as referenced by Dave Zirin back in 2012:

'It's Bonds. Barry Bonds': The Return of Baseball's Invisible Man, by Dave Zirin (The Nation)

... There is a delight that the baseball cognoscenti takes in making Barry Bonds their “invisible man.” It’s a way to marginalize him without confronting what he represents. He’s a home-run king in exile. He’s the end product of an era where owners made billions selling a steroid-enhanced product. He’s the person who can no longer tell the press to go to hell, because they won’t acknowledge his voice. The press corps once asked Bonds if he thought steroids was cheating. Bonds responded, “Is steroids cheating? You want to define cheating in America? When they make a shirt in Korea for a $1.50 and sell it here for 500 bucks. And you ask me what cheating means?” Now they don’t have to care what he thinks. Now they can humiliate him forever by denying his existence.

Frustrated Europhile, first of two: "Beercycling with or without Le Tour."

The worldliness of the World Cup aside, it's the pinnacle of trifectas for Europhiles like me, because all at once, there's an all-European football final four, bicycling's Tour de France and the Festival of San Fermin in Pamplona.

Oh, to be on a veranda somewhere in the Pyrenees just about now. Instead, I'll be doing yard work most of the day. It's too depressing to contemplate, so here's a repeat of a previous Le Tour column, to be followed by a Pamplona repeat.

I've never been to a World Cup match, although viewing the competition while touring Old Albania in 194 was a kick (pun intended).

Happy reading. Wish I was there.

---

ON THE AVENUES: Beercycling with or without Le Tour.

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

(This column was originally published at Potable Curmudgeon on June 30, 2014 and has been updated only slightly)

American clocks do not synchronize with Europe, and so each year that I'm stateside during the Tour de France, I must adapt with breakfast buffets of espresso, baguettes, gnarly goat cheese … and beer.

I’ve seen brief snippets of Le Tour in person on two occasions, in 2001 and 2004. Oddly, both glimpses came not in France, but in Belgium. The first viewing was in Lo, a very small town, and the second came in Liege, a very large city. Rural or cosmopolitan, the vibrations were identical, and it’s a thrill to be in proximity to the festive atmosphere surrounding the Tour, watching people of all ages gather to witness what can be the most fleeting of sporting seconds.

But first, an obligatory word from the Tour’s sponsors, namely, the mechanized entourage preceding the cyclists’ arrival, equal parts dromedary and circus sideshow.

In Lo, we got to see it all.

Support vans for the various teams roll through at intervals, and there is no mistaking which corporation pays their freight. Dozens of vehicles in all shapes and sizes belonging to various subsidiary sponsors dart past, leaving mounds of advertising paraphernalia strewn in their wake. When this colorful parade is over, there is a pause before sirens blast, bells toll, policemen noisily clear the street, and the actual cyclists finally make their appearances.

When riding on flat ground, the peloton can go past so incredibly quickly that if you yawn, you’ll miss it. Once past, enterprising spectators then rush back to their cars (or bikes) to take pursuit, and perhaps choose another vantage point further down the road.

But in Lo, it struck me that residents of villages not graced with the Tour’s presence for many decades take a far more leisurely opportunity to make a day of it, first introducing their children and grandchildren to the event’s history, and then watching the pedal-by before returning to their homes for cocktail hour and the evening news.

---

Having taken up walking, I’ve done little since 2013 to merit the description of bicyclist, but still consider myself a lapsed, casual, commuting cyclist. My riding resumed in the late 1990’s after a long hiatus, beginning with a mountain bike for short jaunts only, then graduating to a hybrid – a heavier frame and wider tires.

I still have the bike. Except for the original frame, every bit of it has been replaced numerous times with replacement components. It has traveled with me to Europe on at least four occasions for the pursuit of beercycling, or the discriminating art of doing just enough riding to justify the beers (and meals) that come afterward.

It is inexcusable hedonism at its finest, though not without informative sightseeing, hearty exercise and enriching camaraderie. If you can bike past a Belgian frites stand without stopping, you’re a better – and thinner – man.

