never thought I'd hear this

Here's THREE CHEERS for Jean -Marie Leblanc. Now if only we could get
Brian Lafferty on the same page.....

My experience in France was that in two weeks the FIRST time I saw a
sport bicyclist was TWO DAYS before the Tour de France ended in Paris.
When I stopped in Sports Bars the TV's were all tuned to Soccer. When
I'd stop at a news stand to get a copy of l'Equipe the clerk would try
to sell me other coverage of Soccer even thought the front page was ALL
TOUR ALL THE TIME. If I was in a sidewalk cafe' and asked someone about
the Tour they'd look around. It took me a little while to discover that
l'tour also means "the tower" and they were wondering what tower I was
talking about. That's how disconnected the French are from cycling
these days and it shouldn't be a wonder that they don't have
extraordinary riders like they had in the says of Hinault and Fignon.

I talked to a very intelligent Briton and he told me that cycling was
still pretty popular there but that throughout the rest of France there
simply was insufficient interest in the sport, any longer, to have much
of a base of riders to chose from.

So, let the French media discuss that "Tour à deux vitesses" (Tour of
two speeds) because they're just demonstrating the same sort of
ignorance of the sport that we see in American sports coverage when
they think that the winner should be beating everyone else all the
time.

I talked to a very intelligent Briton and he told me that cycling was
still pretty popular there but that throughout the rest of France there
simply was insufficient interest in the sport, any longer, to have much
of a base of riders to chose from.

Great post. Knew someone who went to France. What a disappointment, he
said. He said the French, always asked why he rode a bike, a car was faster
they insisted. What I always suspected, the froggies are just wine-fueled
Nascar folk, instead of beer-fueled.

"Claudius Vitalis" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

I talked to a very intelligent Briton and he told me that cycling was
still pretty popular there but that throughout the rest of France there
simply was insufficient interest in the sport, any longer, to have much
of a base of riders to chose from.

Great post. Knew someone who went to France. What a disappointment,
he
said. He said the French, always asked why he rode a bike, a car was
faster
they insisted. What I always suspected, the froggies are just
wine-fueled
Nascar folk, instead of beer-fueled.

You have absolutely no idea of how accurate that is. The 'A' road speed
limit is 130 kph (81 mph) and if anyone ever drives that slow there it's
because their car won't go any faster. I was commonly passed by cars doing
well over 100 mph. The 'B' roads were a little better but still faster than
rockets. The 'C' and 'D' roads weren't very good roads but you could still
expect a car coming around a blind turn on a road that was 1 1/2 lanes wide
to be doing over 100 kph.

You would see farmhouses with 5 or 6 or more cars parked in front of them.
And this in a country with extraordinary public transportation and gasoline
at $3 a liter.

In small towns kids would have motorbikes with open exhausts and would spend
all day riding from one end of town the three blocks to the other end and
back and forth and back and forth. And yet the French would complain about
tourist.

Jim Flom said:

...from LeBlanc...

Jean-Marie Leblanc has responded to insinuations of doping among French
riders and its media by suggesting that home stars need learn more from the
examples of Lance Armstrong and Jan Ullrich.

Why not? Leblanc loves Lance. Lance saved the Tour after
the catastrophe of 1998. Leblanc's homer bias is limited to
letting also-ran French teams into the race; he doesn't
expect them to win it. Now, if you read this in an editorial
in Le Monde it might be more surprising.

Tom Kunich wrote:

<anti-french rant snipped>

I went to Italy once or twice, had the same experience.

<[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Tom Kunich wrote:

<anti-french rant snipped>

I went to Italy once or twice, had the same experience.

That wasn't anti-French. It was anti-car driver. Europeans drive all hell
and gone too fast though they are generally better drivers than Americans.
The end result is that death rate from auto accidents is about the same.

Tom Kunich said:

Here's THREE CHEERS for Jean -Marie Leblanc. Now if only we could get
Brian Lafferty on the same page.....

My experience in France was that in two weeks the FIRST time I saw a
sport bicyclist was TWO DAYS before the Tour de France ended in Paris.

I was in France the day that Armstrong won the Worlds in Norway in 1993.

I was very disappointed to find that the only coverage (at least on
local broadcast channels) I could find of the Worlds was 10-second
highlight clips on the evening news.

Smith

The bicycle as mode of transportation is dying in France, in
particular,
there is a decentralisation in provincial (not paris) towns, due to
the rise of shopping centers, and the decline of downtown districts.
In particular, a car is now virtually obligatory if you live in a
town of less than 100,000 people. About 40 years ago, many people
didn't
own cars, and my mother in law, her mother, etc., used to commute by
bicycle. This may still be true in some parts of France, e.g., the
north, where I did see some old ladies riding bikes from the
supermarket.

In order to get a good idea of the total inefficiency of French sports,
note that the only middle and long distance runners who can compete
with Kenyans and Ethopians are from Morocco and Algeria, and there
are a couple of million young men from this gene pool in France, with
only two or three top level runners and no cyclists (except maybe
Virenque).

-ilan

Tom Kunich a écrit :

Quoted message said:

Here's THREE CHEERS for Jean -Marie Leblanc. Now if only we could get
Brian Lafferty on the same page.....

My experience in France was that in two weeks the FIRST time I saw a
sport bicyclist was TWO DAYS before the Tour de France ended in Paris.
When I stopped in Sports Bars the TV's were all tuned to Soccer. When
I'd stop at a news stand to get a copy of l'Equipe the clerk would try
to sell me other coverage of Soccer even thought the front page was ALL
TOUR ALL THE TIME. If I was in a sidewalk cafe' and asked someone about
the Tour they'd look around. It took me a little while to discover that
l'tour also means "the tower" and they were wondering what tower I was
talking about. That's how disconnected the French are from cycling
these days and it shouldn't be a wonder that they don't have
extraordinary riders like they had in the says of Hinault and Fignon.

I talked to a very intelligent Briton and he told me that cycling was
still pretty popular there but that throughout the rest of France there
simply was insufficient interest in the sport, any longer, to have much
of a base of riders to chose from.

So, let the French media discuss that "Tour à deux vitesses" (Tour of
two speeds) because they're just demonstrating the same sort of
ignorance of the sport that we see in American sports coverage when
they think that the winner should be beating everyone else all the
time.