Good evening and welcome to go my favorite sports team the sports podcast where I the
not sports knower and conversed with and talk to and talk down upon by the sport
knower because that's what they do. The sport knowing people are just so high in
mighty up in their ivory towers. They think they're better than you and me. And this guy
thinks he's better than all of you. Same as Tyler. Well, I don't think I'm better than you
in anything except the sports realm. I know I know the sports realm really well.
Trying to qualify things says what the sports people do. They always qualify everything.
They got to give like contextualize their scores and all there's a world record in number
of yards done while technically having an appendix rupturing at the same time. It's all useless.
Appendix rupturing. I've never had my appendix rupture. I'm talking generally. I was making
a ridiculous statement about a hypothetical scenario. But you see how much the sport people just
take everything so seriously. They assume that I was talking about an actual category of thing
instead of making a ridiculous conjecture. Listen, this podcast if anything is serious.
Yes, very serious. Extremely serious. It's so serious that we ourselves are not labeled as
comedy, but merely tagged as sports and American football. I don't know why we're tagged as American
football to be completely honest because we've talked about it twice. Aged. What are you talking
about? Like Spotify has tags. So the podcast has like tags for people to search stuff, right?
So it categorizes things because everything's got to be shoved into its own little little box.
It's got to fit into that category. You know, just like sports get to fit into a certain category
or whether they're sport or not sport. So for whatever reason, one of the tags they decided to use
was American football. And we've talked about it twice, maybe. We haven't even had a American
football guest. It's just really weird to me that we're tagged as American football.
Well, okay. Let's be fair. You do talk about American football a lot, but I get that. It's just
sports American football and comedy. Yeah. There's a three categories. I think it fits. I just,
the American football one is the one that I'm just kind of like why? I think that everybody
listening right now knows for a fact you talk about American football. No, you can never talk
about American football when you were talking about Australian football. And that got a real man.
Yeah. People did get mad at me for that. You're right. You're right. But anyway,
but does it bother you? Does it bother me that they got mad? No. Yeah. Good. Yeah. Exactly.
They don't know me. Yeah. Just like I don't know Australian rules football very well.
Very late. Exactly. How are you? What have you been up to?
I've been wrestling with file storage, but people know all about that. I just bought something very
that's going to solve all my problems and make everything go away forever.
Speaking of wrestling, we constantly keep getting mentions on the subreddit of like,
you guys talk about wrestling so much. Why haven't you done a wrestling primer? And I'm like,
because no, I try to talk about the legitimacy of professional wrestling and how it's an
actual sport, but Tyler just keeps shooting it down again and again when we have a guest from the
WWF E world wide WF was like, we're going to call us coming. No, I'm going to talk about my brain
went to that. Like if that was a long time ago that they changed their names, but from the WWE,
they're going to be so mad at you and they're going to lay in the people's elbow on your soul.
Well, this shows how far behind you are because the AEW is the new big thing.
The AEW was AEW all elite wrestling. What is that? Yeah, that's the top that's the top dog
now in professional wrestling, if you didn't know, but I don't pay attention to professional wrestling.
Yeah, because it's beneath you because it's not a sport. It's it's great entertainment,
but it's not sport. Wow, it's a great entertainment. Let's let's let's not get ahead of ourselves.
All right, all right. Well, there's great stunt performers and then there's the those guys.
No, what I'm trying to say is it's boring bullshit. See, you and I are not the same. You hate
wrestling because it's not a sport. I hate wrestling because it's boring. We are not the same.
We are not the same. One of us speaks in riddles. One of us speaks in rhymes. No, that's an expression.
Tyler, don't you know the expression? No, it's a meme. We're not the same, but we are the same.
No, no, we're not. We are the same when it comes to cycling because both of us have ebikes. Yes.
And you know what we're talking about today? Those that cycle for insane distances without
the assistance of electric motors. Okay. We're talking about the Tour de France.
We've already talked about the Tour de France before. Very briefly. We have not done a primer on it.
We briefly mentioned it in an episode, but it was not about the Tour de France. Wait,
is this a primer on the Tour de France or a primer on competitive biking because that would be
the sport, right? Well, it's a primer on the Tour de France because the Tour de France is coming
up and there's different sections of professional biking. And this is like the pinnacle of endurance
cycling. So it's kind of a primer on the event, which kind of goes into cycling. So it's a
primer on cycling because a primer would be about the general sport of cycling. Yes. Check,
mate. Check, mate. See, this is how good I am in sports now. I know sports so good that I,
I know that this shouldn't be a primer about the Tour de France because that's just one race out
of a worldwide arena of races all encompassing that that is cycling. I will take my points.
Reddit. You're on my side. Subreddit. Arslazzy MFST. Shout my praises to the heavens. I have earned
the master's degree. This is a primer on the event. I don't accept that. I say it's a primer on
cycling. Which is also a primer on cycling. I will fight Tyler's ignorance by looking up and
describing cycling as a sport. I'll describe cycling. It's a part of the Tour de France.
