The Tour de France Femmes

The Tour de France Femmes started the other day. Some news reports claimed the race was the first of its kind.  Others said the "only" previous women's Tour de France was the one held from 1984 through 1989.  While it is the best-known version of the women's tour, it's hardly the only one:  In 1955, French journalist and race director staged the original Tour de France Feminin.  In spite of his efforts, the five-day race, which 41 female cyclists finished, would be a one-off event:  Other members of the press treated it as a joke and some photographers stalked the women to their dormitories.  And, in spite of the fact that the race was organized and staged by a journalist, there was little press coverage and, thus, financial support. 

For a time, it seemed that the 1980s event--and the excitement surrounding the 1984 and 1988 Olympic races--would show that women's cycling had become a sport with its own identity and audience, somewhat like women's tennis.  During that time, however, men's cycling, like other sports, shifted from local network coverage sponsored by mom-and-pop businesses to the more lucrative cable and satellite networks with corporate mega-sponsors like Nike and Coca-Cola.  Decision-makers at those companies and networks--and Tour organizers--seemed to think that women's racing wasn't worth those resources.  

After the Tour severed its connection to the Tour Feminin, the latter continued, under different names, into the 1990s.  But without that Tour imprimatur, the media and corporate sponsors hardly noticed it at all. Thus, coverage was practically non-existent and almost no one who wasn't a dedicated fan knew that the races were running.

But all of those versions of the Tour Feminin had yet another fatal flaw:  They were "curtain-raisers" (or, as some would say, "appetizers") for the men's ride.  During the 1980s editions, the women rode the same routes, mostly, as the men, but finished before the men started.  So, while the women's race originally benefited from its Tour association, it didn't develop its own identity as, say, the Women's football World Cup or women's tennis has.  

This year's Tour Feminin began after the men's race ended.  Could it be the arrangement that allows the women's race to, not only survive, but to become a major sporting event in its own right?

As Kucharik Goes, So Has The World Of Bicycling Gone

Steel to aluminum to carbon.

Hand-built wheels to boutique wheelsets.

Hubs and freewheels to freehubs and cassettes.

Quill stems to threadless; threaded headsets to threadless.

The "baselines" for bikes and components have changed so much in the past couple of decades.  While some of those changes are beneficial to some cyclists, too many simply added cost and complication for others.

Those changes have also brought innovators and investors with deeper pockets than the mom-and-pop operations that dominated cycling until the 1980s.  One way you can see what I mean is to look at the sponsors of riders and teams:  Jerseys in the 1960s and 1970s bore the names of local or regional enterprises like Molteni and the bikes and components were made by companies (or sometimes individuals) that were involved mainly, or solely, in the bike industry.  Now bike and component makers tend to be parts of larger conglomerates, and sponsors include them as well as large companies (like Coca-Cola) that have little or nothing to do with the design or manufacture of bikes or parts.

Like all changes, the ones I've mentioned have brought casualties, if you will.  Some once-revered bike, component and accessory makers no longer fabricate their wares in Europe, Japan or the United States--or might build one or two of their most expensive models in their home country while outsourcing the manufacture of their mass-market goods to low-wage countries.  Still others are no longer in the bike business--or in business at all.  

And then there are smaller (what might be called "niche" in other industries) enterprises that ended when the main or sole proprietor--or even employee--retired, died or simply wouldn't or couldn't change with the rest of the industry.  I think in particular of small-scale frame builders like Ron Cooper and Brian Bayliss who had small but devoted followings.

Another change came with the ones I've mentioned. When I first became a dedicated cyclist, nearly half a century ago, high-mileage cyclists almost always wore wool--year round.  Those black shorts you see on cyclists from the 70s were made from it; so were there jerseys.   That, of course, is why bike kit of that time wasn't as flashy as today's:  Since colors and patterns have to be knit into wool, it's much more difficult (if not impossible) to include some of the intricate (or busy) graphics and loud colors you see on the "billboard" jerseys and matching shorts (or bibs) of today.      

During the North American Bike Boom of the 1970s, some companies got into the business of making bike clothing.  Most are gone now--offhand, I can think of Protogs and Weyless.  And there were the European, mostly Italian, makers. One reason the American apparel makers--aside from one I'll mention--didn't last more than a few years was that many cyclists had an attitude expressed by one shop employee I encountered:  "Buy right, buy Italian."  Also, Weyless (which made some nice components) claimed their wool clothes wouldn't shrink.  Well, shrink they did, and it's said that the warranty claims torpedoed a business that was already sinking as the tide of the Bike Boom receded. 

