Stage 17 Bollène – Valence (161 km)

WHY I'M LOOKING FORWARD TO THIS STAGE?

Let's be honest, it's hard to justify the existence of a transitional stage between Mont Ventoux and the Alps from my point of view. (And that's the purpose of this side, isn't it? "Tour de France past and present -from the point of view of a literary critic".)

20 or 15 years ago I would have watched this stage with (almost) the same excitemens as those ones expected to be more eventful.

10 or 5 years ago, when I was at the peak of my knowledge about present day road cycling competitions, I would have been able to write long previews and preditions about such days, as well as summaries and reviews.

Considering that I most likely won't see this stage live (as I probably the case with all the stages), this will be one of those days, I won't feel bad because of this.

Well, that's one of the reasons I decided to end blogging about present day races and focusing entirely on the projects discovering the broader cultural-historical contexts of road cycling.  I have felt tormented since a few years between not really feeling bad about not watching live even Giro d'Italia or Tour de France, only a few weeks later, cherry picking the most interesting stages, and still trying to create some kind of content about this aspect of road cycling too. While the whole world has moved on, already forget, and won't never care about the race I'm about to cover weeks later. Which tactic is getting more and more useful and valuable to write about books/films/tv series after the hype is over, it's just doesn't make sense in the world of sport competitions.