Oh, cycling is a part of the Tour de France. Not the Tour de France is a part of cycling.
I'm sorry. How belittling for those. If you don't get into the Tour de France,
you're not a professional cyclist. So says Tyler. No, that is not what he's saying. That's what he's
saying. It's the pinnacle event of endurance cycling. Oh, I see. If you can't go to France,
you're not, or you're not at the tapy top. Oh, no, no. Listen. Who said you go to France for
the Tour de France? Listen, history, act one, the history of cycling. The first bicycle race is
popularly held to have been a 1200 meter race at the Park de Saint-Claude Paris, France.
But he was one by an Englishman. James Moore. There you go. Nice. Good history. Good history.
But that's not act one. Okay. This is act one. Okay. Just kidding. We haven't even talked about
the Tour de France enough yet. What? Mr. Rack. Gotcha.
Hey, how are you? I'm fine. I've been walking again. Oh, no. How long?
Two weeks. Come on, that's faster than you think.
You're also going to a job that you're in. Then come to the Lufthansa Group.
Over 50 Ausbildungsberupe. From IT, overtechnic to the cockpit. Fly big.
Of Lufthansa Group, uncurious.
So, Mark, do you know, do you know what the Tour de France is?
Ah, it's a bicycle race in France. No, it's all across Europe.
Tour of France. You don't think I know what, wait, we're hanging on Google Translate here.
All right. Okay. It is Tour de France.
It's through France. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on.
Hold on. Hold on. I'm holding up. Hold on. It's totally loading. It's
hopefully, yep. Hold on. We're holding.
Hold on. Did you just, did you just cancel it and then we do it? Yeah, hold on.
There we go. Okay. All right.
And now for this, oh, never mind.
Uh-huh. I don't know if it's capturing audio.
I think that's a problem with your setup, but it's capturing it.
Oh, yeah, I don't hear it. So I'm pretty sure it's Tour de France. It means Tour of France.
You're right. It's an annual bike race through France that starts on July 1st and is made up
of 21 stages that take about three weeks to complete as the race is over 2,000 miles of varied terrain.
Uh-huh. But what is cycling? Act one. The history of cycling.
That's literally if you're looking at this on Spotify, that's what I pulled out.
The bicycle has been used as a method of reconnaissance as well as transporting soldiers
and supplies to combat zones. And this, it has taken over many of the functions of horses and warfare.
Horses and warfare. The first evidence of horses and warfare date from Eurasia.
It's a some kind of equine pulling wagons. War wagon. A war wagon is any of several historical
types of early fighting vehicle involving an armed or armored animal drawn cart or wagon.
Wagon. Wagon is a vehicle. Okay. Vehicle. Okay. Bicycles. We've come full circle.
So the sport of cycling. Guess what? Here's the primer on the sport of cycling before we get
into the port of France. Oh, I see. It is the act of racing while utilizing a piece of equipment known
as a bicycle in order to compete. Wow. There you have it, everybody. He gave less respect to the sport
of cycling than he did hockey. You hear that? All you bicycle lovers. It's it's simple to explain
cycling. You ride a bicycle and you race from point A to point B or you're on a track for the
speed track. You know, it's probably it's apparently not because I don't even know how bicycles
work. It's not centrifugal force. It's all these weird self-balancing mumbo jumbo. I went to
engineering school and I don't even know how the bicycle works. Look, it really got to me. That
one jacquoise and I'm letting it affect everything I do for Mirano. Wow. Wow. Yeah, I know.
That hit hard. Mark, that hit hard. I know. I feel for you. I really do. I really do.
But anyway, this is about the Tour de France, which is one of the major events in cycling and
probably the most prominent name for the sport of cycling that people go to watch. Cycling obviously
crosses numerous different paths. You have speed cycling. You have sprint cycling. You have various
different sections of cycling. Cycling is even involved in the triathlon, which is running
swimming and biking. But cycling simply put is riding a bicycle and racing on a bicycle. That's
the sport. Interesting. No baby mark building is first bicycle. Go baby mark going into the
penny far thing. We'll get there. Go history of bicycle. We'll get there. We'll do the history
of the Tour de France first. All right. So mark act one, the Tour de France. The route changes
every year. So we're going to focus on this year's race that starts on July 1st. Okay. And the race
is over 2100 miles broken down into 21 stages raced over 23 days. Okay. That's right. Only two days
do they not cycle during the event. Wow. Wait. How did you do that math? Did I miss something?
21 stages over 23 days. One stage per day. There's only two days off. I got you. Okay.
It's made up of six flat stages, six hilly stages, eight mountain stages, and one individual time trial
which is the main sprint of the event. So you have to be able to have endurance. You have to have
hill climbing. You have to have mountain stages and you have to navigate the pack because every year
there are tons and tons of wrecks and injuries during the course of this. One person falls in that
pack and it can take out tens to hundreds of cyclists. How many people are in the race? Good question.
I think that varies per year. 176 riders across 22 eight member teams took part in the 2022 races.