In beercycling, one experiences the cityscape and countryside, just not at speeds customarily traveled by Tour de France riders. I weigh more than them, and they climb mountains like the Pyrenees faster than I traverse the neutral terrain of Flanders. Their support teams are not at my disposal, although in the early days of the race, riders were compelled to carry everything they needed to make necessary repairs.

And, much as now, the Tour de France’s cyclists used to seek the assistance of performance enhancing substances. A poster on the wall at the Public House shows 1920’s era Tour participants on break, seated on the steps of a café, with admiring children clustered behind them watching intently as they hoist big mugs of beer.

A few years ago, I read Tour de France: The History, The Legend, The Riders, by Graeme Fife.

Fife, an English amateur cyclist, provides a workmanlike and chronological, if sometimes meandering, account of the race’s century-long history, as well as gritty descriptions of his own two-wheeled gonzo ascents of the particularly gruesome climbs expected of riders each year in the Alps and Pyrenees.

These climbs provide instruction as to why drugs of all conceivable types have always been taboo, as well as being (arguably) indispensable elements of the Tour. Before the fame and riches, there came a race designed by its founder to be a superlative, supreme test in the annals of human endurance, something otherwise found only within the pages of a US Marine Corps training manual.

In fact, early Tour routes were calculated, lengthened, augmented and toughened according to their prime mover’s earnest (warped?) desire for the “perfect” Tour, one so abominably difficult that only a single rider would survive each year to approach the stand and claim victory.

Perhaps this is why I feel about the Tour de France much as I do about American baseball: Some sportsmen may well be cheating dopers, and I’ll waste no time defending their actions, preferring to gaze benignly past the ephemeral, toward the timeless and true essence of the sport itself, this being what matters the most to me.

Accordingly, my personal Tour de France moment was in 2006 in the Czech Republic. In one grueling day, my sadly departed compatriot Kevin Richards (R.I.P.) and I rode roughly 125 late summer kilometers through ceaselessly hilly, gorgeous Bohemian countryside, fully laden with panniers, stopping exhausted just before dusk at a three-word, multi-syllabic town, renting a room, showering, and finally dining on beer, wine, duck, beef and more beer. These are the drugs of choice for the discerning beercyclist.

Vive la France! … and, long live Ceska Republika, too.

---

In 2001, the Lo year, we beercyclists made the newspaper in Poperinge. As translated by the inimitable Luc Dequidt, here is the article.

Did we really say that about Lance Armstrong?

Maybe it was the beer talking.

4 Americans visit the Tour - Beer and Cycling

Four Americans stayed this week at the Palace Hotel in Poperinge - Bob Reed and Kevin Lowber from Kentucky, Tim Eads and Roger Baylor from Indiana. Mainly here to sample local brews, they did not want to miss the Tour de France; they watched it from the terrace of a local pub in Lo, a more than unique experience for the four Americans.

Kentucky is mainly known for breeding horses, so horse racing is extremely popular. Indiana is more industrialized with steel industry around Lake Michigan. Needless to say that they were charmed by the peace and quiet of the Poperinge area, a cyclist's paradise. Their home states are more car orientated.

On Monday they cycled to Lo; they had never seen the Tour or any other main cycling event. American TV pays more attention to extreme sports, cycling is not one of them despite the presence of Lance Armstrong. They were impressed by the publicity caravan, carnival as they called it; a Michelin flag or Champion cap made a nice souvenir. They watched out for the American cyclists; they recognized the US Postal shirts but not who rode with a blue shirt. They strongly believe in another victory of Lance Armstrong but did not hear yet about the cooperation with the controversial Italian doctor Ferrari.

They do not speak in public about drugs. "Armstrong seems to be an honest guy." They would be very disappointed when it would appear that their hero in the Tour takes illegal products.

They do not know many names of Belgian cyclists, exception made for Tom Steels and Eddy Merckx, of course. After the Tour passed through Lo, Westvleteren was the next stop for a delicious Trappist.

Roger, Tim, Kevin and Bob already visited Poperinge in 1999 during the hop fest. Bob remembers the refreshing taste of Hommelbier and still speaks highly about the Hop Queen.

