Tour Reflections

This was an interesting year watching the Tour de France. I haven’t been able to pinpoint why exactly, either. During the Final Stage, one of the announcers commented that the organizers of the Tour, especially in the last few years, have consistently raised the bar in terms of difficulty, striving to find the limits these bikeriders have. And the announcer thought that this year, they were likely the closest. The riders were mentally, physically, and emotionally worn down, making their way into Paris.

And perhaps the most striking rider to see that limit reached was the usual charismatic and outgoing Tadej Pogacar. The last week of the race or so, he looked blunted, bored, tired.

In fact, in one interview post-race, he said he couldn’t wait for the Tour to be over. He wanted to be back home and get back to normal life.

I kept reading past that until my eyes stopped moving across the words in the article, and my brain caught up to tell me to go back and re-read.

The top rider in the Tour, the most dominant cyclist in the world right now, just wanted to be back home. Living his normal life.

And here I am, reading a Tour De France article while I nurse my youngest son to nap, and my toddler is giving it his best shot to keep that nap from happening. I’ve had the Tour on in the background while I navigate our morning routine, nap time, preschool with my oldest, and all the inevitable big emotions and meltdowns that occur throughout.

Now, Tadej doesn’t have kids at home, but as I’m watching the Tour, I’m living my normal life. The normal life that Tadej is desperately wishing to get back to.

And here I am, living my normal life, wondering what it must be like to be the greatest cyclist in the world, dominating the most famous bike race in the world. Turns out, the grass isn’t always greener on the other side.

I think in the past, when I’ve watched the Tour, it’s been a reminder of the walls that we can knock down as humans. That we can push ourselves, stretch ourselves, and achieve far greater than we ever thought possible.

But this year, I think it was the opposite. I think this year there were many reminders that we are all human. We have limits. Wrecks can knock out the best riders, like we saw with Jasper Philipsen. Our bodies do indeed have limits, as we saw with Remco Evenepoel and Mathieu Van Der Poel. Sometimes our best still falls short, as with Jonas Vingegaard. And even the most extraordinary success doesn’t always lead to happiness, as we saw with Tadej Pogacar.

Past Tours helped me feel that I could escape some of life's hardships, that I could push myself hard enough and overcome some difficulties that may come my way. However, this year served as a reminder that some hardships are inevitable, and being human means experiencing ups and downs, difficulties, and hardships.

Psychologist Harry Stack Sullivan said it best when he said we are all much more simply human than otherwise. Whether you win the Tour de France for the fourth time, are a stay-at-home mom, or fall somewhere in between, at the end of the day, we are all human with all the messiness, complexities, and hardships that come with it.