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Want to ride the Tour? Try breaking the law
I look at cycling as a right, an inherent, irrevocable entitlement that we all share. There is one caveat to that statement, and it involves incarceration. If you screw up and get sent to the “fun house” then cycling should not be part of the equation. Unless, of course, you live in France.
From a Reuters story. …
Almost 200 prisoners will cycle around France next month, watched by scores of guards on bicycles, in the first penal version of the Tour de France.
Officials say the 196 prisoners will cycle in a pack and breakaway sprints will not be allowed.
They will be accompanied by 124 guards and prison sports instructors. There will be no ranking, the idea being to foster values like teamwork and effort.
The prisoners’ Tour de France will take them 2,300 kilometers around the country, starting in the northern city of Lille on June 4 and stopping in 17 towns, each of which has a prison.
So my next question is this, how can you possibly train for this steep course behind the walls of a French prison?
What kind of bikes will they ride and who paid for all the equipment?
Will all the bikes be chained together somehow?
Are the teams grouped by gang affiliation?
I bet you could make a mean shank out of metal bicycle parts.
I hope we get some coverage of this race, it sounds really exciting. Or it could be really unsafe and stupid. I get the whole resocialization concept of prison. But these guys are basically getting to make a once-in-a-lifetime ride that many of us without a rap sheet will never get to do. And it’s being funded and organized by the French government. It seems a little unfair.
Well, I guess if you really want to see France by bicycle and don’t have much disposable income, try knocking over a bank in Marseille.
They’ll have a spot in the peleton waiting for you.
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