Again local real ales are the reason for staying at the Palace. Landlord Guy serves them another brew each evening in a matching glass; no less than 130 different beers are available at the Palace.

Before leaving Poperinge, they cycled up the Cassel-mountain and visited a local inn, het Kasteelhof, where another local ale was tasted.

As a salesman, Kevin introduced the Hommelbier in quite a number of American pubs and also Roger serves it in his Rich O's Public House. He will soon serve his own homebrew.

ON THE AVENUES: Beercycling with or without Le Tour.

ON THE AVENUES: Beercycling with or without Le Tour.

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

(This column was originally published at Potable Curmudgeon on June 30, 2014 and has been updated only slightly)

American clocks do not synchronize with Europe, and so each year that I'm stateside during the Tour de France, I must adapt with breakfast buffets of espresso, baguettes, gnarly goat cheese … and beer.

I’ve seen brief snippets of Le Tour in person on two occasions, in 2001 and 2004. Oddly, both glimpses came not in France, but in Belgium. The first viewing was in Lo, a very small town, and the second came in Liege, a very large city. Rural or cosmopolitan, the vibrations were identical, and it’s a thrill to be in proximity to the festive atmosphere surrounding the Tour, watching people of all ages gather to witness what can be the most fleeting of sporting seconds.

But first, an obligatory word from the Tour’s sponsors, namely, the mechanized entourage preceding the cyclists’ arrival, equal parts dromedary and circus sideshow.

In Lo, we got to see it all.

Support vans for the various teams roll through at intervals, and there is no mistaking which corporation pays their freight. Dozens of vehicles in all shapes and sizes belonging to various subsidiary sponsors dart past, leaving mounds of advertising paraphernalia strewn in their wake. When this colorful parade is over, there is a pause before sirens blast, bells toll, policemen noisily clear the street, and the actual cyclists finally make their appearances.

When riding on flat ground, the peloton can go past so incredibly quickly that if you yawn, you’ll miss it. Once past, enterprising spectators then rush back to their cars (or bikes) to take pursuit, and perhaps choose another vantage point further down the road.

But in Lo, it struck me that residents of villages not graced with the Tour’s presence for many decades take a far more leisurely opportunity to make a day of it, first introducing their children and grandchildren to the event’s history, and then watching the pedal-by before returning to their homes for cocktail hour and the evening news.

---

Having taken up walking, I’ve done little since 2013 to merit the description of bicyclist, but still consider myself a lapsed, casual, commuting cyclist. My riding resumed in the late 1990’s after a long hiatus, beginning with a mountain bike for short jaunts only, then graduating to a hybrid – a heavier frame and wider tires.

I still have the bike. Except for the original frame, every bit of it has been replaced numerous times with replacement components. It has traveled with me to Europe on at least four occasions for the pursuit of beercycling, or the discriminating art of doing just enough riding to justify the beers (and meals) that come afterward.

It is inexcusable hedonism at its finest, though not without informative sightseeing, hearty exercise and enriching camaraderie. If you can bike past a Belgian frites stand without stopping, you’re a better – and thinner – man.

In beercycling, one experiences the cityscape and countryside, just not at speeds customarily traveled by Tour de France riders. I weigh more than them, and they climb mountains like the Pyrenees faster than I traverse the neutral terrain of Flanders. Their support teams are not at my disposal, although in the early days of the race, riders were compelled to carry everything they needed to make necessary repairs.

And, much as now, the Tour de France’s cyclists used to seek the assistance of performance enhancing substances. A poster on the wall at the Public House shows 1920’s era Tour participants on break, seated on the steps of a café, with admiring children clustered behind them watching intently as they hoist big mugs of beer.

A few years ago, I read Tour de France: The History, The Legend, The Riders, by Graeme Fife.

Fife, an English amateur cyclist, provides a workmanlike and chronological, if sometimes meandering, account of the race’s century-long history, as well as gritty descriptions of his own two-wheeled gonzo ascents of the particularly gruesome climbs expected of riders each year in the Alps and Pyrenees.

