The Tour de France began yesterday with a TTT (team time trial) from Barcelona. We watched highlights on Channel 5 in the early evening. It looked like a very fine day in Catalonia, certainly too hot for cycling at speed up the final hill of Montjuic. Cycling technology means that they all have the most aerodynamic bikes possible, not to mention Darth Vader-style helmets. Now, I remember long ago when the Tour riders staged a protest because they were expected to wear helmets of any kind.
Quite how the team members manage to cycle in close formation without clashing wheels always amazes me. It seems to me that Djamolidine Abdoujaparov, in the 1990s, could not have managed it with his sprinting style that involved his elbows and knees protruding in all directions, for all the world as if he had more knees and elbows than average. He was nicknamed "The Tashkent Terror" as he was so ferocious in the sprints. His unorthodox and often erratic sprinting caused a number of crashes. Those were the days!
(Incidentally, my father also rode his bike with knees sticking out but we always put that down to the fact that he improvised a child-seat on bis crossbar on which all four of us siblings rode in turn. This was before there were safety-conscious child-seats to attach to bikes!)
A lot of fuss was made about which of the favourites, Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogacar, would get the yellow jersey. It was Jonas Vingegaard in the end, feeling very confident and recovered from the nasty crash he has in the Basque Country a few years ago.
In today’s Guardian, however, I saw this report:
“While yesterday’s TTT was predominantly a team effort, it was interesting to see who went up the last climb to Montjuïc fastest once shorn of helpers.
Hardly something to make headlines or draw too much from, but confirms that Pogacar is the man to beat today. Five seconds quicker than Vingegaard too, blimey…”
We shall see what today’s riding brings!
it seems that France is putting a lot of hope in a young man called Paul Seixas, 19 years old and the youngest Tour debutant since 1937. Reminded of the scale of the challenge facing him, in hoping to usurp the dominant four-time champion, Tadej Pogacar, he said calmly: “There are different ways to win a cycling race.” Someone to watch out for!
Still on cycling, here is a picture of a Japanese man photographed riding a bicycle while carrying soba noodles on his shoulder in Tokyo, Japan in 1935. It makes fast-food delivery nowadays seem very simple.
Here’s a link to an article about archaeologists discovering an ancient Byzantine city in Egypt. Amazing stuff! It is to be hoped that nobody bombs it!
And here is something posted by someone called Mohamad Safa on Facebook:
“In 1290 all Jews were driven out of England. In 1306 they were expelled from France. In 1430 exiled from Germany, followed by Spain and Portugal. Boycotted in Italy, and time after time tossed out of every major European city.
After the centuries of expulsions, in 1492, Muslims (The Ottoman Empire) opened their doors for the Jewish. in the late 17th and 18th centuries, as the Ottoman Empire became less stable, Jews were finally allowed back into England after 366 years of total banishment.
After 1848, hundreds of thousands of Jews left Central Europe to escape rising nationalism and "pogroms" (anti-Jewish riots).
After WWI, Britain took control of Palestine from the Ottomans. From 1917 to 1939, Muslims (Palestine) opened their doors for the Jewish as usual.
In 2026, some Western politicians lecturing us (Muslims) on how to live peacefully with Jews!
Read some history.”
Life goes ln. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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