"You have no idea what the Tour de France is", Henri said. "It's a Calvary. Worse than that, because the road to Cross has only 14 stations and ours has 15. We suffer from the start to the end. You want to know how we keep going? Here..." He pulled a phial from his bag. "That's cocaine, for our eyes. This is chloroform, for our gums."
"This", Ville said, emptying his shoulder bag "is liniment to put warmth back into our knees."
"And pills. Do you want to see pills? Have a look, here are the pills." Each pulled out three boxes.
"The truth is", Francis said, "that we keep going on dynamite."
Albert Londres - 1924 - Reportagem sobre a dureza do Tour de France para o Le Petit Parisien