Okay. I thought there would have been more. I really would. I don't know why, but I thought there
would have been more. There might be more trying to qualify, but there's also more because there's
also cars and vehicles for teams for bike repairs and other stuff that can be on the track at the same
time. So if you actually watch the event, there's cars and motorcycles that will hand them water
and different stuff as they're going so they don't have to carry an insane amount of water. They do
carry an insane amount of water, but not all of it so they can hand off empty water bottles and get
refills and stuff while they're still cycling. But yeah, the two off days, only two. One is after
the ninth stage. So they do eight days of cycling or nine days of cycling. Then they have one off
day and then they do an additional six more and after the 15th stage, they get their second day off.
Could you imagine riding a bike for that long? Yes, I just did. Do you think you could do it?
Ride a bike for 73 days. How many do you say 21 days? How long per day?
The route breaks up differently, but it's 2100 miles, so it's about 100 miles a day. Yeah, why not?
Seems easy. No, look, that's not the question you asked. So you said, could I imagine riding a bike
for 23 days, which absolutely I could do that. That's no problem at all. I mean, yeah,
ride it for 10 minutes and then be done. Then sure, yeah, easy. No, this is straight, Mark. This
is just forever riding your bike. At the end of every race, they put like IVs in them and you want
to know it's crazy. This particular event is one of the most prominent doping events in sports.
It's why Lance Armstrong got caught for doping and it's blood doping. It's endurance doping,
right? Okay, so lots and lots of blood. They want to pack those red blood cells to get those
oxygen to those muscles because they need to make sure and prevent the buildup of lactate,
lactic acid, like epogen. The drug I told you I had to take in college because I was anemic. Yeah,
it's a rhethropoetin is the official name, but it causes your red bone merit to develop more
red blood cells. So here goes Tyler doing another or skipping over not doing an epogen primer. I'm
sorry. All you epogen fans out there. I know you really love it, but Tyler just doesn't care.
He doesn't care about your your love for epogen. I want posts on the subreddit of people
jacusing Tyler of not caring about those who are true fans of epogen with their epogen shirt.
Epogen there's on the sidelines. Oh, he's making fun of you now. He's making fun of you. Yes,
that's right. I will. Okay. So guess what country you start in for the 2023 France. No,
France. No, Spain. On July 1st, 2023, Bilbao, Spain near the border of France. While the
race most often starts in France, the past, it's also start in Belgium, Denmark, Germany,
and even Ireland. This year it is starting in Spain. The majority of the races do take place in
France because the whole idea is it's a tour around France, hence the name. But it didn't start
like this. This was not the beginning. Right. Act two, the history of the tour to France. Okay.
So the origin dates back to 1903 in Paris, France. And it's a story of espionage espionage espionage espionage
espionage espionage. Yes. The battle between two newspapers. Have you never read that word out
load? I have. I just stumbled on it. So then I was just flabbering on and on to make myself sound
like I did on purpose of things. Sometimes I'm smart. Anyway, it was a very, very, very long bike ride,
a battle between newspapers. It all started when a French army officer Alfred Dreyfus Dreyfus
however it's pronounced was convinced. No, he was not convinced. He was convicted of selling secrets
to Germany, the largest sports newspaper in France at the time. Leveleau reported on the incident
which came to be known as the Dreyfus Affair. Dreyfus. Dreyfus. Like Richard Dreyfus? It's D-R-E-F-U-S.
Very F-U-S. Dreyfus. I have the fanatic spelling on here. It's Dreyfus. No, no, no, Dreyfus. Anyway,
the people of France. No, it's Dreyfus. I don't think it's Dreyfus. I don't think it's Dreyfus.
That's the fanatic spelling on here. I don't know about that. Wait, what's the name? What's the first name?
Alfred. Oh, he didn't say it was French. He's French. I said it was a French army officer. His name is
Bufla. I'm looking at the pronunciation here. What the fuck is this? Wait, wait, wait, you're going to see
this shit. Okay, okay. Wait, you know D-R-F-U-S. You know.
Jesus. That's awful. Anyway, that's that. So no one knows how to pronounce his name.
Anyway, people in France have believed he was innocent, have believed he was guilty of
selling these secrets to Germany, right? So as a side note, he was eventually pardoned and
whatever. Well, we'll get into that later. The important part was this letter was titled
Jacques Hughes, which is why it was brought up. But when Levello took the stance that Dreyfus was
innocent, this angered some of the paper's advertisers who banded together to create a rival
paper. Leato. Well, they expected their new paper to be a success. Sales were sluggish.
And their measly circulation of only 25,000 copies was nowhere near. Levello's 80,000.
That is so many. That's a difference of 55,000. Good job. God, yeah, I'm good at math.
So a crisis meeting was held to brainstorm ideas. How can we increase sales? How can they defeat
their rival? How would you do it, Mark? How would I, in a newspaper? Yes, how would you defeat
your rival in increased sales of your publication? Blow it up. Blow it up. Kill them all. Kill them. Kill
them all. They would think that you were selling the secrets then. Kill them all. Well, I thought
there was a rival publication. I thought it was like this is this is, but that's all on Paris.
