Quotes

To prepare for a race there is nothing better than a good pheasant, some champagne and a woman.

Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer, do! I'm half crazy, all for the love of you! It won't be a stylish marriage, I can't afford a carriage, But you'll look sweet upon the seat of a bicycle built for two!

Bicycling is a big part of the future. It has to be. There's something wrong with a society that drives a car to workout in a gym.

The bicycle, the bicycle surely, should always be the vehicle of novelists and poets.

The bicycle is a curious vehicle. Its passenger is its engine.

It would not be at all strange if history came to the conclusion that the perfection of the bicycle was the greatest incident of the nineteenth century.

Tens of thousands who could never afford to own, feed and stable a horse, had by this bright invention enjoyed the swiftness of motion which is perhaps the most fascinating feature of material life.

Why should anyone steal a watch when he could steal a bicycle?

The bicycle is the most civilized conveyance known to man. Other forms of transport grow daily more nightmarish. Only the bicycle remains pure in heart.

When man invented the bicycle he reached the peak of his attainments. Here was a machine of precision and balance for the convenience of man. And (unlike subsequent inventions for man's convenience) the more he used it, the fitter his body became. Here, for once, was a product of man's brain that was entirely beneficial to those who used it, and of no harm or irritation to others. Progress should have stopped when man invented the bicycle.

When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race.

When I go biking, I repeat a mantra of the day's sensations: bright sun, blue sky, warm breeze, blue jay's call, ice melting and so on. This helps me transcend the traffic, ignore the clamorings of work, leave all the mind theaters behind and focus on nature instead. I still must abide by the rules of the road, of biking, of gravity. But I am mentally far away from civilization. The world is breaking someone else's heart.

For instance, the bicycle is the most efficient machine ever created: Converting calories into gas, a bicycle gets the equivalent of three thousand miles per gallon.

A bicycle does get you there and more.... And there is always the thin edge of danger to keep you alert and comfortably apprehensive. Dogs become dogs again and snap at your raincoat; potholes become personal. And getting there is all the fun.

The bicycle will accomplish more for women's sensible dress than all the reform movements that have ever been waged.

The bicycle is just as good company as most husbands and, when it gets old and shabby, a woman can dispose of it and get a new one without shocking the entire community.

Melancholy is incompatible with bicycling.

The bicycle had, and still has, a humane, almost classical moderation in the kind of pleasure it offers. It is the kind of machine that a Hellenistic Greek might have invented and ridden. It does no violence to our normal reactions: It does not pretend to free us from our normal environment.

Until mountain biking came along, the bike scene was ruled by a small elite cadre of people who seemed allergic to enthusiasm.

I took care of my wheel as one would look after a Rolls Royce. If it needed repairs I always brought it to the same shop on Myrtle Avenue run by a negro named Ed Perry. He handled the bike with kid gloves, you might say. He would always see to it that neither front nor back wheel wobbled. Often he would do a job for me without pay, because, as he put it, he never saw a man so in love with his bike as I was.

Get a bicycle. You will not regret it if you live.

Cycling is unique. No other sport lets you go like that - where there's only the bike left to hold you up. If you ran as hard, you'd fall over. Your legs wouldn't support you.

The hardest part of raising a child is teaching them to ride bicycles. A shaky child on a bicycle for the first time needs both support and freedom. The realization that this is what the child will always need can hit hard.

Mankind has invested more than four million years of evolution in the attempt to avoid physical exertion. Now a group of backward-thinking atavists mounted on foot-powered pairs of Hula-Hoops would have us pumping our legs, gritting our teeth, and searing our lungs as though we were being chased across the Pleistocene savanna by saber-toothed tigers. Think of the hopes, the dreams, the effort, the brilliance, the pure force of will that, over the eons, has gone into the creation of the Cadillac Coupe de Ville. Bicycle riders would have us throw all this on the ash heap of history.

After your first day of cycling, one dream is inevitable. A memory of motion lingers in the muscles of your legs, and round and round they seem to go. You ride through Dreamland on wonderful dream bicycles that change and grow.

Messengers and mountain bikers share a common chromosome.

If we all, mountain bikers, cyclists, multinational companies, Jo Public, respected the land like old civilizations we wouldn't get so many punctures. Earth's revenge.