These climbs provide instruction as to why drugs of all conceivable types have always been taboo, as well as being (arguably) indispensable elements of the Tour. Before the fame and riches, there came a race designed by its founder to be a superlative, supreme test in the annals of human endurance, something otherwise found only within the pages of a US Marine Corps training manual.

In fact, early Tour routes were calculated, lengthened, augmented and toughened according to their prime mover’s earnest (warped?) desire for the “perfect” Tour, one so abominably difficult that only a single rider would survive each year to approach the stand and claim victory.

Perhaps this is why I feel about the Tour de France much as I do about American baseball: Some sportsmen may well be cheating dopers, and I’ll waste no time defending their actions, preferring to gaze benignly past the ephemeral, toward the timeless and true essence of the sport itself, this being what matters the most to me.

Accordingly, my personal Tour de France moment was in 2006 in the Czech Republic. In one grueling day, my sadly departed compatriot Kevin Richards (R.I.P.) and I rode roughly 125 late summer kilometers through ceaselessly hilly, gorgeous Bohemian countryside, fully laden with panniers, stopping exhausted just before dusk at a three-word, multi-syllabic town, renting a room, showering, and finally dining on beer, wine, duck, beef and more beer. These are the drugs of choice for the discerning beercyclist.

Vive la France! … and, long live Ceska Republika, too.

---

In 2001, the Lo year, we beercyclists made the newspaper in Poperinge. As translated by the inimitable Luc Dequidt, here is the article.

Did we really say that about Lance Armstrong?

Maybe it was the beer talking.

4 Americans visit the Tour - Beer and Cycling

Four Americans stayed this week at the Palace Hotel in Poperinge - Bob Reed and Kevin Lowber from Kentucky, Tim Eads and Roger Baylor from Indiana. Mainly here to sample local brews, they did not want to miss the Tour de France; they watched it from the terrace of a local pub in Lo, a more than unique experience for the four Americans.

Kentucky is mainly known for breeding horses, so horse racing is extremely popular. Indiana is more industrialized with steel industry around Lake Michigan. Needless to say that they were charmed by the peace and quiet of the Poperinge area, a cyclist's paradise. Their home states are more car orientated.

On Monday they cycled to Lo; they had never seen the Tour or any other main cycling event. American TV pays more attention to extreme sports, cycling is not one of them despite the presence of Lance Armstrong. They were impressed by the publicity caravan, carnival as they called it; a Michelin flag or Champion cap made a nice souvenir. They watched out for the American cyclists; they recognized the US Postal shirts but not who rode with a blue shirt. They strongly believe in another victory of Lance Armstrong but did not hear yet about the cooperation with the controversial Italian doctor Ferrari.

They do not speak in public about drugs. "Armstrong seems to be an honest guy." They would be very disappointed when it would appear that their hero in the Tour takes illegal products.

They do not know many names of Belgian cyclists, exception made for Tom Steels and Eddy Merckx, of course. After the Tour passed through Lo, Westvleteren was the next stop for a delicious Trappist.

Roger, Tim, Kevin and Bob already visited Poperinge in 1999 during the hop fest. Bob remembers the refreshing taste of Hommelbier and still speaks highly about the Hop Queen.

Again local real ales are the reason for staying at the Palace. Landlord Guy serves them another brew each evening in a matching glass; no less than 130 different beers are available at the Palace.

Before leaving Poperinge, they cycled up the Cassel-mountain and visited a local inn, het Kasteelhof, where another local ale was tasted.

As a salesman, Kevin introduced the Hommelbier in quite a number of American pubs and also Roger serves it in his Rich O's Public House. He will soon serve his own homebrew.

---

Recent columns:

June 29: ON THE AVENUES: Back in the USSR, with my old friend Barr.

June 22: ON THE AVENUES: Train Whistle Reds, or my journey from Budapest to Moscow by rail in June, 1987.

June 15: ON THE AVENUES: Hi there, NAHA wastrels. My name is Peter Principle, and these are my friends Deaf and Dugout.

June 8: ON THE AVENUES: Since 2004, "Two way, better way."

