So does the prologue make it into a 5 day foray?
So does the prologue make it into a 5 day foray?
“the cause of my pain, was the cause of my cure” Rumi
Can I just do the prologue??
Ah yes, the prologue......
Well part of a cunning plan to render the monster Day 1 just a little more enjoyable. A couple of easy hours across Angelsey to Llanberis on the Thurs evening will allow us to start with the meat of Penypass first thing on the Friday so still only 4 really(ish).
NoOriginally Posted by dominion
Can I just do the prologue??
You could always drive the bus, on the other hand......
If it was the TdF I'd be allowed... Boardman always got away with it!No
You could always drive the bus, on the other hand......
You have to at least try and get up a col before you are allowed in the broomwagon!
Ok, I'd best get a new bike and get out training!
Oh, wait.... hang on....
On the first TdF's weren't riders pulled up behind cars, with corks in their teeth on a long piece of string - there's something to consider Dom
Yep - thought so - but wait - isn't that a picture of Wheeze - or at least an ancestor - it's the tache
Hitching a Ride at the Tour de France
While simply catching a ride from a car is an undeniably effective way to win a bicycle race, its lack of deniability and general dumb shit blatancy severely detract from this being a usable method of cheating. Or so you'd think. In 1904, during only the second ever Tour de France, Hippolyte Acouturier thought he had found a foolproof way to sidestep those meddlesome rules that were impeding his chances of winning with little or no effort.
You can't blame him, back then the Tour de France was mostly shenanigans, with some bike racing in between (for instance, Acouturier had lost the first Tour de France when someone spiked his water bottle).
This is Hippolyte. Seriously.
In fact, accounts of the first races say competitors used everything from nails and broken glass on the road, to itching powder in the opposing riders' shorts to get an edge. At one point an angry mob randomly attacked some riders and had to be driven away with gunfire. Yes, bicycle racing was about a thousand times more awesome back then.
Being a man of at least some moral fiber, Hippo decided against crippling the performance of his opponents and instead came up with an awe-inspiring method of cheating that would leave other, lesser geniuses, scratching their head in wonder.
He didn't simply grab hold of the bumper of some car and hold on for dear life, as a lesser man would have. No, he attached a wire to the bumper of the car, and on the other end of the wire was a hunk of cork that he would hold onto.
With his teeth.
While this plan has its merits, we can't help but think that a slip knot tied to his handlebars would have worked just as well. Only, you know, without the probable need for radical reconstructive dental surgery.
Did it work?
Hippolyte won four of the six stages, but lost the race to another guy who, as it turns out, was also cheating using some other method out of the Wile E. Coyote playbook. Organizers actually wound up disqualifying the top four finishers and awarded the race to fifth-place finisher Henri Cornet, who apparently was the only one who found a way to cheat that wasn't obvious from a half-mile away.
Hoh Kay you minkies. Eef you zink you can, 'ow you say, do zees ting, you must 'ave taken note please of all ze noty, noty zings wat we deed erwhen we werze in our prime. I 'ave my hitchin powder at ze ready!
Yer Muzzer Werze A 'Amster
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