Episode 1
The Grand Départ
Almost a year since the Tour de France 2022 concluded, its dramatised episodic version has landed. As an athletic spectacle we already know what will unfold over the next eight episodes - what I expect this binge to deliver is a caricatured version of the world's biggest bike race: the Tour de France, for want of more appropriate language, on steroids.
The principle limitation of Unchained, you may be aware, is that only certain teams have agreed to participate. It should come as no surprise that two of them belong to a couple of the loudest mouths in the business. Neither EF EducationEasyPost boss Jonathan Vaughters, nor Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl head honcho Patrick Lefevere is the peloton's Mr Popular, but they're solid choices as talking heads. Both have high hopes for the opening weekend. Vaughters is banking on his young TT specialist Stefan Bissegger, who is seen honing his position in a wind tunnel. He has been working towards this opening stage all year, we're told. Might that time have been better spent learning to corner in the rain? As Bissegger tumbles twice on wet road markings. Vaughters ask us to believe this is a rider going up to and over the limit. Lefevere sums up the surprise victory of Yves "I'm just a farmer's son from Belgium" Lampaert with uncharacteristic sentimentality. "It's always more beautiful when it's unexpected," he says. He clearly has a soft spot for Fabio Jakobsen, which is why he has been looking more towards the stage 2 sprint. We could all do without seeing his terrifying 2020 Tour of Poland crash several times more, but this part isn't for you or me, and it's what the 10-second skip button is for. This is for the uninitiated and about building up the fairy-tale finish in the land of Hans Christian Andersen.
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Air Apparent - Pollution hasn't gone away. It's still there in every lungful, even if we can't see it in the air or on the news. But there are reasons to breathe easier, thanks to pioneering projects using cycling 'citizen scientists'. Rob Ainsley took part in one...
The toxic effects of pollution have been known about for years. 'Just two things of which you must beware: Don't drink the water and don't breathe the air!' sang 1960s satirist Tom Lehrer.Over recent decades, though, pollution has dropped down our list of things to worry about, thanks to ominously capitalised concerns such as Climate Change, AI, Global Conflict, Species Collapse, etc. That doesn't, unfortunately, mean the problem has expired. Air quality often exceeds safe limits, with far-reaching and crippling effects on our health.
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