PEDDLING THE TROPHY

The Tour de France started as nothing more than a publicity stunt to sell some newspapers. At its heart, the Tour remains just that, a vehicle to sell tires, shoes, bikes, telephones and countless other items that the eager sponsors of the teams and the race want to promote. To this day, it is a combination of the tawdry, the magnificent, the base, the noble, the crassly commercial and the spectacular. Others have noted that its roots are in the lowest and the highest motivations of human endeavor. That is why it is so fascinating.

Today the Trophy came to town, much trumpeted in the local press I must admit to being slightly underwhelmed, not at the magnificence of the object, it really is a lovely design, where things fell down was in the display, little effort had been made to make it stand out from the background, ok, it was standing on the tricolour in homage to its native home but where was the backdrop! just think of all those exciting photos taken at last years race, surly a blown up image at the back would have given the event a much needed punch.

For more on the history of The Tour theres an interesting website HERE