I encountered this highly noteworthy article on Phil Gaimon’s blog who last year, at age 30, “retired” from pro-cycling and talks about what makes up the appeal of the Tour de France, criticizing it for being either boring or dangerous, with spectacular crashes as being perfectly normal, again in this year’s version when riders crashed already in the beginning.

In the first stage, lots of riders ended up on the ground, trying to gain time on a tight course in the rain. I’ve been that guy many times. You get up. You get back on your bike. You’re going 30 mph again within twenty seconds, because that’s your job and you’re lucky to have it. A friend was watching the Tour for the first time, and she was horrified: “So he crashes and hits the fence at full speed, one guy jumps out of the follow car to pick up his old bike, another guy jumps out to hand him a new one off the roof and give him a push, and nobody asks if he’s okay?”
That never would have occurred to me. But yeah. That’s weird. Two big names didn’t get up that day—out of the race with broken bones before it even started.

He also writes about old-fashioned traditions like sexism and states it was still 1903. Lance Armstrong does not come off very well either.

Read the interview here.