 
Kilometre 82. The rider from Cycles Goff rides next to me. 'We are away', I tell him
I take over. He takes over again. Then me again, pounding in the wind.
He rides smooth, a golden boy...
I have to observe him better and when I pass him again, I see big blue eyes.
And strange, did not notice it before, but he has some sort of a beard.
I had estimated him about eighteen years old, 
but now I see,
he's much older than that.
Maybe 38 of 39.
Old guy actually.
He rides next to me for a moment,
and looks at me.
'Vivre lentement, rouler rapidement!'
- Come on, Krabbé
HIS TWENTY-TWO WAS STILL CLEAN
I got the book as a present for my birthday, from my wife. And I read it...
in one afternoon.
It grabbed me so much.
Because it really evokes the atmosphere of riding.
Everything you write after The Rider, doesn't really add something.
The Rider is so big and so all-encompassing...
 
...it really captures everything there is. 
What is riding, how does it feel...
...to race.
That book is monumental. 
It has something grands and...
...it gives the sport stature.
He's 1567 meters high, not even the highest in the area he's hidden in.
The Cevennen, exactly between the dividing line...
of the provinces Lozère and Gare. 
But it's said that you won't get a better view...
than on the top of this mountain. 
On a clear day, you're able to overlook...
a quarter of France.
It goes by the name 'The mountain of rain'. 
Not without reason.
It can be haunted in the south of France. And not only the weather can be devastating, the stage can be too.
Especially that particular day: June, 26 1977.
The day on which cycling history was written. During a stage...
...that's named after just this mountain. 
The Tour de Mont Aigoual. And just over...
43 years later, the Tour du France does what is hasn't done since '87.
And what is practically never does: it sends the riders over the flanks of this col.
This col that should qualify as Hors Category, for way other reasons than usual.
Why?
We will soon find out.
We will explore the Cevennen itself, 
but will also listen to...
writers and journalists, to riders and former riders. Because how come...
when you ask any random rider, even when they're on the run for a chasing peloton,
and with the finish line in sight, about the best cycling book ever written,
he or she will answer, without even the slightest hesitation and with full persuasion:
The Rider. By Tim Krabbé.
For a number of years, I lived in the strange world of cycling and...
like every writer I thought: what shall I write about?
And that strange little world sounds a great subject. 
And so emerged The Ride'.
Krabbé initiated me in professional cycling with his book The Rider.
He explained to me how it all works.
I gained my ground in cycling.
Not as a rider, but by writing.
I never could have imagined...
...that I would get a place in cycling when I started cycling at age thirty.
 
What do we have to do there?
- You should ride...
...I'm terribly jealous of you guys riding over there.
Are you going to sit and have a drink now? 
- Sounds like a great plan.
Why don't we go for a short spin? 
- No man, let's just have an appetizer
We're here, at last.
We are around the finish line.
- I never would have thought it would be this crowded.
Whenever I read the book I imagined it like a desolate place, but it's not.
It probably in the winter, but not during the week.
There's the last corner...
40 rounds on the 53x13, further on is the finish. 
I guess that's over there.
Let's make one thing clear, Lau...
Tim was pretty 'ride fast'. 
- He was pretty 'ride fast'.
But with all due respect, Tim, when you're listening to this, or watching this...
...you weren't really 'living slow'.
- He could learn us a thing or two.
Was there a bar you would go to? 
'No.'
Do you have a tasty recipe for us?
'uhm... no.'
A friend of mine had a house up there...
even before I started cycling. 
Although, it was her parents' house...
And that house played a huge part because we were on a little ride one day...
...and had stopped somewhere for a small picknick...
...somewhere on a small hill, enjoying the view and...
at a certain moment a guy on a racing bike passed us by.
Who radiated so much power. I can still imagine him: red shirt, hands on the handlebars.
And suddenly I knew: That's what I want to do...
It already was a long-cherished dream and by then I was around 27.
But then I knew, I'm going to go through with it.
Then I bought my own race bike and mapped out my own time trials in Amsterdam.
And that's when it changed into something serious.
That's why the Cevennen and cycling are very strongly connected.
I am very curious to see...
...if our presence here in this region, seeing the surroundings, being in the Cevennen...
