Tour de Force
It has come to our attention that there’s some sort of bike race/drug bacchanalia going on in — where else? — France right now, and as would be the case with any bike race that doesn’t involve a reverbing loudspeaker and the phrase “SATURDAY! SATURDAY! SATURDAY!”, the spectator are getting bored. So they’re amusing themselves, in pretty much the same way that people at any drug bacchanalia would amuse themselves:
By dressing up like jackasses and annoying everybody around them.
But in what could be a breakthrough for a sport that’s got all the excitement of a rolling cricket match, one of the racers (whose name and standing I intentionally omit, just to infuriate the bike nerds) finally had enough and hauled off and punched one of the jackasses:
Which is awesome!
That is a sport we can get behind. Keep the Tour de France exactly as it is, but award extra points for punching spectators, other riders or woodland creatures who happen to stumble onto the course. Have weapons caches along the route, allowing riders to arm themselves — pikes, maces, chains, shields — and part of the strategy becomes additional weight and unwieldiness against speed and endurance. Encourage doping, just to make things more interesting.
An effete European bicycle race — where the most agressive offensive weapon appears to be a horn with a slightly larger rubber bulb than the other guy — suddenly becomes a blood-soaked battle for survival, between rolling, well-armed and well-armored steroid-inflated monsters.
Oh, you would totally watch.
[Photos courtesy of Yahoo Sports. Yeah, we’re just as surprised as you are that there’s still a Yahoo Sports.]
