"WHEN the route of the Tour de France is revealed, it is always a geographic feast," said the daily Liberation in its report on the twists, turns and mountain climbs that the world's greatest cycling race will take this coming summer. It is always in superlatives that the French speak of their most famous national spectator sport. And the feast is not just geographic.
It is a time when "Ia France profonde" - that deepest France of the salt of the earth peasants and craftsmen to whom all the politicians pay unctuous lip service in champagne oiled speeches in Paris's gilded salons - has its three week field day. It is a time when the smallest stone hamlets pull out the bunting as they are suddenly in the limelight for just a day when the droves of cyclists flash by pushing their sunburnt thighs to the limit as they undertake arduous - and sometimes even fatal - climbs through the Alps or the Pyrenees or speed through the plains past acres of sunflowers.
It is an event that brings hordes of cheering pastis and rose wine drinkers to otherwise sleepy cafe terraces and restaurants for a brief but lucrative few hours. The tradition is to make a makeshift sun hat: for the occasion out of a newspaper but not just any newspaper. It is de rigueur to choose L'Equipe, France's sporting daily and the sponsor of the Tour de France. This is surely one of the most original devices yet for increasing circulation.
Another tradition is for fans to throw water over their champions as they rush past, to soothe them under the scorching July sun.
In the bad old days, spectators would throw tacks on the road before the advancing tyres of their favourite's rivals and even, it has been said, pepper in their eyes.
In the geographic feast category, the only thing that is no surprise every year is where the Tour will end. On the last Sunday of the race, the dozens of cyclists who are still upright wheel past the Egyptian obelisk on the Place de Ia Concorde to the Avenue des Champs Elysees and summon up one last burst of adrenalin. By that time too, the winner is no surprise either. After the 20 or so previous stages, from speed trials on the flat to assaulting the steepest Alp, the final victor is usually known three or four days before the end.
Guarded by a phalanx of teammates, he cruises cautiously to avoid accidents. This way he is sure of riding in triumph in his winner's yellow jersey up the most famous avenue to collect his trophy from the President of the Republic.