Bike racing rules. Europeans are completely psychotic about this whole Tour De France thing. They'll dress up like Borat (you know the yellow thong) or paint themselves like their country's flag and come from far and wide to support their team or their riders.
The riders themselves look very young and posess a body mass index equivalent to that of an anorexic 13 year old. I can't imagine it's healthy, but when you ride 6% grades every day for months on end and pedal up them like there's nothing to it, your body's got to respond.
What they don't show you on TV is the procession of sponsor vehicles that goes before the peloton, a 25km stretch of advertising, throwing chotchkies to the fans, whipping them into a salivating frenzy with hats, tshirts, coupons, coffee, foam hands, etc. I can imagine this is how the pesants felt in the middle ages as they lined the streets waiting to catch a glimpse (and maybe some handouts) from the king or queen.
We hitchhiked yesterday for the first time. Kind of liberating actually and caught a ride from a local gentleman who was trying to make his way off the mountain in a car, where were were on foot. He graciously offered us a ride and sped up our down hill journey until he got caught in traffic. At that point we jumped out and in no time, we were down. ~S
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