I have angst. Anxiety. I feel like ripping someone’s tongue out. And also doing nothing except turning around and walking the other way. It’s July. And that’s when thoughts turn to France.
It bothers me beyond words that the Tour has become bicycle racing. As if the other races for maybe 10 months don’t exist. They don’t matter. The French event is part of that country’s fabric and fiscal base. But why does it have to loom so large over all other days? The answer changes often. Too often.
My interest began in earnest as a teen. Merckx still had good years in from of him. And most riders pinned on numbers from February through September. Many continued though the indoor season. In the middle of it all, the Tour de France become this behemoth of a commodity and plucked away at everything the sport was built upon.
So now. Me. I have this Hate Hate Love affair with cycling because it’s where I live. It’s what I’m from. And these men, these businessmen and their individual agendas, and the lawyers, and the benefactors. And the orgs that run things and test things and determine outcomes. They have become bigger than all of it. The riders are animals that are bred for these men to trade on.
The Froome thing doesn’t bother me that much. I don’t care what these cats do. I care about the double – no, the multiple standards that competitors face when they’re not as valuable, or well represented as the thoroughbreds. It just bothers me to no end. And I hate the lying. The eternal lying.
The sport is corrupt. It’s duplicitous. It’s uneven. It’s hypocritical. It’s lopsided. And if were at all real life, no one with a humane bone in his body would allow it to continue.
Evelyn Mulwray: She’s my daughter.
Jake Gittes: I said I want the truth!
Evelyn Mulwray: She’s my sister…
Evelyn Mulwray: She’s my daughter…
Evelyn Mulwray: My sister, my daughter.
Jake Gittes: I said I want the truth!
Evelyn Mulwray: She’s my sister AND my daughter!
.