As the Tour begins: "Lance Armstrong cheated death, and then he kept on cheating."

The 2016 Tour de France began today. The documentary film is from 2014.

Storyville: The Lance Armstrong Story - Stop at Nothing (BBC 4)

Documentary telling the intimate but explosive story about the man behind the greatest fraud in recent sporting history, a portrait of a man who stopped at nothing in pursuit of money, fame and success.

It reveals how Lance Armstrong duped the world with his story of a miraculous recovery from cancer to become a sporting icon and a beacon of hope for cancer sufferers around the world. The film maps how Armstrong's cheating and bullying became more extreme and how a few brave souls fought back, until eventually their voices were heard.

Director Alex Holmes tracks down some of his former friends and team members who reveal how his cheating was the centre of a grand conspiracy in which Armstrong and his backers sought to steal the Tour de France. Friends and fellow riders were brought into a dirty pact that no-one could betray, lest the horrifying extent of complicity be revealed. But the former friends whose lives he destroyed would prove to be his nemesis, and help uncover one of the dirtiest scandals in sports history.

The article also is from 2014.

Lance Armstrong in Purgatory: The After-Life, by John H. Richardson (Esquire)

... This we can stipulate: Lance Armstrong cheated death, and then he kept on cheating. And he was no run-of-the-mill cheat. Sublimely American in his ambition, he became the best cheater, greatest cheater of all time, turning a European bicycle race into a gaudy, ruthless, and unprecedented demonstration of American corporate prowess and athletic hegemony. He doped and bullied other bikers to dope and sued or harassed people for telling the truth about him, which is hard to forgive. But he wasn't the evil genius who invented evil. At twenty-three days and twenty-two hundred miles, the Tour is so hard that cyclists have always sought some kind of performance enhancement. In the 1920s, they took cocaine and alcohol, and in the 1940s, amphetamines. In 1962, fourteen of them dropped out because of morphine sickness. Between 1987 and 1992, use of the blood-oxygen booster called EPO may have killed as many as twenty-three riders. But even that didn't stop them. In his testimony to the antidoping agency, testimony that helped ruin Armstrong, a former teammate named Frankie Andreu told investigators that when they first met on the European circuit in 1992, both of them quickly realized that "it was going to be difficult to have professional success as a cyclist without using EPO." This was, in fact, the "general consensus" of the entire team, Andreu added.

And that's how things stayed.

The Tour de France, bicycling and walking.

The 102nd Tour de France began today.

Last year I wrote about it at Potable Curmudgeon: The PC: Beercycling with Le Tour.

It's been 11 years since our intrepid band of beercyclists watched Le Tour kick off in Liege, Belgium. At times I get frustrated as these milestones disappear ever further into the gloaming, as reflected by the damnable rear view mirror. But great times they were.

Lately I've become a walker, one who harbors a suspicion that bicycling will return to the personal mobility arsenal at some point. When I dream about returning to Europe some day, these vignettes always involve walking, biking and riding trains.

There is no inclination on my part to drive across Europe -- not ever before, and not now -- but to each his or her own.

Maybe some day, a very slow trek through a nice region by foot and pedal. The dream sustains me during those times when my city devotes millions to paving, but can't paint white stripes on a crosswalk without a metaphorical gun being held to its head, and parks cars on the segment of the Greenway ostensibly dedicated to walkers and cyclists.

We can be so very stupid, and yes, it bothers me.

Guardian video: Tour de France in numbers.

Better riding through chemistry?

With the 100th Tour de France starting from Corsica on Saturday, this short film highlights the differences between the first race in 1903 and the 2013 contest. Using data from the original Tour de France and contemporary races, we look at what has changed between then and now

It's time for the 100th Tour de France.

On Saturday, it's the 100th Tour de France, and the first since Lance Armstrong fessed up. Drugged or not, he was especially ferocious on the mountain stages.

Tour de France: five classic mountain climbs

Ahead of the 100th Tour de France, which begins on Saturday, Giles Belbin, author of Mountain Kings, recalls the dramatic cycling history of five of the race's most famous climbs – and then tells you how you can ride them yourself

Riding them myself probably isn't an option, seeing as I have (maybe) 100 km so far this year.