Yes. That's why I said kill them all. All right. That's France, maybe. That's bloody.
Anyway, the last person to speak in the youngest person that was at this meeting
was Jélethuva and he suggested a six day race all around France. Cycling was incredibly popular
at the time, but a long distance like this had never been held before. No long distance race.
After getting the green light from the financial director of the paper, the planning began for
this race between the rival newspapers. Okay. Well, the sports newspaper. It wanted to report on it.
The race originally was to take place in five stages on May 31st until July 5th, but only 15
people entered due to length and difficulty. And so the idea was almost scrapped, shortening the
race to 19 days and cutting the entrance fee to half over 60 people ended up entering the race.
And therefore, the first tour to France began on July 1st, 1903 in a suburb of Paris and had six
stages. The first one was a flat 290 miles from Paris to Lyon. Stage 2 was climbing a mountain
from Lyon to Marseille and it was 232 miles. The third stage, Marseille to Toulouse was flat 263 miles.
Toulouse to Bordeaux was flat next stage, 167 miles. Next stage, another flat one, 264.
And the final back to Paris in 293 miles, totaling 1509 miles. And they peddled both day and night
to reach the next city. Only 21 cross the finish line out of the 60 racers that entered,
we don't know what happened to the other ones. Because they were traveling across unpaid
drove, doff in the middle of nowhere, on days on end with no street lights, no signs to guide them.
Oh, that's unfortunate. That only 21 finished. Only what happened to the rest?
That's what I said. Oh, we don't know. Only 21 finished. They were lost to the wilderness.
That seems like a bit of a problem. Did no one go and find them?
How many, how many were lost? It literally just says 21 finished and it doesn't say anything about
the other ones. How do, how many? 60. So those 39 people that mysteriously disappeared in the
middle of this race seems to be the case. All right. They must have gotten kidnapped or stopped and
had a beer. And who knows? Maybe they found love along the way, Mark. I don't think I hardly dealt
that occurred. It's France. Love is in the air. It's France, baby. Anything can happen in France.
With the wild west of Europe, France was what if you died in a bicycle race? No one's going to
find your corpse. Yeah. They're old in them, not a bicycle. Yeah, you know, France, France,
France, hugely popular for love and everyone's fucking on the bikes up here.
Well, needless to say, the race became hugely popular because of all of the
sex they were having on the bicycles, apparently. Of course. Tyler says it in a primer.
Therefore, it is law. And in 1904, due to wild fans and rampant cheating, apparently fans were
beating up rival riders who blocked the road to slow down competitors to their favorite and
through glass nails on the road. Several competitors were disqualified and thus in, you know, a short
time cheating immediately was available within the sport. Okay, good. I mean, that's what you love
cheating. No sports. Nope. Okay. Sorry. I hate it. I hate it so much. I never cheat my apologies.
How dare you say that I like it? It was wrong with you. I already said sorry. So
anyway, the race involved over the years and added the first mountain stage in 1910. And
the number of stages increased originally with five stages at the beginning to 1910. It was up to
15 and today there's 21 stages over the 23 days. While early racers, racers, racers had been
sponsored by companies, most were individual competitors who entered themselves. And more and more,
it became more about teams and sponsorships, making modern races today more of a commercially
sponsored teams, whereas there's still only one individual winner at the end. And that's the famous
yellow jersey yellow jersey famous. I've never heard of that. It's not very famous in cycling. Yes,
the yellow jersey is the leader of all of the racers in the Tour de France. Originally,
it was a green arm band, but it evolved to the yellow jersey in 1919 to make it easier to see
who was leading. It was chosen because Leato was printed on yellow paper. Leato, is that one of
the publications? That's the that's the newspaper that made this race so that they could write on
something that nobody else could write about and increased sales because they printed on yellow paper.
Well, that I don't know if that had anything to do with their sales, but they changed the jersey
color for that reason. Interesting. So make it more interesting. Was the starter of the Tour de France?
Yes. Okay. A newspaper started a sport in order to start a race. A race. You're right.
Good good point. Good catch. Good catch. Thank you. But the Tour de France took place every
year since it started in 1903, except during 1915 through 1918 during World War One and 1940
in 1946 due to World War II. Okay. Because obviously there was not exactly the opportunity to
bike ride much unless you were in the army trying to deliver messages or to get transport very quickly.
France was often overrun. That's in the war section. I read that on Wikipedia about cycling.
See? Exactly. Act to time to race. Mark, what do you think you need to race in a bicycle race?
Bicycle. Okay. That's it. Nothing else? Oh, so the world of cycling is a little more complex than
my understanding. I listened to the cycling primer that was at the beginning of this episode. That
was all you said. Baby, Mark was prepped with just that. It's a race where you ride a bicycle. That's
all I heard. The cycling primer is dead. I've never won so hard in an episode of Go. This might
be my winningest episode ever. I just like you are winning the Tour de France. You're right. Check
me. No, no, I don't care about the Tour de France. Wait, that's over talking about I care about the
sport of cycling and everyone knows in the cycling world that the Tour de France is just a shadow
of its form or self when it compares to the monolith that is the entirety of cycling. I'm assuming.
