Why is it that all the greatest riders look strangely happy when they are suffering the most? Hinault says he still hasn’t regained the feeling in some of his fingers from racing off the front that day in Liege in 1980. He wanted to get someplace warm as quickly as possible, he said. That’s why he went off the front so far from home. Seems to me the 151 riders who climbed in the bus found a more expedient way of doing it.

And I’ll tell you something else: it would have been a crime to cover up those guns. Respect.