It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best, since you have to sweat up the hills and coast down them. Thus you remember them as they actually are, while in a motor car only a high hill impresses you, and you have no such accurate remembrance of country you have driven through as you gain by riding a bicycle.

Nothing compares to the simple pleasure of a bike ride.

Cycle tracks will abound in Utopia.

It is curious that with the advent of the automobile and the airplane, the bicycle is still with us. Perhaps people like the world they can see from a bike, or the air they breathe when they're out on a bike. Or they like the bicycle's simplicity and the precision with which it is made. Or because they like the feeling of being able to hurtle through air one minute, and saunter through a park the next, without leaving behind clouds of choking exhaust, without leaving behind so much as a footstep.

The sound of a car door opening in front of you is similar to the sound of a gun being cocked.

Bicycling is the nearest approximation I know to the flight of birds. The airplane simply carries a man on its back like an obedient Pegasus; it gives him no wings of his own.

There is nothing like walking to get the feel of a country. A fine landscape is like a piece of music; it must be taken at the right tempo. Even a bicycle goes too fast.

You never have the wind with you - either it is against you or you're having a good day.

I came out for exercise, gentle exercise, and to notice the scenery and to botanise. And no sooner do I get on that accursed machine than off I go hammer and tongs; I never look to right or left, never notice a flower, never see a view - get hot, juicy, red - like a grilled chop. Get me on that machine and I have to go. I go scorching along the road, and cursing aloud at myself for doing it.

The secret to mountain biking is pretty simple. The slower you go the more likely it is you'll crash.

If you ride you know those moments when you have fed yourself into the traffic, felt the hashed-up asphalt rattle in the handlebars, held a lungful of air in a cloud of exhaust. Up ahead there are two parallel buses. With cat's whiskers, you measure the clearance down a doubtful alley. You swing wide, outflank that flower truck. The cross-street yellow light is turning red. You burst off the green like a surfer on a wave of metal. You have a hundred empty yards of Broadway to yourself.

All bicycles weigh fifty pounds. A thirty-pound bicycle needs a twenty-pound lock. A forty-pound bicycle needs a ten-pound lock. A fifty-pound bicycle doesn't need a lock.

Think of bicycles as rideable art that can just about save the world.

Most bicyclists in New York City obey instinct far more than they obey the traffic laws, which is to say that they run red lights, go the wrong way on one-way streets, violate cross-walks, and terrify innocents, because it just seems easier that way. Cycling in the city, and particularly in midtown, is anarchy without malice.

All creatures who have ever walked have wished that they might fly. With highwheelers a flesh and blood man can hitch wings to his feet.

What do you call a cyclist who doesn't wear a helmet? An organ donor.

Consider a man riding a bicycle. Whoever he is, we can say three things about him. We know he got on the bicycle and started to move. We know that at some point he will stop and get off. Most important of all, we know that if at any point between the beginning and the end of his journey he stops moving and does not get off the bicycle he will fall off it. That is a metaphor for the journey through life of any living thing, and I think of any society of living things.

The advantages? Exercise, no parking problems, gas prices, it's fun. An automobile is expensive. You have to find a place to park and it's not fun. So why not ride a bicycle? I recommend it.

With the heaps of overly specialized gear — gloves, shoes, and biking jerseys — most cyclists realize that every day on the road is Halloween. Plain and simple, it's wearing a costume each time out of the gate.…We're neon signs, stylistically impaired wonders blinding pedestrians and fooling small children into thinking that the circus has come back to town.

It's something I find enjoyable. Whether it is a road bike or mountain bike or tandem bike. I enjoy riding a bike.

Never use your face as a brake pad.

Refrain from throwing your bicycle in public. It shows poor upbringing.

Who am I? Where am I? Oh yes-I'm at the Tour, so I should get on my bike and go. Where is my bike?

Bones Heal
Chicks Dig Scars
Pain is Temporary
Glory is Forever

People like to travel: that is why the grass is greener over the fence. We are walkers --- our natural means of travel is to put one foot in front of the other. The bicycle seduces our basic nature by making walking exciting. It lets us take 10-foot strides at 160 paces a minute. That's 20 miles an hour, instead of 4 or 5... It is not only how fast you go --- cars are faster and jet planes faster still. But jet-plane travel is frustrating boredom --- at least the car gives the pictorial illusion of travel. Cycling does it all --- you have the complete satisfaction of arriving because your mind has chosen the path and steered you over it; your eyes have seen it; your muscles have felt it; your breathing, circulatory and digestive systems have all done their natural functions better than ever, and every part of your being knows you have traveled and arrived.

