What A Newspaper War Still Teaches Us About Racing Today
A flat-looking Tour de France stage can still feel like survival, especially when the thermometer sits around 95°F and the roads funnel every sprinter’s team into the same narrow goal. We break down Stage 8 from Parigo to Bergerac: a breakaway kept on a short leash, no crosswind chaos, and a fast, technical run-in where the big names stay upright and the peloton finally detonates into a full-speed sprint. Tim Miller makes it two straight stage wins, while the general classification contenders play it safe and finish together to protect their time.
Along the way, we answer a question every new cycling fan asks sooner or later: if a rider grabs the team car after a mechanical, is that cheating? We explain what’s typically allowed when there’s a real issue being fixed, why commissaires can be subjective in the moment, and how “sticky bottles” blur the line between help and an illegal tow. If you’ve ever watched a Tour de France broadcast and wondered what you just saw, this part is for you.
Then we shift into the history that makes the Tour feel bigger than sport. The Tour’s origin as a newspaper war, the real reason the yellow jersey is yellow, the 1904 cheating scandal with alleged train rides, and how the word domestique goes from insult to the most important job in a leader’s support system. We also share details on the publicity caravan, massive roadside crowds, and the kind of calorie burn that makes “20 plates of pasta” sound almost reasonable. We close with two unforgettable cultural notes: Gino Bartali’s secret WWII heroism and the ancient cave paintings near the route, plus a quick update that you can now watch us on Spotify video. Subscribe, share the show with a cycling fan, and leave a review with your take: where should the rulebook draw the line on sticky bottles?
Adam and Michael’s friendship has grown through years of shared miles, challenges, and laughter on the bike. Their passion for cycling has carried them through life’s twists and turns, creating a bond full of stories, jokes, and unforgettable rides. In their podcast, they bring that same spirit to the mic—sharing adventures, trading banter, and welcoming listeners into their cycling community. Whether tackling steep climbs or cruising open roads, their conversations capture the fun, friendship, and freedom that cycling brings. Tune in for stories that celebrate the ride and the camaraderie that makes it unforgettable.
and Remember,
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1 SPEAKER_04: All right.
Welcome back.
To cycling men of leisures, leisure breakaway.
Stage eight of the Tour de France.
That served up a blazing heat, another bad dash to the finish,
and enough sweat to fill several team water bottles.
Yuck.
Yeah.
Well, truth hurts.
Before tomorrow's Hills starts separating the hopefuls from the
hurting, let's take a quick spin through everything that happened
today.
I am Michael, and with me from the Eastern Time Zone is my good
friend Adam.
SPEAKER_00: Hello there.
I've got my cycling glasses on.
I figured in true cycling spirit, it's better than the
DeBrim, so I'm wearing my cycling glasses.
SPEAKER_04: All right.
Well, I think you should.
I think you should.
Anyway, how was the ride today?
The race today.
SPEAKER_00: Good.
Good, good, good.
I uh watched the rebroadcast.
Um, I believe it was on like at 5 a.m.
or maybe 8 a.m., 8 a.m., I think.
And then um I I uh recorded some and watched it.
So I have some questions, but I'm gonna wait until you give
your uh report in case it's not redundant.
SPEAKER_04: Okay.
Well, stage eight.
Today started at uh Parigo, ended in Bergerac, 180.4
kilometers.
That is, for you and I in America, 112.1 miles.
Elevation gain was 1,150 meters, which is 3,770 feet.
Today's average temperature, a beautiful, steaming hot 95
degrees.
That's 35 degrees Celsius.
So uh another day of intense heat.
Um basically today's uh race went as follows.
Uh three-man breakaway was allowed a modest advantage and
not a huge advantage uh before the sprinting teams, as we
assumed, gradually reeled them in.
Crosswinds never developed.
I know yesterday they were talking about potential
crosswinds.
That never happened uh enough to split the Peloton, so the race
stayed pretty much together.
Uh the finish in Bergerac was fast and technical, um, but the
favorites stayed upright.
There was no problems there.
Tim Miller produced another powerful late sprint to secure
consecutive stage wins.
He did it two days in a row.
Uh the overall contenders pretty much finished safely together,
so there was no significant changes in the general
classification.
Um, as I said, Tim Miller, uh Sudal Quick Step, uh took the
number one position, followed by Gromai, who is with Inner
Marche.
