There are times that t.v. truly justifies its existence, such as when you see the Alps from an even higher helicopter-occupied spot in mid-air, then drop down to the kitchen gardens of ancient villages, and visit lace patterned tile roof tops of thousand year old town halls. But I have been watching all that and more for the last two weeks. The Tour de France. The bicycle race? you say. Oh, yes, I guess. More than 100 pro cyclists from around the world, in teams, a Leroy Neiman painting come to life, strung along narrow Gallic roads, climb the Alps and the Pyrenees, go though Roman Southern France and chateau laden valleys. Every once in a while, some fall in a terrible tangle of flesh and metal, and every day someone wins something, and at the end they ride around the Arc de Triumph in Paris, but in reality, it is sport and history and travelogue all in their most immediate, exquisite forms.
It's time for the wheat harvest, by the way, and you can be in flowered fields with boys in straw hats, alongside a road way where hundreds cheer the racers, and a few crazed fans make fools of themselves in time honored fashion.
In starts at 8 a.m. here in Atlanta, and goes until 11 a.m. daily, then is replayed throughout the day and evening. ESPN (44 on Comcast) carries it, as does NBC Sports. It is startling, mesmerizing, and it matters not a bit if you know the complex, chess-like rules of the pelloton. You will never have seen anything like it.
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