Читать книгу One More Croissant for the Road онлайн

11 страница из 105

Yet, spindly though the pros may be, cycling has always been a peculiarly epicurean pursuit. In the early days of the Tour de France, one wealthy competitor had his butler lay out lavish picnics by the side of the road, while Henri Cornet, winner of the second race in 1904, apparently achieved victory on daily rations that included a staggering 11 litres of hot chocolate, 4 litres of tea and 1.5 kilos of rice pudding. Bernard Hinault, who triumphed five times in the late Seventies and Eighties, glugged champagne on the last climb of the day, while the equally great Eddy Merckx refuelled with patisserie, on the basis that ‘It’s not the pastries that hurt, it’s the climbs’ (it is this quote that later moves me to name my beloved new bike after the great man).

Even in the 1990s, Dutch pro Tristan Hoffman recalls a fellow rider starting the day with that breakfast of champions, two Mars Bars and a litre of Coke. Now, of course, nutrition is taken much more seriously, which is why you no longer get brilliant stories like that of Abdel-Kader Zaaf, who is claimed (slightly dubiously) to have got so inadvertently drunk on wine offered by generous spectators on the blisteringly hot 1951 Tour that he passed out underneath a tree.