I think it takes up a pretty large portion. Oh, no way. You need a bicycle? Yes. You need pants.
Pants is correct. Pants. You need a helmet. There you go. There you go. All right. And you need
lots of extra blood. Yep. That's technically sort of accurate. You need stuff your veins with
as much blood as you can from whoever you can stuff inside of you. And then when you have enough
blood then and only then can you race. You know, one of the biggest ways that people pack their
blood because blood packing is technically a thing is blood transfusions where they withdraw
blood, have their body replace that blood and then reinsert said blood that was withdrawn from
you back into your body. Well, that's gross. Why not just steal blood from the poor?
Well, I mean, don't consider that. That's not something you go, well, I guess that's enough.
No, I wasn't getting, I was going to say there's problems with using other people's blood because
of typing and get the right five head. Doi. I wonder if people have actually paid. I'm not
getting into that anyway, back to this. But you forgot the main thing. If you think that there is
in a world where the rich could get extra years added onto their life by buying blood from other
people, they would do it. And they probably do it. Remember that story about that guy who pays
to transfuse his blood with his son to stay young? Wait, is that a thing? Yeah, he pays all this
money and it's to do all this treatment two million a year to get all these treatments to look younger
and he looks 45, which is exactly as old as he is. I didn't know that was a real thing that somebody
was doing. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. That's gross. You forgot the most important part, though, of
competing in this race. You need buns and thighs of steel. Oh, you need to be lean up top and
thick AF on bottom. Ah, I see. You need to be aerodynamics. A little wind resistance. You need to
string being up top and then your thighs being able to muscularly push up and down mountains,
race, go fast, go far, go good. Okay. All right. So technically, there are no specific
specifications for the bike other than it has to be a minimum weight of 15 pounds. And the bike
has to be openly available for sale to the general public. Oh, interesting. I didn't know that
was a requirement. So you can't build your super custom bike. You can as long as there's
it's open to being purchased by the public. You can't have something that no other person can
get their hands on. So it's like a stock bike racing almost. Yeah. It's like a weird must-be stock
level thing. Yeah. So it's still like top of the line bikes that are insanely expensive, but other
people need to be able to purchase the bike. And I wonder if that was set out by the company to be
like, if you do this, it's like, then we can sell the bike because that was kind of why stock
car racing became a thing. So it was showcasing the performance of actual cars people could buy.
I mean, maybe that's pretty cool. I mean, yeah, everything is there to make money. So I guess
it's not really that much of a shock, but yeah. Well, technically, you can use one bike. And in
the early stages, they probably only did ride one bike. Most teams have multiple custom bikes
set up for each stage, depending on the terrain, the circumstance, and the type of ride it is,
whether it's flat or mountainous. And besides that, you have to replace parts constantly,
because tires go flat. Crashes happen. And when you crash on these super lightweight bikes,
they break easily. Just like the riders also break easily. Maybe they should be stronger.
Well, they're riding at an average speed of about 25 miles per hour. My electric bike goes way
faster than not up the hill. Well, these, well, that'll do. Mine does now. I'm jealous. I want
it. Mine struggles up the hill. Just like I struggle going up hills, except for when I have to,
because I'm chasing down you and everybody else to get to the further to life. That was very
impressive. I was I was quite impressed by that. But for for now, you know, technology does exist
that there are mountain bikes that have really powerful motors and go straight up a hill with no
problem. But this the bikes that we have are not meant for that. So mine technically doesn't really go
up. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So your helmet, Mark, you got to make sure you're aerodynamic. You want
the least amount of wind resistance possible. Okay. And you're clothing a skin tight against snug
as a bug. Okay. That way your aerodynamic and it keeps you warm or cool, depending on the weather.
So then there's strategy. Okay. Strategy. How do you think cyclists strategize during the race?
They pedal really fast. Put all the time. Sure. They're on a team, Mark. All right. So you got like
four. Yeah. They're teams. So yeah, most teams are made up of four riders. And so how do you think
they can serve each other's energy in order to get the most distance with the least amount of
effort? Take in turns. Think aerodynamics. They push each other. I mean, go ask to mouth. They
do motivate that is correct. And they do do that. That that's the mouth thing. That's not what I
what it's drafting. They're not like they're not the they aren't full human centipede like your
I meant to push each other as in physically pushing each other. No. But they they do go ask to mouth.
Pretty much. So basically on the team, what they'll do is they'll have four riders in the right
end straight line. Right. So the person in the back is drafting doing the least amount of effort
because they have the least amount of wind resistance. They're kind of being pulled along.
Just like cars will get up behind. Have you ever gotten really close behind a semi?
