Back in the days of sew up tyres and five speed cogs, I had a passion for tales from medieval times. Castle builders, rural fundamentalism! Life made from simple stuff. Wars, plagues and superstition on overdrive; yes. But life was so … organic then. They were all so local in those days of long, long ago. Or perhaps the attraction is that those were the days when all the things I so detest about modern times were beyond even the first hint of speculation. Air travel for one! The pathology of motorcars, for another. Those were the days before engineering lost control to the religion of accounting and economics. Those were the days when everything was hand made! Those were the days before the ascendency of the supercilious plastic marketing grin.

Yes, I know those times and these times are probably just times different by a degree of stage dressing and fashion… I’ll bet the cart drivers from 1066 also suffered from road rage. And I’ll bet the superstitious bureaucrats from way back then were just as unreasonable as those now blinkered by the new religion of economics. And I bet the foot walkers of the day were enraged by the moronic road manners of those who drove carts. Just like we cyclists are by their descendants who now drive cars. And I bet the pomp and circumstance of life at court was every bit as odious as these modern times of the moneyed plasti-sculptured brigade. Yes, the main difference is probably just down to the deodorants of current choice and the relative amount of horse manure on the road.

Yes, the frustrations of any age are probably just the same in different dress.

But I can admire the romance of those en-castled, herbally-infused, pre Ecological-Economic Crisis days.

Which (like everything else in life) brings me to cycling… of course.

If I wanted to capture the essence of the best of times, for these times or those times, what would that essence be? Erecting an imposing castle in my yard would be a start. Surround that with a huge piranha-fuelled moat to exclude the Mormons, tax collectors, meter readers and suitors for my daughters would be even better. But that’s not quite the essence I had in mind.

OK. You like the Tour de France. I like the Tour de France. What is it that we see almost as much as bikes when we watch the big race on TV? Castles, that’s what! Is it some coincidence that our journey with Le Peloton weaves through France like a guided history tour through that land’s timeless past? No coincidence! And that’s the point. Cycling and the residual icons of a legendary past is a mix like tea leaves and water. A splendid, mutually reinforcing mix of harmonious perfection.

Cycling is set to the same timeless scale as the historical monuments beside the road. As Le Tour cycles through and past the rural flatter lands of France, we can see and experience the connections between our time-defying sport and the time-resilience of the landscape of which it is a part. The historically-paced landscape and the unhurried deliberation of cycling are two tones from a tune played out in perfect harmony. Even the raucousness of the motorbike/official flashing-light, horn tooting car entourage is an essential part of the mix. They’re there as loud-mouthed, fume-bellowing reminders of the intrusions of modern transitory fixations and superficialities into the timeless roots of the sport we admire. These intrusions are so loud because they are so transitory. All this siren shouting is a brave, but ultimately pointless, attempt to stand out from the oceanic-sweep of the deeper things they seek to disturb. Just like disposable wrapping around the real goods inside. It’s the real goods that survive, not the tinselled wrapping foil. Cycling and a medievally marinated landscape are the real goods. These are the things that really endure – paced with time and tuned to the greater, more enduring values of life.

So, who needs time travel back to the romanticism of the deep past? Beneath the neon-lights of modern life lies a river of reality that persists beyond all the odds. Who’d have thought that in these modern times of virtual reality, simulated pleasures and a fundamentalist devotion to money, that something as primeval as cycling could persist? But persist it does and along with that goes the thread that connects all that we were with all that we will ever be. It’s not just about the bike! It’s all about the ride.

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