I suppose that was what attracted me to the bicycle right from the start. It is not so much a way of getting somewhere as it is a setting for randomness; it makes every journey an unorganized tour.

The world lies right beyond the handlebars of any bicycle that I happen to be on anywhere from New York Bay to the Vallee de Chevreuse. Anywhere is high adventure, the walls come down, the cyclist is a loner, it is the only way for him to meet other loners. And it works. One seldom exchanges anything but curses or names of insurance companies with another driver, the car inhibits human contacts. The bicycle generates them; bikes talk to each other like dogs, they wag their wheels and tinkle their bells, the riders let their mounts mingle.

She who succeeds in gaining the mastery of the bicycle will gain the mastery of life.

That which caused the many failures I had in learning the bicycle has caused me failures in life; namely, a certain fearful looking for of judgement; a too vivid realization of the uncertainty of everything about me; an underlying doubt -- at once, however, matched and overcome by the determination not to give in to it.

I began to feel that myself plus the bicycle equaled myself plus the world, upon whose spinning wheel we must all earn to ride, or fall into the sluiceways of oblivion and despair. That which made me succeed with the bicycle was precisely what had gained me a measure of success in life -- it was the hardihood of spirit that led me to begin, the persistence of will that held me to my task, and the patience that was willing to begin again when the last stroke had failed. And so I found high moral uses in the bicycle and can commend it as a teacher without pulpit or creed.

The bicycle is just as good company as most husbands and, when it gets old and shabby, a woman can dispose of it and get a new one without shocking the entire community.

One of my favorite things about biking (vs driving):When I used to drive, I always drove with my doors locked...I would play my stereo, and mostly avoid any contact with other drivers on the road (just stayed in my gas-guzzling box..) But now, I ride my bike and oddly enough, I'm less afraid of all those things..And when I am at a stoplight and another cyclist is also there, I usually know their name by the time the light turns green! Its like all these walls come down and although it seems more dangerous than being in a car, I am less afraid!

In the past two decades, thousands of miles of trails have been paved in the United States, but many of them look as if they were designed by someone who'd never ridden a bike. By consulting more with the people who do a lot of travelling under their own power, transportation planners ought to be able to come up with imaginative schemes for making roads, paths and sidewalks more usable to them, and maybe help cut down a bit on our reliance on the automobile.

When I was sick, I didn't want to die.
When I race, I don't want to lose.
Dying and losing, it's the same thing.

People do not 'drive' cars, they steer them.
People do not 'ride' bicycles, they drive them.

A man without religion is like a fish without a bicycle.

A man needs a bicycle between his legs like a woman needs a fish.

Life is like riding a bicycle. You don't fall off unless you plan to stop pedaling.

To ride a bicycle properly is very much like a love affair; chiefly is is a matter of faith. Believe you can do it and the thing is done; doubt, and for the life of you, you cannot.

Consider a man riding a bicycle. Whoever he is, we can say three things about him. We know he got on the bicycle and started to move. We know that at some point he will stop and get off. Most important of all, we know that if at any point between the beginning and the end of his journey he stops moving and does not get off the bicycle he will fall off it. That is a metaphor for the journey through life of any living thing, and I think of any society of living things.

Let a man find himself, in distinction from others, on top of two wheels with a chain-at least in a poor country like Russia-and his vanity begins to swell out like his tyres. In America it takes an automobile to produce this effect.

I love the bicycle. I always have. I can think of no sincere, decent human being, male or female, young or old, saintly or sinful, who can resist the bicycle.

I never want to abandon my bike. I see my grandfather, now in his seventies and riding around everywhere. To me that is beautiful. And the bike must always remain a part of my life.

Whoever invented the bicycle deserves the thanks of humanity.

There is nothing, absolutely nothing, quite so worthwhile as simply messing about on bicycles.

Don't buy upgrades, ride up grades.

It is no longer a beast of steel . . no it is a friend . . it is a faithful and powerful ally against one's worst enemies. It is stronger than anxiety, stronger than sadness. It has all the power of hope.

