I delayed going out for a run this morning until the rain had eased a little. It wasn’t raining when I set off but my weather app said it would drizzle for the next hour. So I tied my raincoat around my waist. The closer I got to Yorkshire, which, after all, is only a few miles up the road, the more drizzle there was in the air. But it wasn’t seriously wet.
Later the day improved considerably, although not quite June weather. So it goes.
Today the riders in the Tour de France set off. The grand départ this year was from Florence, Italy, riding over the hills to Rimini. Checking the weather online, I see that they had a warm, no, a hot but dry start. I haven’t watched any of it but I’ll catch highlights on television this evening. We have a long tradition of keeping track of the Tour, watching it on French TV and Spanish TV as well as here in the UK. Ten years ago I sat on a hillside in Holmfirth, not far from here, with my son, his wife and their small baby daughter, and watched the riders stream past, so I can say I have seen some of it live.
This is the first time they are setting from Italy. They will not finish in Paris because of the Olympic Games. Instead they will end the Tour in Nice. Maybe I’ll spot some landmarks from when we had a holiday there many years ago.
Mark Cavendish, from the Isle of Man, was forced to drop out of last year’s tour with a broken collar bone. That was apparently meant to be his swan song. He was persuaded to have another go this year, hoping to beat Eddie Merckx’s record for the number of stage wins. Earlier today I read that he was feeling positive about it but just now ai read that he has really suffered in the heat and may need to drop out once more. I’ll find out later.
I was reading the other day about the Italian Gino Bartali, 3 times winner of the Giro d’Italia, and winner of the Tour de France in 1938 and again in 1948.
“As a young man working at the bike shop, Bartali had become close friends with Giacomo Goldenberg, a local Jewish man. After the implementation of anti-Jewish laws, Bartali sought out Goldenberg’s family and offered to harbor them first in his apartment and then, when things became to dangerous, in a neighboring basement. There they would stay until Florence’s until in August 1944. Bartali was taking an incredible risk; the crime, if discovered, would have earned him (and, in all likelihood, his wife and young boy) a bullet in the skull. What’s incredible is that Bartali never spoke publically about what he did; the story coming to light only as researchers started sifting through his diary in 2010, 10 years after his death.”
Even his wife was unaware of this activity. I also read that he used the excuse of cycle training as a means of riding around unmolested and unchecked by fascist forces, transporting photos of Jews who needed false passport to the people who provided such documents. A quiet hero who didn’t regard himself as such, he said, “Real heroes are others, those who have suffered in their soul, in their heart, in their spirit, in their mind, for their loved ones. Those are the real heroes. I’m just a cyclist.”
Born in Ponte a Ema, Florence, on July 18, 1914, he died in his native city in 2010. Cycling must be good for you!
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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