...if it adds something to the experience of
 reading the book.
Or if it demystifies. 
- Yes, exactly.
That's what Ducrot meant. That he didn't think much of it in real live.
What I'm curious about if wether or not the book is still relevant for the younger generation.
Tim said it was. According to him al young riders get the book as a present for their birthday.
Tim called the book un everseller.
Not a bestseller, but un everseller.
But I'm just very curious. 
- Nice, I'm excited man. Damn.
I can recall even that moment vividly. I always wrote in my cycling journals about races I could ride.
I was always looking for stages that would perfect for me to ride.
I pretty soon discovered the Tour de Mont Aigoual...
...that was, in so many ways, very suitable for me.
Because I played an important part in it, but hadn't won. Because you can't write such a book...
...about a race you won yourself.
11x30, 36x30.
He only did 43x20 as the lightest.
My back hurts by only thinking about it.
Only one piece with vigs is already 1400 calories. 
There are six bars in it.
It wasn't that dum.
Four in my pocket and one... whoops.
How many kilometers in total?
- 137 kilometers today.
Starting in Meyrueis then a loop, back to Meyrueis and another loop, with the Mont Aigoual.
What is the most beautiful part, Lau?
- I think the first 30 kilometers.
It's all beautiful, but the gorges are awesome and the Tarn is absolutely fantastic.
But then you're on some desolate, windy highland 
that's also descriped in the book.
And then there is a pretty nice descent...
...with panoramic views
Then you come back in Meyrueis. Little bakery...
Oké, fun to ride, but where's the restaurant?
- In the first loop...
I like it that you've been here before.
On the second loop, when you're in Tréves...
- Trèves...
Than you get a very long climb.To Camprieu.
And on that climb you won't come across a single car.
Pretty cool.
What's the hardest climb?
The one from Trèves is like 20 kilometres climbing,
that's pretty far of course.
Eventually you're going to run out of gas. 
But the first one, in Les Vignes, is probably the hardest.
This is the last corner: 40 kicks on the 53x13
That's where the finish would be.
- Yes, I'm ready.
I am curious, I'm going to count...
One... 
Two...
Three...
Nine, ten, eleven...
This is where we had a beer yesterday.
- 22, 23, 24...
26...
36...
38...
Ho.
- Bam, here's the line.
Must be...
Well, we've explored it...
- And then we rode on through over the finish...
and turns over there, very exhausted...
You sprinted like a jackass...
- Yes...exactly!
Hey, my wheel is first in the Tour de Mont Aigoual...
Hey Lau... who was that rider who went for it too early?
The pitiful demarrage?
Yes, what was his name?
-Sauveplan
That's me baby, bye...
When this book was published, it was instantly populair.
In the circles of young sports loving students, 
you could say.
I was like: finally a good novel. And I studied Dutch.
Which I thought was hard, because I had to read 
a lot of books that didn't interest me.
And then there was 'The Rider'.
A book about things that interested me 
in a way that enticed me.
My friends as well. 
That legitimizes in a way...
you wanting to buy a race bike and starting to cycle.
In those days it was pretty abnormal.
People played soccer, or hockey or fencing.
You wouldn't ride.
It was something you watched, but it was something from another world.
'The Rider' broke with all of that.
For me, Tim Krabbé was one of the reasons I started cycling.
Because what he wrote, touched me deeply.
I thought it was very raw and heroic at the same time.
So riding appealed to me because of that.
I used to ride stages with his sentences
 going through my  mind.
I was very interested in riding. So when I studied in Utrecht, I visited Fred Snel.
A known name in Utrecht.
There you could find the bicycles of the pro's.
One of those bikes was blue en had the word 'Snel' on it. That wasn't so cool...
... and it had the words 'Campagnolo Super Record' on it.
Well, I stood like...
I couldn't afford the bike, first I had to work some more.
But under the bike, in the shop window, there was a book there.
'The Rider'. 
44 years, that's how long is has been.
My birthday is on April, 8 1978 and that was the first year I started cycling at 'De Volharding'
Certainly at the start of a stage, when my wheel was first for a second...
...I always thought about what Tim wrote...
'Now my front wheel is first in the Tour de Mont Aigoual'
Even to this day, when I ride a beach stage,  I still do it.