Since the bicycle make little demand on material or energy resources, contributes little to pollution, makes a positive contribution to health and causes little death or injury, it can be regarded as the most benevolent of machines.

A road rider who is not practiced is merely an athlete on a bike, half-educated, a pedaler - not a complete cyclist.

Really steep climbs are not my forte, so I always dread that lowest gear because I figure, god, I'm doomed.

Cycling is just like church - many attend, but few understand.

The grace and charm of the bicycle lend added warmth and contour to the persons of the lovers it joins.

Smooth, predictable riding when you're in a group isn't just a matter of style. It's survival.

Marriage is a wonderful invention; but then again, so is a bicycle repair kit.

People are screaming and the next thing you know you're going too hard. You're out of the saddle sprinting up a hill or something and because of the cheers you don't feel a thing until you get to the top. Then you pay.

But the fact is that I wouldn't have won even a single Tour de France without the lesson of illness. What it teaches is this: pain is temporary. Quitting lasts forever.

It never gets easier, you just go faster.

Cats don't like riding on a bicycle....no matter how much duct tape you use.

What's with these recumbent bicycles? Listen, buddy, if you wanna take a nap, lie down. If you wanna ride a bike, buy a >#*%^* bicycle.

The bicycle has a soul. If you succeed to love it, it will give you emotions that you will never forget.

Work to Eat. Eat to Live. Live to Bike. Bike to Work.

Toleration is the greatest gift of the mind; it requires the same effort of the brain that it takes to balance oneself on a bicycle.

When the spirits are low, when the day appears dark, when work becomes monotonous, when hope hardly seems worth having, just mount a bicycle and go out for a spin down the road, without thought on anything but the ride you are taking.

Finishing a ride is mandatory. Finishing a ride fast is optional.

Wind is just a hill in gaseous form.

Bicycles have no walls.

Cycling is unique. No other sport lets you go like that - where there's only the bike left to hold you up. If you ran as hard, you'd fall over. Your legs wouldn't support you.

When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realized that the Lord doesn't work that way so I stole one and asked Him to forgive me.

Life is like a ten speed bicycle. Most of us have gears we never use.

Sometimes the pain of quitting can be worse than the pain of going on.

I want to ride my bicycle bicycle bicycle; I want to ride my bicycle; I want to ride my bike; I want to ride my bicycle; I want to ride it where I like...; I don't believe in Peter Pan, Frankenstein or Superman; All I wanna do is bicycle, bicycle, bicycle...

I'll tell you what I think of bicycling. I think it has done more to emancipate women than any one thing in the world. I rejoice every time I see a woman ride by on a bike. It gives her a feeling of self-reliance and independence the moment she takes her seat; and away she goes, the picture of untrammeled womanhood.

A Zen teacher saw five of his students returning from the market, riding their bicycles. When they arrived at the monastery and had dismounted, the teacher asked the students, “Why are you riding your bicycles?” The first student replied, “The bicycle is carrying this sack of potatoes. I am glad that I do not have to carry them on my back!” The teacher praised the first student. “You are a smart boy! When you grow old, you will not walk hunched over like I do.” The second student replied, “I love to watch the trees and fields pass by as I roll down the path!” The teacher commended the second student, “Your eyes are open, and you see the world.” The third student replied, “When I ride my bicycle, I am content to chant nam myoho renge kyo.” The teacher gave his praise to the third student, “Your mind will roll with the ease of a newly trued wheel.” The fourth student replied, “Riding my bicycle, I live in harmony with all sentient beings.” The teacher was pleased and said to the fourth student, “You are riding on the golden path of non-harming.” The fifth student replied, “I ride my bicycle to ride my bicycle.” The teacher sat at the feet of the fifth student and said, “I am your student.”

Newspapers are unable, seemingly, to discriminate between a bicycle accident and the collapse of civilization.

If you brake, you don't win.

The bicycle is the noblest invention of mankind.

Bicycles are almost as good as guitars for meeting girls.

I relax by taking my bicycle apart and putting it back together again.

This, my first [bicycle] had an intrinsic beauty. And it opened for me an era of all but flying, which roads emptily crossing the airy, gold-gorsy Common enhanced. Nothing since has equaled that birdlike freedom.

Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving.

The eye of the hurricane is back in Lance, and the storm is aiming directly for the Ullrich trailer park.