And felt how the try not to but yeah. Oh, I know. You feel the wind. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
So they do that same thing. And they'll rotate from back to front to conserve each other's energy
so that they can keep the sprinter in the back who's the person they're trying to win to be able to
launch for the final stretch to be able to then take off by their own. Okay. Gotcha. That's one
of the main ways they do it. Another way is attacking, which is mostly used on climbs when a rider
goes in an extremely high speed in order to get ahead of the pack to prevent themselves from
being in a wreck or being caught in the crowd and being held to a lower speed in order to get ahead.
An attacking is important because if you only want to attack at the part that you are you excel at.
So if you excel at hill climbing or mountain climbing, you want to attack usually during those events.
Okay. Those stages that are the focus around those. So do you have like a bat?
Do you throw your third person into the other people? Are guns a lot?
Is it the Wild West of France and you got your lasso? No yeehaw and you pull them off their bike?
No. Attacking is just pedaling hard and fast to get ahead.
This seems like a silly naming convention, which also coincides with breakaways,
which is when you break away from the pack. See, this is my my my answer is like at the beginning of
this, I feel it's still right because if you just pedal hard and fast all the time, you never
have to deal with any of this nonsense. You just kind of get out of energy. You don't you don't
have so much blood that has so much energy or energy five head.
You know what? You know what? All right. You know what? Build your perfect tour de France cyclist
right now, Mark. All right, because okay. So as far as I know, the Tour de France works where
once you start going, you just don't stop and each day you wake up even farther than the other
person, right? You only have a set distance per day for the stage. You have a start and a finish
because then there's jerseys that are given out for the people that work that are the leaders
for particular stages as well as the leader of the overall time and all right. So then you just
race as hard as you can every day and you win. I cannot argue with that. So technically my perfect
rider is someone that can race as hard as possible and sprint from start to finish from the very
beginning of the race on the first day to the very end of the race of the next day. That's my
perfect racer. That's so simplistic. My perfect racer is not a little bitch and is able to actually
keep pedaling all day every day. All these these weak racers that need breaks and needs to strategize.
It's like clearly the answer is just pedal harder. Wow. Wow. You know, you're wrong. You're right.
You're right, but you're also wrong because these riders literally have to get many of them have
to get lifted off their bike at the end of each stage and get IVs put in them to keep them from
being overly sore and fatigued into the next day. Like if you ever watch the race by the end of it,
they can't really walk. That's why they have a bike. Mark, these are insane athletes that literally
push their bodies to the insane limit of endurance and strength and just absolute
mind over matter ability to cover distance over 21 days hours on end each day of cycling up
mountains upgrades that our cars would struggle going up on skinny, tiny roads where they could go
off a cliff's edge if they go too fast around a corner. This is the first time in the whole episode
that I've been super interested in hearing about the Tour de France. That passion speech was phenomenal.
I want more of that. Therefore, I'm going to be even bigger of a dick to these pathetic,
wimpy, baby bikers who don't know they're the front tire from their left nut, which Lance Armstrong
doesn't even have. Mark, the top record is the highest recorded speed in Tour de France was in
2019 was 101 kilometers an hour. That's 63.1 miles per hour. You're on a bike with a little foam
aerodynamic helmet, skin tight, no protective elbow pads or anything, riding around the skinny
roads of Europe, which by the way are not as nicely paved to some of the places here in the United
States. And you're on a tire that's like this thick, this little, little skinny, like inch,
inch and a half wide tire fiberglass underneath you. One thing goes wrong and your face is planted
into the pavement. Your body is flying off the cliff. These racers are not only insane endurance
athletes who can pedal to the metal and go faster than most anyone on a bike up a mountain
or up a hill with a grade that is like 10% grade or more. It's insane what they do.
Averaging 25 miles per hour is because of the hill climbs. It's insane. And then the pack
crashes and everything that happens how quickly somebody else's mistake can take you out of the race
and you could have been the best athlete that year. I can't imagine what goes through their head.
You get hooked up to IVs every night to rehydrate and get your body set to be able to race the next day.
23 days 21 days of riding 100 miles a day. If the average speed is 25 miles per hour,
that's four hours of cycling a day at least four hours 100 miles a day. It's usually more than a
100 miles, but because it's 2100 miles over 21 days, think about trying to go 25 miles per hour
up a 10% grade. All right. See the amount of I power in those legs. I take back everything I
said. I apologize for stomping all over the glory that is the tour de France. I've been convinced.
I'm converted and I feel remorseful for my actions and Tyler is definitely shown me the light
and I will forever remain in his debt. This is why blood doping was such a thing over the years. Why
this is one of the most endurance doping events in history because what the body has to go through
to complete this race is insane. All right. He's laying it on a little thick, guys. I already
apologize. So let's not give it too much credit for these, these nambi-pambi tour de France.
No, anyway, it's very good. That painted a great picture of cycling and the perseverance for
them in my mind. I think you did an incredible job there. I need, I need to embody that more
earlier in episodes starting to realize that. Yeah, that's what we need. That's what we need for
these primers. People got to feel that because they feel what it's all about. Yeah. So when
Lance Armstrong won time and time again, that's why it was looked at as such an incredible accomplishment
because not only did doing it once is a lifetime achievement and immortalizes you in the cycling world.
