Tour De France- cycling at its most competitive.

Tour De France- cycling at its most competitive.

The Tour De France is cycling at its most competitive. Not for those hardened professionals in lycra a gentle pedal up and down the swooping, undulating hills of the Yorkshire Dales or a leisurely cycle to the local village post office where the only exertion involved is that of a brief gasp or pant before wiping off a mere bead of sweat from a slightly reddish forehead, the result of a quick sprint to the top and then hurtling down a sun baked road all the while gleefully clinging on to the handlebars for dear life.

But the Tour De France is serious business. It is cycling for big bucks, cycling at its most combative, fiercely contested and above all cycling where the only motivation comes from within, where the battle of wits with your fellow cyclist becomes much more than a handsome sum of prize money although that has to be the main incentive.

For those of us on the outside and merely impartial of observers cycling  has always looked hugely exciting, a tactical sporting spectacle where the survival of the fittest becomes the predominant theme of the whole contest. Throughout the decades every July when summer reaches its most glorious pinnacle, whole bunches of riders and deeply committed cyclists struggle and toil their way through the sweltering heat of the French countryside.

Every year the streets, roads, winding and twisting country lanes and pretty farmyards of idyllic rural France become the main setting for one of sport's most remarkable of road races, as men with a fanatical determination to get to Paris tomorrow with the winning wreath around their necks pump muscular thighs towards the finishing line.

 It is sport at its most ferocious, sport at its most fascinating and sport that is exhausting to watch, breathlessly exhilarating and sport at its maximum speed. The Tour De France has always delivered some of the most controversial and colourful of characters. It is undoubtedly and quite obviously one of the fastest and most intriguing of all sporting events. Because once those guys on their streamlined, designer bikes get on their bikes there can be no stopping them. For years and years, decades and decades the good people of France have stepped outside their French farmhouses and vineyards to watch the greatest road race in the world. It is sport that beggars description and simply unbelievable.

This year Welshman Geraint Thomas is one of the leading contenders in the British search for yet another Tour De France crown. In recent years, Chris Froome, Sir Bradley Wiggins and Mark Cavendish have all claimed the shining limelight when the focus has fallen on British hopes for success but this year it's Thomas's big chance to win back the cycling plaudits for Britain in this year's Tour De France.

As a mere spectator on a metaphorical roadside, the Tour De France has always been a spectacular watch. Admittedly I haven't been on a bike since I was a wee lad in shorts when my parents bought me one of those  lime green bikes with the obligatory stabilisers attached to them. The smell and sight of grease and oil of course, are remembered with enormous affection but it didn't really occur to me at the time that I would ever pursue this childhood activity with any great passion or businesslike intent.

But the Tour De France does look positively frightening and one of the major challenges you could ever be confronted with. There go tightly knotted bunches of cyclists, frantically and frenetically pushing and pedalling to the front, arms and fingers wrapped around their handlebars, backs bent forwards, helmets securely fastened onto their heads and then jostling, pushing and pulling, shoving and wriggling their way through a chaotic field as if their lives depended on it.

Then there begins the fight to the finishing line, eyes narrowing like late night owls, rocking and rolling athletic bodies from side to side, all the while glancing over their heads, watching, carefully monitoring their opponents. Most seem to be wearing  appropriate sunglasses or the very latest in goggles as the race spreads out expansively across vast mountain ranges and then loops around France, snaking its incomparable way past enthusiastic farmers and never pausing for breath.

The bikes swerve, sway and slide, heaving their bikes up seemingly impossible climbs into the middle of nowhere,  past cheerful shops and newsagents, across fertile lands of rich fruit picking and fragrant vats of grapes with a hint of blackberry in the air. The race continues along neatly built haystacks, dusty fields, green fields with thick  rows of arable and agricultural land. The cheers get progressively louder and more vociferous, the cyclists responding with the briefest of grins and then charging off into the distance once again.

The Tour De France is sport at its most red blooded and masculine with men of courage, heroism and unbelievable stamina. It is cycling with just a hint of personal bitterness in its soul, but nonetheless fair minded and honourable. Of course there are the innumerable roadside crashes, the falls from grace and the embarrassing tumble to the ground. But at its heart the Tour De France is as good as it gets in the great sporting community. There are deeply rooted rivalries, scores to settle, grudges to be addressed but for those who devote themselves to their long distance bike marathons these are men who should be admired unstintingly. 

So as the Tour De France reaches its enthralling climax with that famous appearance at the Champs Elysses and the Arc De Triomphe in Paris our best wishes are naturally extended to the runners and riders, the leaders, the runners up, the heroes and the worthy triers. Then Paris will extend its warmest welcome to the winner of the Tour De France because that's what sport should be about.

It is time to forget about cycling's darkest and most unsavoury hour when the sport became the unwitting victim of doping scandals and self destructive drug taking. The whole sorry Lance Armstrong episode is now nothing more than a horror movie where everything that could go wrong for cycling quite certainly did. Sport has to move on and try to embrace its virtues rather than its pernicious vices. But the Tour De France rolls on year after year and after recently being appointed as football World Champions, the French may be entitled to a private spot of gloating. Vive La France once again.