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Cycling in Literature:  Ernest Hemingway mentioned the Tour of the Basque Country
in his first major novel, "The Sun Also Rises" (1926).  In the story, which
takes place in Paris, San Sebastian and Pamplona, Hemingway wrote,

"There was a bicycle-race on, the Tour du Pays Basque,
and the riders were stopping that night in San Sebastian.
In the dining-room, at one side, there was a long table
of bicycle-riders, eating with their trainers and managers.
They were all French and Belgians, and paid close attention
to their meal, but they were having a good time.....
The next morning at five o'clock the race resumed with
the last lap, San Sebastian-Bilbao.  The bicycle-riders drank
much wine and were burned and browned by the sun.
They did not take the race seriously except among themselves."

In a subsequent paragraph, the novel's main character and narrator talks about having coffee
with the team manager of one of the big bicycle manufacturers:

"Bicycle road-racing was the only sport in the world, he said.
Had I ever followed the Tour de France?  Only in the papers.
The Tour de France was the greatest sporting event in the world.
Following and organizing the road races had made him know France."

Hemingway wrote the first draft of the novel on the terrace of a left bank Paris cafe,
La Closerie des Lilas.  The photo above shows the Ile Saint-Louis, a natural island
on the Seine river, seen from the left bank.  I waited for a Parisian tourist riverboat
to pass, providing background illumination for the shot.  In the mid 1990s, French officials dedicated
an Ernest Hemingway street in Paris.  There is also an Ernest Hemingway High School in Nimes,
in the south of France, which can be seen from trains to and from Montpellier.
For those of you who read "The Sun Also Rises" in high school, how many
of you remember mention of the Tour of the Basque Country or cycling at all?
Copyright © 2010 Pete Geyer/www.cyclingfans.com