Tour de France 2013: interactive guide (Guardian)

The 100th Tour de France starts in Corsica on Saturday 29th June - here's our guide to the stages and the teams

In 2011, I wrote a bit about the Tour. It's still an amazing spectacle for me, and I hope it's in the cards to be in the neighborhood again, some day.

THURSDAY, JULY 07, 2011

ON THE AVENUES: Vive le beercyclist!

ON THE AVENUES: Vive le beercyclist!

By ROGER BAYLOR

In a perfect and thus unattainable world, Bank Street Brewhouse’s opening hours would be precisely synchronized with European clocks and Tour de France starts, allowing me to begin most of my July mornings with espresso, baguettes, gnarly goat cheese and beer.

Jenkins: "Would you want to go before that court?"

Even the most casual of sports fans surely held an opinion about Lance Armstrong, just as they did in baseball with Barry Bonds. I remain firmly within the Armstrong camp in spite of recent developments, primarily because of the hypocrisy surrounding concepts like "cheating" (you mean to tell me that so many individuals and institutions venerated by Americans do NOT lie, cheat and steal?), but that particular discussion can be saved for another day.

For now, one can scour the Web for testimonials for and against Armstrong, and find just the right one to mirror personal points of view.

I merely offer this one by Sally Jenkins in the Washington Post, which asks us to consider the point at which the odiousness of the policing transcends the villainy of the crime.

Lance Armstrong doping campaign exposes USADA’s hypocrisy

... Quite independently of Lance, with whom I wrote two books, for a long, long time I’ve had serious doubts about the motives, efficiency and wisdom of these “doping” investigations. In the Balco affair, all the wrong people were prosecuted. It’s the only so-called drug investigation in which the manufacturers and the distributors were given plea deals in order to throw the book at the users. What that told us was that it was big-game hunting, not justice. It was careerist investigators trying to put athletes’ antlers on their walls. Meanwhile, the Fourth Amendment became a muddy, stomped-on, kicked-aside doormat.

The Tour de France begins this weekend.

I have 1,126 biking kilometers since January 1, powered by craft beer, bile and spittle.

Tour de France 2012: an interactive guide, by Paddy Allen, Jenny Ridley, Giulio Frigieri and William Fotheringham (guardian.co.uk)

Running from 30 June to 22 July the 99th Tour de France comprises a prologue and 20 stages covering 3,497km. Check out our brilliant route maps, stage-by-stage analysis from William Fotheringham and guide to team tactics.

Last year, I wrote a bit about the Tour.

THURSDAY, JULY 07, 2011

ON THE AVENUES: Vive le beercyclist!

ON THE AVENUES: Vive le beercyclist!

By ROGER BAYLOR
Local Columnist
In a perfect and thus unattainable world, Bank Street Brewhouse’s opening hours would be precisely synchronized with European clocks and Tour de France starts, allowing me to begin most of my July mornings with espresso, baguettes, gnarly goat cheese and beer.

ON THE AVENUES: Vive le beercyclist!

ON THE AVENUES: Vive le beercyclist!

By ROGER BAYLOR
Local Columnist

In a perfect and thus unattainable world, Bank Street Brewhouse’s opening hours would be precisely synchronized with European clocks and Tour de France starts, allowing me to begin most of my July mornings with espresso, baguettes, gnarly goat cheese and beer.

Unfortunately, the crowd would be small, so as in years past, I’ve asked bar staff to be aware of the race schedule for afternoon replays and highlights. We’ll show what we can, when we can. I’ve seen brief snippets of Le Tour in person on two occasions, in 2001 and 2004. Oddly, both glimpses came not in France, but in Belgium.

The first time was in Lo, a very small town, and the second in Liege, a very large city. Rural or cosmopolitan, the vibrations were identical, and verily, it’s a thrill to be in proximity of the festive atmosphere surrounding the Tour, watching people of all ages gather to view what can be the most fleeting of sporting seconds.