Ride lots.

As a kid I had a dream - I wanted to own my own bicycle. When I got he bike I must have been the happiest boy in Liverpool, maybe the world. I lived for that bike. Most kids left their bike in the backyard at night. Not me. I insisted on taking mine indoors and the first night I even kept it in my bed.

I've got a bike, you can ride it if you like. It's got a basket, a bell that rings and things to make it look good. I'd give it to you if I could, but I borrowed it.

There is something uncanny in the noiseless rush of the cyclist, as he comes into view, passes by, and disappears.

I still feel that variable gears are only for people over forty—five. Isn't it better to triumph by the strength of your muscles than by the artifice of a derailer? We are getting soft... As for me, give me a fixed gear!

But to say that the race is the metaphor for the life is to miss the point. The race is everything. It obliterates whatever isn't racing. Life is the metaphor for the race.

Eat before you are hungry. Drink before you are thirsty. Rest before you are tired. Cover up before you are cold. Peel off before you are hot. Don't drink or smoke on tour. Never ride just to prove yourself.

There are no races. Only lotteries.

I won! I won! I don't have to go to school anymore.

He's dancing on the pedals in an immodest way!

It was eleven more than necessary. (Said after winning by 12 seconds.)

I'm fascinated by the sprinters. They suffer so much during the race just to get to the finish, they hang on for dear life in the climbs, but then in the final kilometers they are transformed and do amazing things. It's not their force per se that impresses me, but rather the renaissance they experience. Seeing them suffer throughout the race only to be reborn in the final is something for fascination.

My favorite courses are nasty, technical downhills that frighten my mom.

I'm lucky that mountain biking wasn't around when I was 20, because I wouldn't have won the Tour de France. It's my kind of sport — hard, individualistic, and not a lot of tactics.

If a Dutchman of 39 years was able to win the championship in Italy, why can't an Italian of 35 win the championship in Belgium?

I wouldn't sell my bike for all the money in the world. Not for a hundred million, billion, trillion dollars!

This man is no ordinary man. This is Mister H.G. Superman. To all appearances, he looks like any other law-abiding citizen. But Mister H.G. Superman has a secret identity. When trouble strikes at any time, at any place, he is ready to become... BICYCLE REPAIR MAN!

Those who wish to control their own lives and move beyond existence as mere clients and consumers- those people ride a bike.

A bicycle ride is a flight from sadness.

To be a cyclist is to be a student of pain....at cycling's core lies pain, hard and bitter as the pit inside a juicy peach. It doesn't matter if you're sprinting for an Olympic medal, a town sign, a trailhead, or the rest stop with the homemade brownies. If you never confront pain, you're missing the essence of the sport. Without pain, there's no adversity. Without adversity, no challenge. Without challenge, no improvement. No improvement, no sense of accomplishment and no deep-down joy. Might as well be playing Tiddly-Winks.

If constellations had been named in the 20th century, I suppose we would see bicycles.

When you ride hard on a mountain bike, sometimes you fall, otherwise you’re not riding hard.

An engineer designing from scratch could hardly concoct a better device to unclog modern roads - cheap, nonpolluting, small and silent…

The world lies right beyond the handlebars of any bicycle

The world is my church, the wind in my ears is the choir and my handlebars are the alter I pray at.

Socialism can only arrive by bicycle

Just as the ideal of classic Greek culture was the most perfect harmony of mind and body, so a human and a bicycle are the perfect synthesis of body and machine.

Cycling satisfies so many needs. If you're in a gregarious mood, you can go out with a group. Or you can go alone- solo. If you're in an aggressive mood, you can go fast, or if you're tired and want to unwind you can go slow. A bicycle doesn't discriminate in age, either.

The bicycle supplies.....a new pleasure -- the pleasure of going where one wills, because one wills.....Riding the wheel, our own powers are revealed to us.....You have conquered a new world, and exultingly you take possession of it.

Like dogs, bicycles are social catalysts that attract a superior category of people.

Cycling - the sport of the century - mechanization which, together with the marvelous nature of man, triumphs over time and space.

The turn of the century was a splendid time for the bicycle. It was an industry, a sport, a vehicle for transport.

A good rider is intuitive. You can look at other cyclists and know how good they are by how they pedal or breathe.