And, honestly, most of the Italian clothes fit (at least folks like me in those days) better. But one American company, almost entirely unknown save to dedicated cyclists, made wool shorts, jerseys, arm and leg warmers and other apparel that were better-constructed with higher-quality wool.

That company was based, seemingly incongruously, in Southern California.  Well, that location seems incongruous to anyone who doesn't understand wool:  Because it wicks moisture, it helps to keep you cooler.  And it keeps more of its insulating qualities than other materials when wet.  That is why it's been worn by people who live in areas that experience both extreme heat and cold, as well as other kinds of harsh weather.

John Kucharik Jr. has been extolling those virtues for the past 50 years.  He's about to turn 69 and, he says, he promised his wife they would "travel and do some stuff." So, although his company's sales grew during the pandemic, he is about to close the business his father, who died at age 93 in 2008, founded 88 years ago. 

That anyone can keep a business going for that long, with the family's surname, while making products that changed little, if at all, is an achievement.  And he's done it with the same workforce--seven people--for the past thirty years.  That, I think, may be a reason why he's closing up rather than selling out:  They're "my family," he says.  "I tell people:  They don't work for me; I work for them."

It will be sad to lose one of the last companies to make bike apparel from wool, or any other natural material (e.g., cotton and leather in the gloves).  But the cycling world will lose something else:  a place that repairs bike bibs, shorts and other items.  "I don't make money on repairs," Kucharik explains,  "I just do it because I do it.  My dad did it; I did it."  Their repairs include replacing or re-sewing pads and fixing zippers.  "[T]hese guys pay $200, $250, $300 for a bib short. They ride it once and they can't ride it again.  A bike shop doesn't want it back."  He said his shop was averaging about 40 such items--none made by his company--a week.

The closing of Kucharik Bicycle Clothing company also is another change in the bike industry.  Call me a cynic, but the more expensive bike clothes (and other items) become, the less durable they are.  And the bike industry has become more like the fashion industry and others in that it seems more oriented to affluent cyclists who won't ride a jersey, a pair of shorts or bibs--or a bike--for more than a season.

 

   

For Hydration Purposes Only

This lady is riding a road that may or may not have been part of a Tour de France route.  And her preferred hydration substance is one that more than one TdF rider--as well as riders of other races--have used, whether on or off the bike.

Her name might give you a clue as to what she imbibed:  Madame Lily Bollinger.

Yes, that Bollinger.  And even though the bottles bearing her family name have never needed advertisement, she was not shy about extolling the virtues (or pleasures, at any rate) of their contents:

I only drink Champagne when I’m happy and when I’m sad. Sometimes I drink it when I’m alone. When I have company, I consider it obligatory. I trifle with it if I am not hungry and drink it when I am. Otherwise, I never touch it—unless I’m thirsty.

All things in moderation, right?  

A bottle of Bollinger is surely not the cheapest way to hydrate.  But it might be the most elegant--unless, of course, you prefer Piper-Heisdeck or Veuve-Clicquot.  (Don't ask me which is better!)  But for those whose tastes--or desire for social cachet--exceeds their budgets, there are alternatives--like beer.  Of course, if you're a hipster or live in Portland, you don't drink any ol' brew:  You have to down a "craft" beer infused with passion fruit and vanilla beans--or cacao beans, or Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee beans, or some other ingredient that never would have found its way into mugs of Bud' downed by denizens of a real "dive" bar.

(Curiously, given how such viticulturally rich countries as France, Italy and Spain have dominated the history of bike racing, wine doesn't seem to have flowed as freely from Specialites TA bidons as one might expect.)

But what if you do not heed the "last call for alcohol"--or the first, or any in between?  Well, as I've mentioned in earlier posts, countless cyclists--including yours truly--have partaken of "the pause that refreshes".  The great thing about Coca-Cola is that it also doubles as an energy-booster:  Back in the day, we used to call it "rocket fuel".  These days, I rarely drink it, and I never drink any other soda at all.  But once in a while, I drink the Mexican version because it's the same as the Coke I grew up drinking.

As a kid, I drank stuff that's even less likely to be found on training tables.  Hawaiian Punch is one such concoction.  When I was a NORBA member,  I knew of a few mountain bikers who also drank it.  A few even filled their Camelbaks with it--and stuffed Pop Tarts in their pockets!

Now, of course, we drank Hawaiian Punch and Coca Cola the way Madame Bollinger drank er, um, bubbly grape juice:  strictly for hydration purposes.  Just like people add Jim Beam to their hot tea for medicinal purposes.

