In every Frenchman's breast lurks a passion more potent, if possible, than his love of the franc or good food. Its outward and visible symbol is the bicycle, but the emotions that bicycling inspires in France have little to do with transportation or exercise. For priests, market-bound peasants, bankers who would sooner pedal than be chauffeured, bicycling is a way to dream and drift in dignity, to twirl life like a long-stemmed glass of Alsace wine. "Vive le vélo, un ami de l'homme" proclaims an affectionate Norman toast: "Long live the bike, a friend of man."
Just as the bullfight affords ordered release for the latent ferocity of Spain, bicycle racing brings Gallic veto worship to near ecstasy each spring and summer. It reaches its peak with the Tour de France.
Though the French boast more bicycle races than any other nation—close to 300 a year—the Tour de France is the most expensive, prolonged and perilous marathon of them all. This year's Tour pitted 132 brawny-thighed riders against a brutal 2,750-mile course. Starting at Rouen, the race cut through Belgium, leaped the Alps into Italy, streaked across the south of France into the Pyrenees, and wound northeast along the stately Loire to Paris. The sunburned, dust-caked riders quit at 5 p.m. each day, laying over at night in Tricolor-draped towns that paid up to $8,000 for the privilege. Reason: restaurants and shops can count on a 40% leap in business; hotels are booked months in advance. Nearly every newspaper in France has a 10% sales boost throughout the Tour.
17-Ft. Fly. In cities and sleepy provinces, where the Tour is remembered all year, schools and businesses close to cheer it through. A brassy blend of road show and county fair, the juggernaut blocks traffic for two hours as it passes. Founded by a promotion-minded sporting sheet with the inappropriate name of L'Auto, the Tour is financed by advertisers, who pay up to $4,000 for the privilege of following the racers with sound trucks that blare praise for products from apéritifs to aspirin. (The Tour's current sponsors are two French papers.)
The Tour's elaborate entourage includes three Red Cross cars staffed by nurses who can bandage riders as they pedal, mobile machine shops to keep the bikes in trim, truckloads of extra bicycles and parts. One of the promoters' biggest expenses is providing saddle snacks for the bicyclists, whose jaws work almost as busily as their legs. This year riders gulped 1,000 roast chickens, 300 lbs. of chocolate, 21,000 quarts of mineral water, 100,000 prunes. Barred from the menu: white wine and fried food, which induce cramps. Press helicopters hovered overhead. From tortuous mountain roads, where spills are bloodiest, TV cameras vividly pictured the struggles of storm-lashed competitors. A bottled-gas firm hired a dozen Paris revue stars, staged free shows in a portable theater at each stopover. Monstrous advertising floats included a 65-ft. hair-cream tube and a 17-ft. housefly whose electronic agonies boosted its sponsor's insecticide.