Cycling's Taliban Retakes Kabul
NBC's post-game show is a pox on an all-time Tour de France, and Lance Armstrong is (partly) to blame.
The end game looms over the 112th edition of the Tour de France. The riders rolled through northern France, dispatched the Massif Central, and now course over the Pyrenees. The Alps await.
It’s been an epic tour. The mannered cadence of previous tours, dominated by corporate armadas of fleet hypertrophied marvels of lab science, has given way to a free for all. Team car radios complain about the “Mad Max” atmosphere of the racing. There’s been heroics: the long-range attack of Ireland’s Ben Healey on Stage 6, the tragedy of the foiled 170km breakaway of Van der Poel and his trusty domestique Rickaert in Châteauroux, Martinez’s storming of the mountains on Bastille Day. Of course, Tadej Pogačar reigns over all.
In stage 12, a howling climb through the Pyrenees, Pogačar bloodlessly eviscerated his fellow riders. He ripped up the seam of the Hautacam, a hors catégorie climb, leaving his great rival Jonah Vingegaard of Jumbo-Visma gasping over his handlebars two and a half minutes behind. His uncanny attacks carve up stages with the illusion of ease. Pogačar rides the Tour as the cook in Zhuangzi cuts up an ox:
The cook laid down his knife, and replied to the remark, 'What your servant loves is the method of the Dao, something in advance of any art. When I first began to cut up an ox, I saw nothing but the (entire) carcase. After three years I ceased to see it as a whole. Now I deal with it in a spirit-like manner, and do not look at it with my eyes. The use of my senses is discarded, and my spirit acts as it wills. Observing the natural lines, (my knife) slips through the great crevices and slides through the great cavities, taking advantage of the facilities thus presented. My art avoids the membranous ligatures, and much more the great bones. A good cook changes his knife every year; (it may have been injured) in cutting - an ordinary cook changes his every month - (it may have been) broken. Now my knife has been in use for nineteen years; it has cut up several thousand oxen, and yet its edge is as sharp as if it had newly come from the whetstone.1
NBC’s coverage has also been a delight. (A far cry from the slop it produces for the Olympics.) The tour is easy watching. Rural France offers a rich tapestry of visuals: heifers’ tawny hides on bald Pyrenees hillsides, the terracotta of Toulouse, the vintage hay bailers of Bretagne, the neon Skoda team cars, churches & castles, fans in polka dot jerseys waving Belgian flags, and most of all those lithe gods of carbon: Pogačar in his world champion rainbow; Vingegaard in his Danish-flag time trial helm; the jesters of Lidl-Trek; the riders’ bulbous tanned calves.
The hosts are light and informative, diving into tactics and the mechanical marvels of the bikes, short histories of notable buildings, interviews with farmers and team captains.
Then, when the racing ends and the day’s champions have vacated the podium… nothingness. The screen goes blank and inexplicably transitions toTHEMOVE, a cycling podcast hosted by the former cyclists Lance Armstrong, Bradley Wiggins, and George Hincapie with the help of their resident nerd, Spencer Martin. The podcast studios’ slate-grey studio has the charm of a QVC infomercial. The hosts hawk a pharmacopeia of supplements and vitamins. It’s uncomfortable to watch Armstrong and Hincapie, drug cheats both, sell the “secret” to their success.
The show is a grim slog of ex-athletes’ narcissism and nostalgia. What were Armstrong’s thoughts on Pogačars Stage 12 win? Unsurprisingly, they are about his former glories: “I was there — whether it was ONCE, Kelme or T-Mobile. Guys, I was ready to mow you down.” He mocks riders who jockey for positions outside the Top 40, ignoring the joy these mostly meaningless battles bring spectators. After one stage, we are subjected to Armstrong’s anger over viewers’ comments on his hair. The commentary is grey and flat as the aging outcasts who offer it. “Is The Tour de France Already Over?” asks a recent episode. It’s quite obvious the hosts wish it was.
Lance Armstrong has fought his way back into respectability, but at what cost? He is perpetually annoyed at the missives that cross his presenters desk. He reads the hodgepodge of fan mail, producers notes, statistics, and sponsorship fluff with weary disdain. Cycling’s Taliban has retaken Kabul; once free to go postal in the mountains, Lance Armstrong now shuffles paperwork behind a desk like the mortals he has long despised.
Bradley Wiggins cuts a tragic figure on the podcast. Distracted, twitchy, mostly aloof to the conversation, he adds nearly nothing. If his presence on the podcast is a lifeline offered by friends to help a troubled legend pass between his Charybdis and Scylla of addiction and trauma, then I salute it. It’s hard to understand his presence through any other lens.
I have little to say on George Hincapie, other than that I dislike him. The great shame is that the fourth host, Spencer Martin, writer of the insightful Substack Beyond the Peloton, is more or less ignored by his grizzled cohosts.
But enough of that.
The Tour goes on. Tomorrow, a mountain stage. Can anyone catch Pogačar? Unlikely. But rise early and immerse yourself in this greatest of races. Soak in the bonhomie, daring, and freedom of bike racing. Just remember to turn your TV off afterwards.
Translation by James Legge: https://ctext.org/zhuangzi/inner-chapters?searchu=knife
You inspired me to watch the Tour. I am much less inclined to stay for the post-game show.