And when someone breaks away right from the start, I think logical: 'Let them go, they'll be back soon.'
But there's also a little voice inside me that says: damn, now I haven't been first in this race yet.
That little voice is never going to leave, I think.
When The Tour was on, we followed it closely.
We couldn't understand the riders over there.
They were boys from Brabant. Farmers sons...
...modest people, so to speak. Those were there practioners of the sport.
They were pretty tough people.
We should stop here and make a reservation, otherwise there're fully booked.
This is the best restaurant of the region.
Hello.
Hello.
Excuse me.
Is it possible to make a dinner reservation fo tonight?
Yes, yes...
We can?
4 people, 8 o' clock...
Outside of inside?
Inside? Perfect.
Appetizers on the terras, eating inside...
It's a region that's full of smells...
... that make us Dutch long for the summer vaction.
It's just that kind of place...
...abandoned villages...
...unwashed Frenchmen
In America you have the Heartlands.
The Cevennen is the Heartlands of France.
It's really rough terrain.
There is the Lot river up north, and the Tarn passing through
The mountains here are made out of air and lie upside down in the landscape.
That's not that rare, but...
Normally you would ride up and down on a mountain.
And here it's the other way around.
It's just an amazing story.
I've always resited that it's a sports book.
'The Rider' is about a cycling race, with some digressions...
It's not about the humans species or something, it's just about a cycling race.
The special thing about it, is it has no excuse for only being about cycling.
Most books about sport were supposed to have a social context or a deeper meaning...
My book is only about the cycling race I rode.
When a good writer embraces the sport, it also is a recognition for that sport.
In the Netherlands there was a sports section in the literature...
...but it wasn't taken seriously by great writers or literature.
I meant it as an ordinary novel, with a strange subject, but never as a sports novel.
What is also was, of course...
In the beginning I declined interviews for sports magazines.
For the first year the book was published.
It was just a novel.
When I studied Dutch at the university, you couldn't talk about The Rider.
You were then viewed as a simple sports magazin reader.
If you did, it meant you didn't take literature seriously.
I loved it, and I read those sports magazine by the way, so they didn't take me serious anyways.
But The Rider was viewed as little sports novel...
I believe sport is viewed differently after The Rider.
Sport was taken more seriously afterwards.
A long time ago I wrote a piece about how sports is missing in literature.
It's just not there.
Certainly in the 70's and 80's, there no characters in a novel who watched a soccer match in a stadium.
Or went to watch a cycling race.
It simply did not exist.
And then came this.
But it took some time to be accepted.
Kilometre 17, still 120 to go...
So we stop after 17 kilometers? Why?
Because you can sit on a terrace and watch vultures.
Let's do it...
I want to tell you what grasped me in the book. You attacked earlier today...
...and I believe Tim attacked here once and Barthélemy brought him back...
...but then a few good riders attack, one of wich is the rider from Cycles Goff.
And some more.
And you know it's not the best escape, but still I thought: damn, I'm not one of them.
Eventough it's doomed to fail.
He describes that perfectly.
His thought and doubts always come back and that's important.
That doubt is always there.
Even with an attack that's doomed to faill, you feel like shit.
The rider from Cycles Goff attacked early on as well, right?
-Yes...
He did it again later on, what wasn't necessary, but still...
The doubt and frustration...
And in his case, when you don't have a team around you that can close the gap.
zeker in zijn pallet om kan me
voorstellen als je gewoon geen ploeg
We're saying it wrong. 
One more time, please?
Very important...
From now on we're saying it like this.
The rough mountains of the Cevennen, they are quiet and majestic.
And the bizarre at times. And the highlands are very beautiful...
It is a really lovely cycling area.
Beautiful, isn't it?
A lot of bike packers.
Kilometer 31. A sign: Les Vignes. At the crossing by the bridge is a gendarme pointing to the right.
Right turn, over the bridge. I buckle and shift to my inside ring, other chains rattling around me.
Anyone still on his outside ring when the hill starts is in for trouble.
They'll have to shift on the climb: when you do that, the chain clutches at thin air for a second.
In the worst of cases popping across the sprocket like a machine gun and throwing you of balance.