---

But first, an obligatory word from the Tour’s sponsors: The mechanized entourage preceding the cyclists’ arrival, equal parts dromedary and circus sideshow. Support vans for the various teams roll through at intervals, and there is no mistaking which corporation pays their freight.

Dozens of vehicles in all shapes and sizes belonging to various subsidiary sponsors dart past, leaving mounds of advertising paraphernalia strewn in their wake. When this colorful parade is over, there is a pause before sirens blast, bells toll, policemen noisily clear the street, and the actual cyclists finally make their appearances.

Consider the timing it requires to plan and execute this procession just ahead of the moving mass of cyclists!

Literally, riding on flat ground, the peloton can go past so incredibly quickly that if you yawn, you’ll miss it. Enterprising spectators then rush back to their cars (or bikes) to take pursuit, and perhaps choose another vantage point further down the road.

But in Lo, it struck me that residents of villages not graced with the Tour’s presence for many decades take a far more leisurely opportunity to make a day of it, first introducing their children and grandchildren to the event’s history, and then watching the pedal-by before returning to their homes for cocktail hour and the evening news.

---Although I’ve done little in 2011 to merit the description, I consider myself a casual, commuting bicyclist. My riding resumed in the late 1990’s after a long hiatus, beginning with a mountain bike for short jaunts only, then graduating to a hybrid – a heavier frame and wider tires.

Only the bicycle’s original frame itself hasn’t been replaced numerous times with replacement components, and I remain atop it today. It has traveled with me to Europe on at least four occasions for the pursuit of beercycling, or the discriminating art of doing just enough riding to justify the beers (and meals) that come afterward.

It is inexcusable hedonism at its finest, though not without informative sightseeing, hearty exercise and enriching camaraderie. If you can bike past a Belgian frites stand without stopping, you’re a better – and thinner – man than I.

In beercycling, one experiences the cityscape and countryside, just not at speeds customarily traveled by Tour de France riders. I weigh twice as much (or more) than most of them, and they climb mountains at the Pyrenees at the same rate I traverse the neutral terrain of Flanders. Their support teams are not at my disposal, although in the early days of the race, riders were compelled to carry everything they needed to make necessary repairs.

And, much as now, the Tour de France’s cyclists used to seek the assistance of performance enhancing substances. A poster on the wall at the Public House shows 1920’s era Tour participants on break, seated on the steps of a café, with admiring children clustered behind them watching intently as they hoisted big mugs of beer.

---

Last year, confined stateside, I read “Tour de France: The History, The Legend, The Riders.” It is the revised 2009 edition by Graeme Fife.

Fife, an English amateur cyclist, provides a workably chronological, if sometimes meandering, account of the race’s century-long history, as well as gritty descriptions of his own two-wheeled gonzo ascents of the particularly gruesome climbs expected of riders each year in the Alps and Pyrenees.

These climbs provide instruction as to why drugs of all conceivable types have always been taboo, as well as (arguably) indispensable elements of the Tour. Before the fame and riches, there came a race designed by its founder to be a superlative, supreme test in the annals of human endurance, something otherwise found only within the pages of a US Marine Corps training manual.

In fact, early Tour routes were calculated, lengthened, augmented and toughened according to their prime mover’s earnest (warped?) desire for the “perfect” Tour as one so abominably difficult that only a single rider would survive each year to approach the stand and claim victory.

Perhaps this is why I feel about the Tour de France much as I do about American baseball: Some sportsmen may well be cheating dopers, and I’ll waste no time defending their actions, preferring to gaze benignly past the ephemeral, toward the timeless and true essence of the sport itself, this being what matters the most to me.

Accordingly, my personal Tour de France moment was in 2006 in the Czech Republic. In one grueling day, my compatriot Kevin Richards and I rode roughly 125 late summer kilometers through ceaselessly hilly, gorgeous Bohemian countryside, fully laden with panniers, stopping exhausted just before dusk at a three-word, multi-syllabic town, renting a room, showering, and finally dining on beer, wine, duck, beef and more beer. These are the drugs of choice for the discerning beercyclist.

Vive la France! … and, long live Ceska Republika, too.