Even They Wouldn't Get Free Advertising From Me

Once, when I was a kid, someone gave me a T-shirt with the Coca-Cola emblem on it.  I always liked Coke; I drink it (the Mexican version) on the rare occasions when I drink soda.  So, I thought nothing of wearing that T-shirt until someone--an uncle, I think--told me I should be paid for wearing it.  "It's advertising," he explained.

He was right.  Still, I sometimes wear T-shirts or other items with the name of some product or business on it--as long as I don't have to pay for it.  I try, though, to wear only those products and companies I actually know and like.

But I don't think I'll ever get a tattoo with a business trademark.  For one thing, I don't think I'll ever get inked:  It's just not my thing.  For another, I wouldn't want to be marked more-or-less permanently with a business or product name.  At least you can take off the T-shirt or hat or whatever if you don't want to be a billboard for Al's Garage or whatever.

No, I wouldn't get a "tat" even for this esteemed company:

From:  Cycling Tattoo Gallery

as much as I've always liked their flowing-script logo (especially the one with the "globe" around it).

Why We Don't Have Any More Hinaults or Mercxes

Retrogrouch's excellent posts about Bernard Hinault and the 1985 Tour de France got me to thinking about how professional racing has changed. As a result,  I came to the conclusion that racers like Hinault or Eddy Mercx simply could not exist today.

There are a number of reasons why no one races, let alone dominates, the way Hinault and Mercx did.   One is this that the organization, sponsorship and training of riders and teams are very different today from what they were three decades ago, when Hinault achieved his final Tour de France victory, let alone when Mercx won his last title a decade earlier.

In those days, cyclists rode in a much greater variety of events than they do now.  The greatness of Hinault and Mercx--and of cyclists like Jacques Anquetil, Fausto Coppi before them--was that they rode (and won) many of the one-day "classics" (including such races as Milan-San Remo and Paris-Roubaix) as well as races against the clock and on the track.  Most of the current generation of cyclists won't even enter as many races as Mercx or Hinault won. 

In other words, cyclists of Hinault's and Mercx's generations  did not focus all of their time and energy on winning the Tour de France, Giro d'Italia and Vuelta a Espana.  And, when they won those races, they did so by being among the top riders in all aspects of those races:  They won mountain climbs, sprints, time trials and long road stages. 

Bernard Hinault

Now, to be fair, it isn't necessarily the racers' fault that they're not riding as many events and that the best riders on each team are focused on winning the long stage races.   That has been driven, I think, in part by the sport's changes in sponsorship.  Hinault's generation was the last to be sponsored by bicycle companies (which are not nearly as big as, say, automobile, athletic-footwear or soft-drink makers) and businesses of one kind and another that had little name recognition outside their home countries.  Few people outside of France had shopped in a La Vie Claire store, and few outside of Italy had eaten a Molteni salami, before Hinault and Mercx, respectively, wore team jerseys with the names of those companies on them. 

The landscape was beginning to change late in Hinault's career, when global companies like Coca-Cola and Nike began to sponsor teams and races.  While it meant bigger budgets for equipment, training and such, it also meant that those companies wanted as much exposure as possible--for themselves and cycling--for the money they spent.  Most Americans (or casual fans in other countries, for that matter) couldn't have told you who finished fourth in the Dauphine Libere or whose hour record was just broken--but everyone knew who won the Tour de France, especially if the rider came from his or her own country. 

Again, in the interests of fairness, I should point out that by the time Greg LeMond won the Tour for the first time in 1986, few Americans had grown up following the sport of cycling.  A true fan of any sport not only knows the results of his or her hometown team's games, but follows other teams and, most important, the players on those teams.  Even more important, they understand the intricacies of playing or participating in the sport:  few basketball fans anywhere in the world can appreciate Tony Parker's "floater" as much as the ones in New York, even though TP has never played for the Knicks.  That is because New York basketball fans follow all of the NBA as well as international and college basketball. When LeMond came along, few Americans born after the era of the six-day races followed cycling in a similar way.  Few things will get the attention of would-be fans like a dominating victory in a major race.

Also, it must be said that Americans had a greater variety of sports and leagues already vying for their attention than most Europeans had for theirs.  It's quite a challenge for a sport like cycling to compete against leagues like the NBA, NFL and Major League Baseball, all of which grew tremendously during bicycle racing's dormancy in the US.  A story about a one-day race in a foreign country simply would not distract most Americans from baseball or basketball or football playoffs.