Uh he got second, and then Olav Kuvy, uh Vizma Lisa Bike came in
third.
So as far as the jerseys go, Toddy still holds a yellow
jersey.
Uh actually, he was able to secure the points for the green
jersey today as well.
White jersey is still with Del Toro, and the polka dot jersey
actually wound up in the uh the hands of Linny Martinez.
So a little shake up there with the with the mountains.
Not that there was big mountains in today's in today's stage, but
uh, you know, it was uh relatively flat.
Nothing really really nothing happened out of the ordinary,
although you know they they were talking uh those wins, and that
didn't really happen.
So tomorrow um gonna be another relatively flat day, so we'll
we'll see how that goes.
Another good day for the sprinters.
SPEAKER_00: So what do you got?
So my first question is is the gentleman who won today went uh
won yesterday as well, correct?
He did.
And I'm wondering, even two stages in a row doesn't have
enough points or or to to push him past Toddy.
SPEAKER_04: Well, not necessarily, yeah.
No.
I mean you could what what you're looking at is the green
goes for for points, and the yellow is just going for um for
time.
So gotcha, gotcha.
That that's the big difference there.
SPEAKER_00: I also saw the gentleman who broke his shoe
holding on to the side of the car.
And my question is, is it's felt like cheating for a guy who's a
novice.
And so what I mean is I understand that he was having a
shoe that broke, I understand that um that he had to do it on
the fly, which by the way, I usually have to sit down, I have
to make sure I have good balance, I have to make sure
that I stand up and not fall.
I mean, this guy changed his shoe on the fly.
Oh, yeah.
But when he grabbed a hold of the car, that's not cheating.
SPEAKER_04: That is that is where the rules uh become
somewhat subjective.
And I'm gonna say that, and and you'll hear them on the show
talk about a lot of times when the guys go back to grab a water
bottle, um, they'll say it's a sticky bottle because the guys
will grab a hold of the person holding their hand out with the
bottle and they'll hold on there for a couple of seconds.
Called a sticky bottle.
They're you know, working it a little bit.
Um, you are allowed, um, especially in the cases of where
gear goes down, injuries, things like that, you're allowed to
come up along your team car or uh the doctor car and hold on uh
like while they they work on something.
Uh you'll occasionally see mechanics um hanging out of the
car fixing, you know, uh a cleat fixing uh a brake or derailleur
or something like that.
As long as there is a scene problem that they are working on
resolving, and as long as as soon as that's resolved, they
kick away from the car and go, uh the commissaires give a
pretty wide range there.
Again, on medical, you'll see right after a lot of guys have
fallen, they'll hop back on their bike, get going.
A mile down the road, you'll see them by the doctor's cars.
They'll be holding on while the doctors are like hanging out and
spraying their leg and you know, bandaged them up and stuff like
that.
That is allowed.
Um again with the sticky bottles, you'll see and you'll
hear the commentators go, uh, you know, they're they're
starting to push it.
So if you're holding on, like after you say you fixed your,
you changed out your your shoe or you fixed your cleat or
whatever, and you're still holding on to the car, you know,
20 seconds after that's been done, that's when they might
decide that uh you might have been holding on a little too
long, and that's where uh you'll give up a few uh Swiss francs.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
All right.
I just wanted to make sure that I understood.
So um in true typical fashion, um looking at the time here,
we're doing okay.
I do have some interesting trivia pieces about the Tour de
France.
I find it very interesting, a couple of these pieces.
I want to ask you, what does the Tour de France and Rag Bri have
in common, other than the obvious, such as cycling or
whatever?
SPEAKER_04: What do they have in common?
SPEAKER_00: Yes, sir.
SPEAKER_04: Um lots of people.
Uh Tour de France riders have often participated in Ragbri.
Um, one of them passed me one day and made it look like I was
standing still, literally.
SPEAKER_00: Um I should be more clear.
How how about how both rides started?
SPEAKER_04: Oh, I know.
Okay, I get it now.
Uh both rides started uh based on a newspaper.
Newspaper started both of those rides, promotion.
SPEAKER_00: That's correct.
So we know that Ragbury, the two gentlemen were uh trying to
bring publicity, publicity, if I could speak English, uh, to the
paper.
