a tour too far

Columnist

Wednesday 25 July 2012

It is no bad thing when a rosbif wins the Tour de France.

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Tom Shields on …

Especially a cool bloke from a London scheme who begins his victory speech by saying: "Now we're going to draw the raffle -"

Bradley Wiggins is officially a role model. Children will now be expected to get on their bikes and win the Tour de France. Frankly, I wouldn't let the weans anywhere near it. You will have seen it on the telly. The tour is a traffic accident waiting to happen. The cyclists go far too fast and rarely proceed at a safe distance from the bike in front.

The Tour de France is the sort of thing best left to the French. It's in their psyche to do mental stuff on the roads. You may have experienced this going doon the autoroute to Saint Tropez at the Glasgow Fair.There you are doing a safe and steady 70mph in the middle lane. Before you know it there's a peloton of BMWs, Mercs and Citroen 2CVs up close and tooting their horns. They overtake willy nilly on inside and outside lanes mouthing oaths, making interesting gestures and generally indulging in Gallic behaviour.The Tour de France should be banned on account of the cruel and unusual punishment inflicted on the participants. It is bad enough having to cycle 2000 miles but quite a lot of it is up Alps and over Pyrenean mountain passes. The really scary bit must be coming down the other side. The rider who goes the fastest up and down gets to wear a red polka dot jersey as King of the Mountains. The red dots may represent blood.Because of the peloton and the dangers of cyclists being hit by kamikaze spectators, there are plenty of broken bones at the Tour de France, and an awful lot of skint knees. Remarkably there have been only three deaths in the history of the tour.A Spaniard fell into a ravine in 1935. An Italian was killed in a downhill crash in 1995. The other fatality was Tommy Simpson who died in the 1967 race from heart failure after taking amphetamines. That's another thing about the Tour de France. It can encourage drug-taking.My message to a keen new generation of Scottish cyclists: why not try that race where the slowest rider wins.

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a tour too far

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