Le Mont Ventoux the Cyclist’s Nemeses
Sporting orange, blue, white, no colour wasted;
an amorphous tirade of be-speckled bike frames that came to worship their compatriots joy of holding victory aloft, momentarily at one with a race.
Two wheels, three at times and thousands of feet ply the mountainous slopes
entering the biosphere in anticipation.
Human, electric hubs and hand pushed; incarnate bikes know no difference!
Amateurs turning the cogs evoking an earthly challenge of muscle, mind and muse.
Racers’ names written in blood across the route, beseeching pent up athletic incarnations.
Painted signs held high by expectant supporters; personal messages for television cameras to worldly absolve. Enounced with words tattooed to their recycled memories
within the revolving hum-drumming repetitive spoked echoes.
Society poker dotted now caught in the fine net of home grown;
Tour de France logos: a giant’s carbon footprint through merchandise.
A caravan of vehicles maddeningly plunders the way forward pushing through the crowded route, gifting lures, gushing noise, dreams, and fuming throttles.
Overhead the throbbing whirlybird cautions of coming combatants’ melee and rising temperatures.
‘Allez,’ ‘bon courage,’ screamed; self-exultation ringing
through the excited heroic clamour within a rising wall of spectators.
Rippling voices rushing up the French mountainside alongside hammered heads cut through the thinning air without a bob or a sway or a frustrated wheelie.
Hawkful eyes contemplate challengers. Locking derailleurs in a tussle through the heat of chained battle. Dropping into the peloton slipstream of climate change.
Mocking glaciers, a virginal block of ice applied to the sporty neck, castigated to the sun.
The last climb, as eyes search for that pivotal break on costed energy: commuters can only dream of evolving from fossil fuels. A burst for the line: an early lead leaves a breadcrumb trail quickly.
Unable to outpace the need for fossil fuels.
Bouncing of these craving walls of fans enclosing the narrowing course passing the flaming red kite. Every sinew and emotion engaged.
A finishing line race frozen in a photo finish for cameras’ caches and bellowing banners breached alone by a bikes best friend.
Each athlete, architect, and amateur inspired;
each digging into their carbon mountain with each crank revolution.
Liberating minds and sweeping up distraught racers; a broom wagon gathers up depleted verve amid two wheeled disciples heading home.
Gilding days through wine and olive groves as La Grande Boucle continues, another chequered earth day is complete.
Author: Kevin Wright
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