Of course. But he did it multiple times. But he was shooting blood out of his eyes, wasn't he?
Yeah. He admitted to blood doping years after he had accomplished it. But he won seven times.
And to act like the field and not saying that people do it now, there's a lot more testing than
it's a lot of safety precautions because you can literally die from having too much packed
blood cells because it will basically can clot your heart. It's basically making your heart work
extra because it has to pump so many more cells. Well, I can't even imagine. Yeah, that's got to be
pretty crazy. Yeah, because it makes your blood more viscous. It's thicker. And so winning at seven
times, which is why Lance Armstrong for a lot of people before he admitted the doping was one of
the greatest athletes to ever exist because of the insane amount of effort it takes to win just one
of these. Yeah. Winning two was unheard of. Winning seven made him a legend. But what's fascinating is
I don't know why winning two would be so unheard of because if you did it once, wouldn't it be
possible to do it again? Well, you're talking about there are factors that are outside of your
control. One is maintaining a team. Oh, right. The team. I forgot about the team. Yeah, two is
you'll get the sponsors. You'll have everything there. But two is the chances of getting into a wreck.
People are gunning for you. They know you're the person to beat so they're going to challenge you
more. They're being able to keep other distractions, keep people's comments and thoughts out of your
mind so that you can focus on the task at hand. I see. And then injuries. I mean, you cycle enough,
you're going to wreck period, especially in the United States with cars sharing the road and stuff
like that. It's dangerous. Lance Armstrong's years were a lot before texting and driving was a
thing. So it was a little bit safer. But nowadays, like trying to cycle and train, most people train
at altitude usually around like Colorado. I've seen a lot of cyclists around Colorado because you can
climb the Rockies and stuff like that to simulate what you would do in the Tour de France for the U.S.
riders. And my dad cycles are cycled for a while and we had a ride from my uncle's house to our
house from Dayton to Cincinnati every year for a little bit. We called it the Shide to Shide
bike ride. And that to me terrifies me. And that's not 100 miles. And that takes a while. I mean,
these guys are cycling every day just to train for this. And then just to be able to get the shot,
you have to get the sponsors, you have to get the bike, you have to put together the team, you have
to be able to work well with the team. It's a lot. And then getting to the point part where you're
in the race and avoiding a major wreck when you're stuck in the group because they're packed like
sardines at that starting line. If you watch a video of the start of the Tour de France,
there's so many cyclists like your bike is wedged between another bike with like inches between
each of you. So the slightest turn or the slightest shift or somebody's tire going flat or a tip or a
fall or a bump changes everything.
Well, that is fascinating. And so the last thing I want to talk about was winning. Oh,
yeah, people win the final act. Yeah, what do they get for going through all this pain?
In the Tour de France, there's a winner for each stage and then there's a winner overall.
So the winner of each stage is determined by who is first, obviously, to finish that stage. So each
day, obviously, yeah. And the overall winner is determined by the lowest time across every stage.
After each stage, they award jerseys and there are four special jerseys that are awarded at different
points during the race and they often change hands. Like the yellow one means you're the leader. So
you will be wearing the yellow jersey. If you win the first stage, you automatically get the yellow
jersey because nobody's faster than you. But as you get through the other stages, the average time
becomes a factor. So the yellow jersey changes hands. The green jersey is the overall points leader
as each race has a certain amount of points that can be rewarded based on difficulty. So the most
points, which means you've placed the highest in the particular higher point stages gets the green
jersey. There's a polka dot jersey, which is the king of the mountain jersey who receives the most
points on specifically mountain stages, which are climbs. And then there's the white jersey, which
is the young rider jersey and is awarded to the fastest rider under the age of 26. Oh, well,
I would have figured that riders under the age of 26 would be better riders than people over that
in general. Surprisingly, the majority of the people that win the Tour de France are, I think,
over 26. Weird. Why is that? I want to look that up real quick. I don't know if there's a
list of Tour de France winners in their ages. The oldest man to win Tour de France was 36 years and
four months old when he won in 1922. They're youngest winners. 22 years old in 1960. A lot of 22
year olds. So maybe maybe the winner usually is that. So it's like probably the person who's in
second place, 21 years old, 19 years old, in 1884, won the Tour de France or a day France winners
list. Wow, it does not say their age. That's unfortunate. It tells me their time in 2022, the winner
won in 79 hours, 32 minutes and 29 seconds. That was the total time for all the races, which is the
shortest time in modern, the modern era. Oh, yeah, all the Lance Armstrong things are listed as
no winner now because he went and got disqualified. How many people do you think cheat percentage? Yeah.
I mean, historically, probably more, I think in modern day, I'd probably put it at max 25%.