Um, and they thought, hey, we'll do this story where we ride
across uh an entire state on our bicycle, and they did such
thing, and then of course, 53, 54, 55, or whatever it is now,
years later, 53, I think, 53.
This is the 53rd running because of one one running none because
of COVID was started because of the the register's paper.
Well, the tour exists because of a newspaper war.
Le Auto created the race in 1903 purely to outsell rival paper Le
Villo.
It worked, circulation exploded, and Lavello folded the next
year.
SPEAKER_04: So if only Lavilla would have like started a
bicycle race.
SPEAKER_00: That's right.
That's right.
Oops, missed that one.
Do you know why the yellow jersey is yellow, other than
that they dye it and they use yellow threads when they make it
and all that good stuff?
Oh.
No, I I don't I don't remember that one.
It's a newspaper.
The yellow jersey introduced mid-race in 1919, first worn by
Eugene Christ Christoph, uh, the Forge guy, uh, matched the
yellow newsprint of La Auto.
Writers initially mocked it.
Christoph was called a canary.
Boy, I tell you what, that canary turned into something you
want today, all right?
SPEAKER_04: No doubt.
But the so you're saying the newspaper print was yellow?
SPEAKER_00: That's correct, yes, sir.
SPEAKER_04: Oh my god, that had to hurt your eyes.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, sir.
Match the yellow newsprint of La Otto.
unknown: Wow.
SPEAKER_00: All right there was a scandal in 1904, a year after.
So the race was created in 1903, a year after, there is a pretty
big scandal.
SPEAKER_04: And is this a cheating scandal?
SPEAKER_00: That is correct, yes.
SPEAKER_04: Yes, because uh I'll let you finish and then I got
something to add.
Go ahead.
SPEAKER_00: The top four finishers, including champion
Maurice Gar Garan, were disqualified months later for
cheating, including allegedly taking trains, which is what you
told me about in the middle of Iowa.
SPEAKER_04: That's right.
SPEAKER_00: Victory passed to 19-year-old Henry Cornett, still
the youngest tour winner ever, but I'll let you go ahead.
SPEAKER_04: Well, I was gonna say, writer number five became
writer number one because of that.
Oh, back in those early days, you didn't have all the crowds,
you didn't really have commissaires or anything like
that.
Uh, they just had to get from point A to point B.
You didn't have TV, and there wasn't like you have to do it
between these time frames.
You know, it wasn't like, hey, everybody's watching you here.
So I mean, they were traveling at night, they'd hop on trains,
they'd take planes, trains, and automobiles.
Well, okay, maybe not planes, but uh, you know, whatever mode
they could to uh to get to the other end, and it's like we'll
prove that we were on the train.
So a lot of that going on those early days.
SPEAKER_00: So I had a hard time pronouncing in the last couple
of episodes domestique, right?
Domestique, yes.
Domestique, domestique.
Well, I think the reason why I had a hard time pronouncing it
is because it originally started as an insult.
So uh the tour founder Henry uh sneered at Maurice uh Broco in
1911 for selling his services to other writers, calling him a
mere domestique servant, the name stuck in the sport's most
selfless job.
SPEAKER_04: So you know, it it it is it does seem like it's
kind of talking down to someone, but it's an important job.
Um I mean, those are the guys that really you know get their
their people where they need to be and in the right place and
keep them hydrated and stuff like that.
And honestly, that's where all the writers start at some point
in time as a domestique, and then they're able to move up the
up the ladder.
So interesting.
SPEAKER_00: The publicity caravan predates television
since 1930.
A parade of sponsor vehicles has preceded the race.
Today it takes 30 minutes long, throwing some 15 million
freebies to roadside crowds each July.
SPEAKER_04: 15 million, really.
That's a lot of tchotskies.
SPEAKER_00: That's a lot of tchotkis.
SPEAKER_04: Which it explains when you watch them on TV,
you'll be going and you'll see all these people.
They'll have like the polka dot hats on, or they'll have like
yellow jerseys on and they'll all match.
That's because they all got their stuff from from that, from
the uh promotional people.
SPEAKER_00: Fuel riders burn roughly 5,000 to 7,000 calories
on a big mountain day, the equivalent of about 20 plates of
pasta.
I just thought that was interesting.
SPEAKER_04: So that's a lot of pasta.
SPEAKER_00: Uh so did you know that this is the biggest annual
sporting event on earth?
I did know that, yes, sir.