A road racer without endurance is like a bicycle without wheels.

You not bike rider, you nobody.

The bikers road past. They were moving so fast. Hills were nothing to them. They had light bikes, expensive ones, and the climbs were only excuses to use the great strength of their legs.

It's really something to see, a climber waiting to attack. Any other sort of attack can be neutralized, but when a climber goes there's little the non-climbers can do.

You want to be like carpet unrolling. Get faster as the climb goes up.

Getting up at six and racing up a col from the gun is a bitch.

It's not the fastest rider who wins a downhill, it's the one who gets to the bottom in the shortest time.

When in doubt, gas it!

If you can't beat them up the hill, you have to find a way to beat them on the way down.

Spectators were running for cover during my run. When that happens you know you're going fast.

If you desire to be groovy and flowing instead of battling and conquering, mile-per-hour is the last equation you want to pay attention to.

I actually feel it's my obligation to go fast.

It was a fact I've always wanted a bike. Speed gave me a thrill.

You can't train luck.

Ride a bike, ride a bike, ride a bike.

By mid-March you should be living in the big chainring.

Riders are not ducks, so they shouldn't drink plain water.

Machines don't break records. Muscles do.

Good morale in cycling comes from good legs.

Bike riding as little as three miles a day will improve your sex life.

Fatigue is a disease and I don't want it.

Some have heart like diesel, some have heart like Ferrari.

So ardent a cyclist must be full of good health.

By George, here they came, atilting! Five hundred mailed and belted knights on bicycles!

I will get there first, or they will find my body on the road.

Bicycle road racing was the only sport in the world.

Bicycling is a sport that embraces youth, rather than rewards it.

Men invented war so they could be among themselves. In peacetime, they have bike racing.

I like cyclocross because it's a spastic scurry just like my life.

The bicycle riders drank much wine, and were burned and browned by the sun. They did not take the race seriously except among themselves.

When you get second place, you say 'I could have won it here, I could have won it there.' When you win, you never say anything; it's finished.

Age and treachery will overcome youth and skill.

It's a viciously cruel sport.

I'm the reference point. If they beat me, they win.

A win is a win. Only you can win normally or you can win with panache.

I race to win, not to please people.

There's a terrible delight in watching a rival sink without a trace.

People who accumulate lots of road rash over a lifetime have spent their lives happy.

The way you learn, is you go around a corner and crash. Then you know that's too fast so the next time you go a little slower.

If your crashing a lot, you're just being stupid.

Not only did I break my seatpost, I also broke a nail.

Every rider crashes.

Every time you were caught behind a huge, fifty-man pile-up there was a strange, putrid odor. It took me years to figure it out: It's the smell of burning flesh.

Sighing for new worlds to conquer, I determined that I would learn the bicycle.

This is the first lesson of teaching your kids to be mountain bikers: There comes a day when the kid is better than you.

My biggest fear is that they will confuse me with another racer.

Train your weaknesses and race your strength.

I ride for passion. Cycling is too hard to do just for the money.

There are three ways to pedal a bike. With the legs, with the lungs, or with the heart.

I would do it all over again, and even better.

God wishes he was Eddy Merckx.

When I was a bike messenger I rode Paris-Roubaix every day. I would hang on and pedal through the roughest streets.

A ten-day, thousand-mile bicycle trip, in the telling becomes a five-day, two-thousand-mile trip.

A raggedy ride beats a dressed-up walk.

A bicycle hides nothing and threatens nothing. It is what it does, its form is in its function.

Of all the sports, cycling is the one that requires the most perfect match of man and machine. The more perfect the match, the more perfect the result.

The bicycle was the last advance in technology everyone understands. Anybody who can ride can understand how it works.

Bicycles may change, but cycling is timeless.

The oneness of the bike takes precedence over the oneness of being.

When I was a boy, I delivered newspapers on my bicycle at 64 below. The worst part is, I wanted to impress the girls, so I had to look good. I couldn't wear a hat with earflaps. I had to sport the wave. So I'd put some water through my hair and push that wave up over my forehead. Then I'd step outside and 'splicccchhh'—it would freeze.

Now I can get leg warmers to match my fishing reels.

The team wasn't just riders. It was the mechanics, masseurs, chefs, soigneurs, and doctors. But the most important man on the team may have been the chiropractor.