To the right. A five-kilometer climb to the Causse Méjean. I've dropped back a little.
I'm in the middle of the peloton.
Twenty riders in front of me now, a whole road full.
I pick out Lebusque, a hang-glider among starlings
The worst gaps arise during climbs. I have to work my way up to the front.
Weaving back and forth, I search for openings. Panic that they're going to leave me behind...
...I still can't feel my pedals.
I've ended up at the front of our half-jump-drained peloton. Third position.
That's where I'm staying; the two guys in front of me are going fast enough.
After a while it dawns on me who they are: Lebusque and Kléber, side by side.
Gradually I find a cadence. Climbing is a rhythm, a trance.
You have to rock your organs' protests back to sleep.
That's what we have to deal with, man.
-43x18
On a bike your consciousness is small. The harder you work, the smaller it gets.
Every thought that arises is immediately and utterly true, every unexpected event is something....
...you'd known all along but had only forgotten for a moment.
A pounding riff from a song, a bit of long division that starts over and over.
A magnified anger at someone, is enough to fill your thoughts.
During the race, what goes around in the rider's mind is a monolithic ball bearing, so smooth...
...so uniform, that you can't even see it spin.
Its almost perfect lack of surface structure ensures that it strikes nothing...
...that might end up in the white circulation of thought.
Almost nothing, that is.
Sometimes a microscopic flaw still manages to strike a chord.
Battoowoo Greekgreek... I really said that during tours.
Battoowoo Greekgreek, think about nothing.
That's the metaphor for thinking about nothing. Just focus on the pain.
Just one pedal after the other.
Tim talks about consciousness reflexion.
That's not how I experienced it.
I thought it was a very broadening experience.
I became transparant and the more pain I had, the more I took in of the surroundings.
When I learned to ride, I often thought: Yes, that's what he was writing about...
And when I suffer pain, there're no thoughts, my mind is nothing more than a ball that spins.
With chess there're multiple tentacles of thoughts, with cycling it's a ball.
I don't think when I ride. You do.
-Yes, that's true. When I'm training.
When I'm riding I think about pretty much everything.
You say: we can talk about it when we're riding.
No.
I can't have a conversation.
And he gives himself calculations. Can you calculate when you're riding fast?
No.
When I'm riding with 300 watt that's not possible anymore.
It's a known phenomenon.
But when we're riding together over here, I can still make some equations...
Asshole.
He said certain things...
'I have to have strong arms, so I can grab hold of the handlebars and pull myself up.
I look at my sweaty wrists that lay on the handlebars like brown slats.
I have very nice wrists.'
That almost makes me cry. That's so beautiful.
Working together on this segment. Except Reilhan, he didn't take over.
I'm doing a Reilhan in a moment.
Reilhan again doesn't take over. And Lebusque got a flat tire.
Yes.
But we haven't seen the last of him yet.
I'm taking advantage of his reserves.
Oh is he again wheelsucking?
Look, here is Rieisse. 
That's the name of the village.
The name of the village.
Col the Rieisse isn't indicated, that's a bummer.
Because in the book... he says...
What does he say again?
'I'm attacking? No, that reduces my opportunities.'
Good conclusion.
Pretty tough route it is.
Tough climb, against the wind on the plateau.
If Tim had eaten this during the race, he would've won.
This pounder was out of stock yesterday.
Just said: If Krabbé had eaten this pounder during the race, he would've won.
I learned a lot from Tim his writing.
He leaves out as much as possible.
I once wrote a piece and he would ask: Why is something 'blood red' or 'badly needed'.
Then I would explain myself and he would say: 'But it's still a cliche and woolly...
and redundant.'
If you want to say something is striking red, you have to describe it in a different way.
All of his books are written in a certain staccato style.
All the sentences are stripped of frills.
And every sentence is very impressive that way.
A hundred meters in front of us, a group is standing along the road. They see us.
They crouch down a little, a smile of collective pleasure appearing on their faces.
I look at a girl in the group. She's sixteen, she's pretty.
'Allez, les sportifs,' she shouts. 'Un deux un deux.'
Why is she shouting that?
She knows Hinault fell into a ravine, but not the names of the classics he won.
Classics? She has no idea what a forty-three nineteen is...