Finally, I will offer one more reason why I think the cycling world will not produce more Hinaults, Mercxes, Coppis or Anquetils.  Such riders--like the great English footballers of the past--were usually the sons of native-born farmers, factory workers, miners, other blue-collar workers and small business owners.   People in circumstances like those may not grow up with much, but there's enough money--or enough can be saved--for a bicycle.  Sometimes there isn't much else, and that is what motivates a talented rider. 

(I read somewhere that when Eddy Mercx was going off to race with the Peugeot team, his father tried to stop him. "Who will mind the store?," he protested.)

Eddy Mercx

That class of people is disappearing in Europe, as it has been in the US.  Some who would have been members of such a class found ways to improve their economic (if not social) lot in life.  Thus, their kids grow up with electronic gadgets and other distractions an earlier generation never had.  Becoming a first-rate cyclist requires many hours of training, which can only be done by someone who either doesn't have distractions or has the mental discipline (which few have) to ignore them and get on his bike.  Also, a rider needs a similar kind of discipline to forego, say, ice cream or other foods that, while pleasurable, will not enhance performance.

Increasingly, in countries like France, the ones who are most motivated to develop their athletic talents are immigrants or their children.  And they are not becoming cyclists.  For one thing, they are poorer than the native European working classes were, and can't afford a racing bike or the other necessary equipment.  On the other hand, it takes hardly any expenditure for equipment to play futbol (soccer) or basketball, or to become a track-and-field competitor.

The Africans, Arabs and other third-world immigrants (and their children) who live in Europe also share a trait with Americans at the time of Hinault:  Most haven't grown up following the classics and other bike races.  Sure, they know who won the Tour and Giro, but like an earlier generation of Americans, they might draw a blank if someone  mentions Milan-San Remo.

(I also can't help but to wonder whether some of them see cycling as a "white" sport, and are thus discouraged from competing in it even if they or their families or friends can afford a bike.)

So, increasingly, competitors in the major European races are coming from outside the region in which those races are held.  Many riders have come from former Soviet-bloc countries, which had strong racing programs that were sponsored by the state.   Today's corporate sponsors can offer them better equipment and training facilities than their parents could have dreamed.  Even so, it's harder for someone from Russia to spend a whole season going from race to race in France, Italy, Belgium, England and other western European countries.  So they find themselves focusing on particular races and specialities (which is what they did under the old Soviet system:  then, as now, a disproportionate number of Russian riders are sprinters), just as other riders have done in recent years. 

All of this will lead me to my (though not the) last reason why we won't have another Hinault or Mercx, or the racing scene that produced them:  Much of the fire one saw in "The Badger" or "The Cannibal" when they rode came from racing in front of their compatriots.  Or, when they weren't performing in their own homelands (or the nations in which their teams are based), they were fueled by rivalries with countries that bordered their own.  So Mercx could be driven as much by the ire of French fans, who hated him for winning "their" races, as by the support of fans in Italy, where his Molteni team was based.  A cyclist--no matter how great or simply flamboyant--from a faraway land will never draw such love or hate, and can thus never be motivated in quite the same way as earlier riders were.

A Sign In Late Spring

As I mentioned in an earlier post, there was a time when I actually regarded Coca-Cola as an energy drink.  I'm sure some cyclists still do.  In fact, some might regard it as a performance-enhancing drug.

Like nearly every cyclist in the developed world, I've seen innumerable Coke ads on billboards, storefronts and even painted on the sides of buildings.  But I've never seen one quite like this:

It's a still from Late Spring (Banshu), a 1949 film directed by Yasujiro Ozu.  Based on Kazuo Hirotsu's novel Father and Daughter (Chichi to musume), it belongs to a genre of Japanese film called shomingeki, which deals with the ordinary daily lives of modern working- and middle-class Japanese people.  This genre flourished during the immediate postwar period, in spite (or, some say, because) of the heavy censorship imposed by Allied occupying forces.  
Such films usually focused on families, featured simple plots and were shot with static cameras.  This genre might be compared, in some ways, to the Italian neo-realist films of the same period (such as Rome, Open City and The Bicycle Thief) and the French New Wave that brought us the likes of Le Quatre Cent Coups (The 400 Blows) a decade later.

There's a certain irony to seeing a Coca-Cola road sign in a film that's supposed to--at least on the surface--celebrate an idealized version of Japanese family life.  Then again, some have seen it as one of the ways Ozu subverted the censorship of the time. 