25% that is still a lot of people. I know that, you know, it was funny. There was a, I don't know if
you watch CrossFit documentary at all. It's weird. You know, they put out that documentary every
year. It was like, don't fit us to him in honor of documentary about CrossFit. And one year, it was
entirely like seem to feature this one guy, but it seemed to feature him in like this kind of
increasingly sinister way. And it's because at the end of it, he got caught for doping and just like
taking like performance dancing drug, but it's also just like, I'm sure that it's incredibly prevalent
in every sport. And at the same time, it's like, I'm sure, because for so long, they,
they must have tested Lance Armstrong and he didn't do it or it didn't go, like didn't go through,
but he must have been doping the entire time. It's not like he suddenly one year did doping,
because it's not like his performance just spiked up all the sudden one year. He just must have
been doing it the entire time. And so it's like, yeah, I'm sure that it is probably very prevalent.
Yeah. For the record, the average age of the winner of Tour de France is 28 years, 28.7
years old. Okay, that makes sense. That checks out. The 2012 winner was 32, 2011 was 34. There's
some 30 year olds and 20 low 20 year olds, but a lot of 30 year olds, a lot of high 20s and
early 30s. Gotcha. Okay. Yeah, I'm actually really curious what the stats actually show of how many
people tested positive and were like kicked off of the Tour de France. Do you think the CrossFit
guys doped a lot? Is that what you were saying? I'm sure. I'm sure. Like to have bodies like
let's be honest. I'm sure. Well, those listening, if you're interested in checking out the Tour de France,
it is televised. It takes place starting on July 1st. And it's really interesting to watch my
dad. I got so annoyed because I wasn't allowed to watch anything else of the house when the
tour was on when he got big and cycling. So it was just cycling on TV every day. And I was like,
all right, I'll go do something else. Yeah. But being around it enough and seeing how like
invested he was made me be interested in it. It's one of those things that sometimes the people around
you being able to share their passions makes you start to understand it and get to know it. And
so to me, this was the Tour de France was a big part of me branching out outside of the sports
that I knew and started seeing other things and enjoying other things because I had my dad who
was passionate about it. So that's cool. That's very cool. So I wanted to cover it. I could go
through every stage real quick of what is the Tour de France this year, all 21 stages. But I think
you can look that up. All right. It's really fun. Mark, thank you for joining me on this journey
through France on a bike ride. Well, thank you very much for showcasing it. And I am on Tyler's
side now. And I say, fuck you to anyone that just cycles out there. You don't deserve your own
primer. Me and Tyler are in solidarity with that mindset. You won me over. You'll on me over,
buddy. They don't deserve anything. It's some sports are hard to talk about without just talking
about them, like one of the biggest events that are there because it's kind of simple to talk
about bike racing, nothing against it. But sometimes simple things have value, but it's literally
riding a bike and the distance changes. That's really what cycling is. As well as you hear that
cyclist, it's just riding a bike. Nothing fancy about that. Keep getting. Yeah.
Only requires extensive training to be a sprinter or an endurance racer and have strong legs
and body makeup that makes it so that your legs are strong, but you maintain being lean and mean
in aerodynamic. And there's a lot of strategy that goes into it and position yourself on the
bike to reduce air resistance, like the Superman thing. They got outlawed in short track racing
because of danger and safety, but really it was because a guy did it and it became really fast
and really popular. And then they're like, let's not let people do this. But yeah,
cycling, simple. All right. I think he's on my side. Any last words, Mark?
That that's very informative. Thank you very much for walking me through that.
Yes. And we'll see you in whatever the next episode is. What's what's the one after this?
Oh, yeah. I think we have a guest again. Oh boy. This one is a free solo artist.
One of the greatest rock climbers of our era, a free solo artist. Yes.
You know, I'm talking about right. I know what you're talking about, but why would you say it like
that? I don't know. It felt right in my head. A musician? I mean, there is an extreme art to
being able to free solo mountains that nobody else has ever free soloed before. Always a client
or arguably one of the greatest rock climbers of our time. And really interesting guy. It was a
really fun conversation to have with him. And we don't talk to him a thing about rock climbing.
Honestly, we talk very little about rock climbing. We talk about everything. He's probably sick
of it. He's probably sick of being in it. So what's it like? Hit touching rocks. How do you climb
that? You use your hands? You must like chalk, right? Yeah. You must strengthen your fingers so
that they're as strong as my biceps. Yeah, no boring. But we talk about interesting things.
No, it's a really good episode. And for the record, it's Alex Honnell. Literally, the
documentary free solo is about his climb of LCAP. And he's still the only person to have ever
free soloed LCAP-10 in USMD. Good for him. Well, that's all for us today. If you want to support
the podcast in a monetary way, we have merch store.gmfst.com. It's fancy. It's delicious. It's
please don't eat it. But please sport it at any sporting event or anywhere you'd like to go.
If you would choose to do so. You can check out Mark everywhere Markiplier is and you can check out
me everywhere you find Tyler Shide. All right. Oh, and if you want to see the video, go to Spotify.
Video is only on Spotify. See our faces. All right. Bye. Bye.