By Kevin Dayhoff
July 11, 2012
One of my passions for July, besides thoroughly enjoying the
heat, is the
Tour de France.
This year, June 30 was one of my greatest days of summer…
That was the day that the 99th Tour de France
began with the “prologue” event. What follows, until July 22, is a tour of
France’s picturesque agriculturally dominated countryside, in 20 stages that
will cover 3,497 kilometres.
By the time a cyclist finishes the Tour de France, he will
have burned a total of 118,000 calories or the “equivalent to 26 Mars Bars per
day,” according to the BBC.
The Tour de France has a little something for everyone –
history, drama, intrigue, science, a mini geography tutorial of Europe, and all
of the fanfare and spectacle of what is arguably, one of the most difficult
sporting challenges in the world today...
And besides, so much of the humble – and insane – beginnings
of the Tour de France were started by journalists and a newspaper.
The humble beginnings of the bicycle race were as a
newspaper publicity event, brainstormed by Henri Desgrange in 1902, to promote the
sports newspaper “l'Auto.”
According to the
history section of the
Le Tour de France website, “The line between insanity and genius is said to be
a fine one, and in early 20thcentury France, anyone envisaging a
near-2,500-km-long cycle race across the country would have been widely viewed
as unhinged.
“But that didn’t stop Géo Lefèvre, a journalist with L’Auto
magazine at the time, from proceeding with his inspired plan. His editor, Henri
Desgrange, was bold enough to believe in the idea and to throw his backing
behind the Tour de France. And so it was that, on 1 July 1903, sixty pioneers
set out on their bicycles from Montgeron. After six mammoth stages (Nantes -
Paris, 471 km!), only 21 “routiers,” led by Maurice Garin, arrived at the end
of this first epic.”
Although the eyes of the world are on the Tour de France
every July, did you know that there were several celebrated bicycle races, in
the central-Maryland area, a number of years before the first Tour de France in
1903?
According to an American Sentinel newspaper article
published on October 20, 1895: “The
most remarkable cycling event … was a century run, undertaken by over three
hundred riders, from Baltimore,
on Sunday last.
“Mishaps reduced
the number, by the time the cavalcade started, to two hundred and ninety-nine,
among whom were several ladies. The run
was to Frederick
and return.
“Two hundred and
forty-six of the starters continued in the run to the finish and made the 100
miles… Messrs. George M. Parke and John H. Cunningham, of the Cycling Ramblers
of Westminster, were in the run and completed the century.”
At the Corbit’s Charge encampment on Sunday, June 24, I was
inspired by several conversations with local historians Tom LeGore and Ron
Kuehne, known well for his historic interpretation of Westminster Mayor Michael
Baughman; to revisit our local history at Harpers Ferry, Antietam, Washington
DC, and Gettysburg.
All are comfortable family-friendly day trips for those of
us who live in Carroll County. Well, by car that is…
So, in honor of the Tour de France, on Saturday, July my
wife and I spent bicycling through history from Brunswick to Harpers Ferry and
back on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal towpath.
We had dinner at “
Beans
in the Belfry” on West Potomac Street, in Brunswick, near the offices of my
good friends, Mayor Carroll Jones and City Administrator Richard Weldon at the
Brunswick City Hall.
Located in a 100 year-old restored historic church, Beans in
the Belfry is an excellent of an artistic approach to adaptive re-use, and arts
and culture as an economic driver and jobs creator.
We loved the ambiance and atmosphere of Beans in the Belfry.
Our food was wonderful and the service friendly and welcoming.
