I’m ideologically opposed to bicycles for all the obvious reasons: they don’t have lovely big nostrils which you can blow across gently or stroke inside to feel the soft, delicate skin; they can’t jump hedges; and the kit you’re expected to wear on them is quite hideous – not a smart, black, 18th-century-looking coat but vile, garish, deeply unflattering and unsexy Lycra.
Still, after watching a few episodes of Tour de France: Unchained, I’ve softened my position slightly. Say what you like about those infuriating, car-impeding, road-hogging cyclists but the ones who participate in the big international races don’t half have some balls. (Three actually, if the stories I hear about the effects of those uncomfy saddles are correct.) When they descend the windy mountain roads, they reach up to 100kph (62 mph in English). Imagine hitting the tarmac at that speed wearing little but a pair of swimming trunks.
Like thoroughbreds, these cyclists exist in a nervy state of highly strung racing fettle
In fact, we don’t need to imagine, as many of them have the scars to show it.
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