Untitled Document
It’s Tour de France time, but we’re not
interested here, because no Americans are in the hunt — but I’m
looking for a new sport to watch, because football, baseball, and
basketball no longer fill up all my free time. Last Tuesday I came
dangerously close to reading a book. I dismissed NASCAR and soccer for no
good reasons other than that I didn’t play either one when I was
young. So, after football and baseball and basketball, I’ve nothing
left but cycling. When I was 9, I spent a summer as a professional
cyclist. Nonetheless, a quick review of the cycling rules is in order.
Perhaps as they’ve changed some since “back in the day,”
the Tour de France rules will do. The Rules, page 1. A disclaimer. The rules
are not official until you have them translated into French and they are
“handsomely bound.”
The Rules, pages 2-50. Proper jersey color(s) and
jersey regulations. Jerseys cover the
color chart from yellow to polka-dot, and if you’re out of jersey
style at any time you may be slapped once with a soft white glove and made
to suffer a medley of “haberdashery” insults. The Rules, pages 51-55. Feeding rules. “You can
only feed from the 50km distance marker up to the distance marker
indicating ‘end of feeding.’ See appendix for hard-bread exceptions — and
proper language for accusing Americans of taking dope. The Rules, page 56. The actual scoring system. Lowest
overall accumulated time (not first to the finish line) wins. Scoring seems
fair enough; rules easily understood — until you actually read
’em. Scoring. The race is run
in stages. In
flat stages the
winner receives 35
points, the guy finishing 25th gets 1 point, and riders 2-24 are awarded
some points. In medium mountain stages the winner gets 25 points, the guy finishing 20th
gets 1 point, and those finishing 2-19 get something. In high mountain
stages the winner gets 20 points, the guy finishing 15th gets 1 point, and folks 2-14
get some points. Mountain-stage riders may be given hors categorie points, which are “different.”
In individual time trials or prologues, which may or
may not be stages, the first three people to pass a line on a road get 6
points, or 4 points, or 2 points. A prologue can be injected into the race anytime the officials want
one. Finally, the officials can declare a winner, even
though “riders are still racing at the time and their points still
count” — and that clearly explains why, after Lance Armstrong
fell behind by 1,001 miles in the race two years ago with only 1,000 miles
yet to go, everyone conceded that no one could possibly catch him and that
the race, for all intents, was over. Suggestion: The French need to change the Tour de
France a bit, to make the contest more American. Perhaps they should adopt
the Tour de Yorkville rules. The Tour de Yorkville Rules: When. On hot days,
when there was nothing else to do, in 1952. Where. Down the
hard road, seven miles, from our town to the grain elevator in Yorkville,
where they had the known world’s coldest soda pop, kept extra-cold in
a horse trough full of block ice. Riders. “Snorts”
Sullivan, “Frog” O’Malley, “Bugs” Eisenberg,
Danny O’Brien, and me. We considered ourselves professional because
we raced for money — last to the trough had to buy the pop for the
winner. It wasn’t chump change, either — a bottle of pop cost a
nickel in ’52. In today’s money, that’s $25,400. Scoring. First to
the trough wins. We also had a prologue. Prologue le Chicken.
Same pre-race philosophy as the Tour de France prologue in that, while waiting for Danny
O’Brien — ’cause he was always late — two riders go
head-on full-throttle at each other and the first one who turns away is
chicken &*$#! . . . or French. After the prologue, there were only two rules.
Rule le Stick. You may
ram a stick into the spokes of an opponent’s bike during the race. Rule le Bugs Eisenberg (optional). It was not prudent to poke le
stick into Bugs’ spokes unless it was a
blisterin’-hot day and you didn’t have the nickel and you
really wanted a cold pop more than life itself. It was a short-run reward
for long-run pain — because Bugs would weasel up behind you, maybe
two hours after the race — and bash vous
with le stick twice the size of the one you jammed into his spokes.
The end of the Tour de Yorkville: When Frog forgot to
let go of le stick after jamming it in Danny’s spokes, and Frog broke la arm, and our mothers found
out that we’d been racing on the highway, and everyone went
“nowhere on a bike” for a month. The end of the Tour de France: Not a clue. I
don’t understand the rules.
Contact Doug Bybee Sr. at dougbybee@sbcglobal.net.
This article appears in Jul 26 – Aug 1, 2007.