Hmm...Coca-Cola presented as a threat to traditional authority in order to subvert the censorship imposed by an occupier.  It's a bit much to wrap my head around.  Maybe it's easier to think of Coke as an energy drink--or even a performance-enhancing drug!

What Happened To Lyotard, SunTour And All Of Those Other Little Companies That Made Nice, Practical Stuff?

The posts I wrote about Lyotard pedals and clipless pedal designs that have come and gone got me to thinking about a way in which the bicycle world has changed during my nearly four decades as a dedicated rider.

I first started to take longer rides and made some commitment to training during the later part of the '70's Bike Boom.  At that time, about the only bike makers (at least, those with any pretentions of quality) most Americans heard of were Schwinn and Raleigh.  As big as those companies were, to call either of them the General Motors of cycling would have been preposterous:  Schwinn's sales peaked at 1.5 million bikes in 1974, about the same number of cars from just one division of GM--Oldsmobile--that were sold in the same year.  And, of course, the sale of a car generates a far more revenue than the sale of a bike.

Other bicycle and component manufacturers--like Lyotard--were far smaller in scale.  They usually made their products for local markets:  Relatively few bike makers sold their wares much beyond the region, let alone the nation, in which they manufactured.  Most, especially in Europe and Japan, were still owned and operated by members of the families that founded them.  In fact, a few founders were still alive at that time.



What that meant was that most Americans had never heard of them.  Perhaps even more to the point, it meant that even though there was a wide network of races, tours and other bike-related events, they were much smaller in terms of both participation and money than today's events.   So, it didn't take as much money to sponsor a team or rider as it does (both in absolute and relative terms) today.  Small and medium-sized bike companies as well as businesses in other industries (think of Molteni) could get in on the action.  

It also meant that bike and component makers, like other small businesses, were risk-averse.  What I didn't realize when I started riding was that the designs for most bikes and parts (one notable exception being SunTour derailleurs and shifters) available at that time were already decades old.  Some actually worked well and were durable; if you used them, you learned to put up with their idiosyncracies or shortcomings.  Then again, if you hadn't used anything else, you didn't think they were idiosyncracies and shortcomings.

Most of the Lyotard pedals were examples of what I'm talking about. Now, I don't think they were deficient, but I don't think Lyotard had come out with a new pedal design since World War II, or not much later.  Even the Campagnolo Nuovo/Super Record parts were really just refinements of the Gran Sport products that made their first appearance during the early 1950's.



Around the mid-1980s, things started to change.  It might be fair to say that the ground shifted with Tullio Campagnolo's death in 1983.  His heirs discontinued the Nuovo and Super Record stuff Eddy Mercx, Bernard Hinault and others rode to victory.  In their stead came C-Record (actually, Record-Corsa or Record-C) parts.  Some, I'll admit, were quite lovely.  But none of them was really a functional improvement over its predecessors; in fact, some parts, like the "Delta" brake, were clearly not as good.

Other companies started to "innovate"--or, more precisely, create new novelties.  Designs became--or, at least looked--more and more radical every year.  To be fair, some new designs had legitimate purposes, at least for certain riders.  But too much of what was coming on the market every year was mere gadgetry:  stuff for the sorts of people who felt they simply had to have the newest and latest in everything.

In other words, the world of cycling was shifting from one that was guided by cyclists and riding to one driven by consumers and the marketplace.  That, in turn, turned the bike industry from a mosaic of relatively small companies to a pie cut into a few large slices by bigger companies.  Smaller companies, which didn't have the money or other resources to devote to research and development (or, very often, didn't see the need for such things) simply couldn't compete.  They, like SunTour and Lyotard, fell by the wayside or, like Sedis, Wolber and Super Champion, were absorbed by larger corporations, some of which had no previous involvement in the bicycle industry.  Even Mavic was bought by Salomon, which in turn was taken over by Adidas.  It could be argued that these turns of events enabled Mavic to develop the innovative (There's that word again!) rims and wheels that allowed it to retain its leading role in the 1990s and well into the 2000s.

Part of the pressure to create new things (or simply repackage old ones) also came from the ways in which the world of cycling events was changing during the 1980's.  By the time Greg LeMond won his first Tour de France, companies like Molteni (or mid-sized bicycle makers) were no longer sponsoring teams.  Corporations with much larger budgets were taking that on, and race sponsors included the likes of Coca-Cola and Nike.





