DeathFrance 3000 About To Hit It’s Flesh Quota

DeathFrance 3000 About To Hit It’s Flesh Quota: "

While we here at Мишка are prone to posting up content having to do with bicycles from time to time, it’s rare that we ever tackle the wide world of competitive cycle racing. Considering the gruesome events that have been taking place at this year’s Tour De France however, I’ve had rethink our normal stance on the topic. A series of particularly horrifying images and videos have started to make the rounds stateside lately, that not only rule, but reveal the French Bicycle Superbowl to be a bit more grueling than we ever thought before.

The folks over at Deadspin have been keeping us Yanks up to date surrounding the events of the million mile race (that’s an estimate), by kindly focusing on all the various forms of carnage that have occurred over the past month. Deadspin editor Barry Petchesky anointed this year’s event with the fitting nickname DeathFrance 3000 pretty early on, when rider Maxim Iglisky clipped a spectator in a yellow frock during the very first stage of the race. This small love tap eventually went on to cause a massive bicycle pile-up, which really set a pretty gnarly tone for the rest of the event. The entire tour wraps up this coming Sunday, but I’m willing to bet that it already ranks among the bloodiest.

During the 14th stage of the race, Laurens Ten Dam of the Netherlands, who can be seen at the top of the post, took a trip over his handlebars, planting his face firmly into a ditch. The resulting images produced by the incident are the stuff that nightmares are made of. Ten Dam strapped an ace bandage around his melon upon crashing, which essentially kept his mug from detaching from the rest of his skull, and saddled up for the rest of the ride, Aerosmith-style. While his vibrant blue and orange ensemble may direct your attention away from this guy’s train-wreck-of-a-face for just a moment’s time, it appears there was very little seperating the rider from a Hannibal Lecter victim.

I suppose I should also mention the car/bike that crash which eventually jettisoned a whole cadre of cyclists into a barbed wire fence. You can check out all that damage in the video and image above. I would be doing bicycle/injury enthusiasts a huge disservice if I didn’t at least quickly touch on this wreck.

Anyway, I’ve started to wonder why the Tour De France hasn’t really caught on in the ol’ U S of A. People attend Nascar races to drink beer out of coolers and watch things crash into other things, right? I don’t see why this principle can’t also be applied to bicycle racing. If this post changes the mind of one short-sighted Dale Jr. fan, then maybe I’ll have done my job.

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