An estimated of 10 to 12 million spectators line the roads over
three weeks, all watching for free.
SPEAKER_04: It's also the one sporting event, like I've
mentioned before, where you literally can reach out and
touch the athletes.
I mean, it's not like any other sport um you see.
I mean, you're right there, and unfortunately, we've seen some
of them right there in the mix when they're doing stupid things
and they get in the way, but um makes it pretty unique.
SPEAKER_00: For free, and this last one I I uh I have for this
episode.
I guess I'm surprised this is not a movie, or maybe it
wouldn't be enough meat on the bone for a movie.
But this is really cool.
I didn't know this.
So uh the Gino Bartali Secret.
Now, if it is a movie, I hope I'm not about to get embarrassed
because I may re-edit this out.
No, I'm just kidding.
I'll let it go tomorrow.
I promise, no matter what, I'll let it go.
But I just find this absolutely amazing.
In 1938 and 1948, Winner smuggled forged documents for
Jews hidden in his bike framed during World War II training
rides.
He never spoke of it.
Israel named his righteous among the nations.
SPEAKER_04: That's amazing.
Yep, get it past the Nazis.
They, you know.
Brilliant, actually.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm surprised that's not like a movie or
something.
SPEAKER_04: I don't know.
Not a movie I'm aware of.
I mean, it certainly could be.
Uh, I'm not familiar, familiar with one, but maybe we need to
look that up and see if that story was ever put in a movie.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, maybe I should.
That'd be good.
I'll look that up for tomorrow.
But um, I have some other things about stage nine and uh through
ten, stage 11 through 15.
I'm gonna hold off on those things.
I have some great stuff for stage 16 through 21.
Um, but today I never saw this on the broadcast.
I was waiting for it.
But the ride rode through um the Vesevere Valley today, and it's
home of the 17,000-year-old cave painting.
And I just thought that was absolutely cool.
I never heard that today.
I was kind of listening and watching for that, but if I
missed it, I missed it.
But I thought that was amazing.
So got a lot of great stuff.
Uh, the other stuff I have filed in chapter 13, I'm holding on to
this one.
So I've got some good stuff to to uh help us out.
SPEAKER_04: So yeah, that you know, they they have a they do a
really good job of like telling you the different castles and
the different uh manor homes and and churches and that kind of
stuff.
But I did not hear about that either.
But those act those cave paintings are some of the oldest
cave paintings ever discovered in the world.
Um, so that's pretty cool.
SPEAKER_00: That's all I got today.
Uh, I shouldn't say that's all I got because that's some amazing
history and technology.
Um I want to address a couple things.
If you're following along, um, and if you recently heard some
echoes, it's uh we've had some loop back issues.
We think we have corrected them.
Um I didn't hear it tonight.
Did you hear it tonight?
SPEAKER_04: I may have heard it a little bit, but we'll see how
everything washes out in production.
SPEAKER_00: So all right.
So just want to address that.
And then I have an exciting announcement.
Ladies and gentlemen, if you like to watch us, you used to be
able to only watch us on YouTube.
And then we announced later on that you could watch us on Apple
Podcasts.
Well, a lot of you are not Apple fans, which is perfectly fine.
That's the freedom.
You can like what you like.
But I have great news.
We are now on Spotify video.
So, yes, that is correct.
If you didn't know, Spotify has video.
Not every one of your podcasts will have it, but I'm proud to
announce the Road Adventures of Cycling Man of Leisure will be
there in video.
So uh just wanted to mention that.
So I'm excited.
Three platforms to watch us.
SPEAKER_04: We're getting everywhere now.
Wow, it's pretty cool.
SPEAKER_00: That's all I got.
Uh I would be remiss if I didn't wish your daughter a happy
birthday.
SPEAKER_04: I would as well, Maya.
I hope you had a wonderful birthday today.
Uh, I have a birthday one day, the following day she has a
birthday.
So we kind of just uh, you know, we like to keep them all stacked
up here, but we're like a peloton of birthdays, just all
right there.
But uh tomorrow, stage nine, rolling punchy stage, four
category climbs.
Uh it's not a summit finish, but with those repeated uh climbs
that could encourage attacks from the you know from breakaway
specialists.
Uh so we will see what that brings us.
SPEAKER_00: That sounds wonderful.
I look forward to that, and then a rest day.