Naturally, when companies put up money for riders and teams, they want a return on their investment.  So, the stakes became higher.  One benefit, at least for elite cyclists, was that the amount of prize money grew and the sport gained greater exposure outside of its traditional strongholds.  A downside was that it became more difficult for teams and riders with little or no money to compete, and smaller races and rallies became even smaller or disappeared altogether.


So, while 90 percent of the 1970s peloton were riding Reynolds or Columbus-tubed frames with Campagnolo components--all of which had been developed decades earlier--riders by the late '80s were astride newly-developed (and far more expensive) bikes with never-before-seen frame configurations and aerodynamic components made from exotic materials.  

It's easy to understand why racing-team sponsors would want their riders on the newest and most innovative equipment.  A race that takes hours or days but won by seconds (or fractions thereof) could well be decided by those extra few grams off the wheels or a frame or other part that's more aerodynamic.  And, as in any professional sport, there is really not as much difference as one might expect between the best and the rest of the peloton as there is between anyone who's in the peloton and anyone who isn't.  




That point is lost on club riders with lots of money and vivid fantasies.  They want to ride whatever's being ridden in the peloton.  If they didn't have such equipment, they seem to believe, younger and better-conditioned riders will make them look like the out-of-shape and not-so-young riders they actually were. Of course, those young and poor riders either get better or get better equipment, and the riders with bigger wallets and stomachs (I should talk, right?) want "better" equipment.

And so the world and industry went from being, essentially, a village of mom-and-pop enterprises that responded to cyclists' needs to an economy increasingly dominated by corporations that profit from anxieties they create in consumers.



  

The Performance-Enhancing Drug Everybody Uses

Of course I'm not surprised to see that Coca-Cola is one of the main sponsors of the FIFA World Cup.  After all, Coke is one of the world's most recognized brands, in part because it' wholly or partially sponsors countless sporting events all over the world.  One of them, of course, is the Tour de France.

For all of the outcry about doping in cycling, football and just about every other sport you care to name, perhaps no single substance has been consumed in greater quantities by more athletes than "The Pause That Refreshes."

Some drink it just before events.  Others sip on it during their runs, rides or games.  And still others gulp it as a "recovery" drink.

Most of those athletes drink their Coke flat or de-fizzed.  Very few substances--even those from the world's most sophisticated labs--can deliver a quicker or more intense "boost"than Coke.  Even Starbuck's would be hard-pressed to concoct something with more sugar and more caffeine per serving than America's most recognized contribution to the world.

From what I've heard and read, Lance himself imbibed.  So did Frank Shorter in the 1972 Olympics.  In my racing days, I even saw racers who were the most resolute vegetarians--or who, at least, hadn't had a dish of ice cream since they were six years old--partake of John Pemberton's invention.

On those rare occasions when I drink soda these days, I drink Coke.  But I don't drink it during rides simply because the carbonation doesn't sit well with me and I don't want to take the time to wait for it to go flat.  But from those who drink it during rides, races, games, events or training, I'd be curious to know whether it has the same effect now that it, like nearly all soft drinks made in the US, uses high-fructose corn syrup rather than cane sugar.

I'd also like to know how many athletes drank it before 1903, when it was still made with fresh coca leaves.  I'd love to know how the anti-doping agencies would deal with it!

 

She's Not Wearing A Helmet, But...

We all know that bicycles and cycling have been used to advertised all sorts of products, even those that seem utterly antithetical to the reasons why people ride bikes.

Given that some of the world's most imaginative advertising  comes from Italy (That is a completely unbiased statement! ;-)), perhaps it's no surprise to see that this ad aired there some years back:



I love the "halo" around one girl's head.  Is it supposed to substitute for a helmets?  You have to admit, though, that those girls look great, and that the shot of them descending that hill is really cool.

Now, to a confession:  During the time I was riding off-road, I drank more Coca-Cola than I had at perhaps any other time in my adult life.  In fact, almost all of the off-road riders--especially those in the then-nascent cult of downhill riding--I knew in those days drank it.  Some even carried it in their water bottles (or, later, Camel Backs).  As "Crazy Ray", one of the guys I used to ride with, said, "It's rocket fuel!"  He was right:  Humans can't ingest very many other things that will give as much of a rush of sugar and caffeine as the "Pause That Refreshes" can.  Remember that back in those days, Starbucks' stores were just starting to open in this part of the US, and they hadn't yet introduced many of the hyper-caffeinated sugar bombs that teenagers and hipsters line up, and pay good money, for.

Of course, given that the ad is Italian, it's easy to read a lot into the "si, si, si" refrain of that ad!