...but she knows the expression 'those crazy guys on their weird vehicles'.
She's the generation that no longer cheers for the riders, but for the journalistic cliché she recognizes in them.
Now that I'm five centimeters closer, I can see how pretty she really is. I hate her.
She belongs to the generation of emblems. She thinks I got my bicycle out of that cement mixer...
...that it's an emblem I use to identify myself as a proponent of the fitness rage...
...like her, with her sweatshirt with the TRAINING decal on it.
OK, she's not wearing it right now, but I'm sure it's hanging in her closet.
If she has a bicycle, it's definitely a 'ten-speed'; if she ever rides it, then it's in the lowest gear possible...
...hands down on the bottom of the bars.
I hate her.
Never will I be able to make clear to her that I don't race because I wanted to lose weight...
...because turning thirty horrified me, because I was dissatisfied with café life...
...because I wanted to write this book, or because of anything else at all...
...but simply because it's road racing.
Really, if I want that pretty girl to understand me, there's only one thing I can do...
...become champion of the world.
OK, one more thing about the tour, it was hard for me.
Mainly the two climbs out of the gorges, that were some serious climbs.
Just completely broken...
When you said you wanted to stop and just go to the cabin...
and suggested we spread the stage over two days because we're stopping so often...
...I didn't mind it at all.
How great is it to be here when you've read the book?
It really makes the experience of the book greater.
I really hope...
...on the Aigoual...
...we have a bit of fog and rain.
So we can use the line...
This rain has been here for over a hundred years and we rode into it...
Great line...
You probably didn't read it when you were reading the race report.
You were like: This is where he lost the stage.
This is where he lost the stage. When the best climber says to take it easy, you have to push through.
Whoppa.
Sorry man, you were delicious.
We're researching why 'The Riderr' is the best cycling book there is.
We talked to writers about it, who all had their own stories to tell...
But there's also a second question: how timeless is the book?
Do younger riders still read it?
Is it a birthday present when you turn thirteen and want to be a cyclist.
Tell us, did you read it...
Yes, of course. Probably three times...
I don't know when exactly, but probably what Lau said, at the age of 13.
DId you read it for your final exam?
Yes, for sure.
It was one of the few books I'd actually read...
...and could talk about in length.
We've noticed some people read it as a match report. How did you read it?
I didn't read it only a report of a match. I could recognize a lot of the things he writes about.
And I read it for the beautiful stories.
When you see your sweaty wrists when you're climbing, for instance.
Nice, isn't it?
Or when you're in pain and try to do a simple equation, you simply can't do it.
You can entertain yourself for hours that way.
And the first sentence of course.
-Yes, that fantastic.
Meyrueis, Lozère, June 26, 1977.
Hot and overcast.
I take my gear out of the car and put my bike together.
Tourist and locals are watching from sidewalk cafés.
Non-racers. The emptiness of those lives shocks me.
Oh Tim. The dedain and how delicious.
It's true though. He told us he lived like a hermit back then and lost the connection with non-racers.
What shall we do? One bread and one baquette, please.
Croissant?
-No, no croissaints.
That's not how we roll.
You can't find it more local than this.
Thank you very much.
Is this local?
-Yes.
Is it good?
-Yes.
Thank you. Bye.
That store made me happy. Did you see the paté?
Nice steaks.
I'm so hungry.
I wanted to get some bread in the morning, and he insist on joining me to the supermarket.
He can't help himself. He's addicted to supermarkets.
He strolls with a little basket...
-My mother did the same thing.
That's allowed, of course.
Now I'm setting the table. Where's the honey?
Don't act that way, you're not at home. I'm the boss over here...
Tess will say when she sees this: wish you would do that when you're at home.
I now know your way of handling things annoys me.
And still I can laugh about it. I shouldn't laugh about it.
Dude, what are we going to do today?
We're going to attack a KOM.
What KOM?
Col d'Uglas, of course.
The most known unknown col of the Cevennen.
I called the d'Uglas the quadratic mountain, because it's 5,6 km long with an average of 5,6% incline.
You can ride it an on outside ring.
My first impulse to cycle originated there.
I climbed it for years to see how fast I could do it. I started at 22 minutes.
Eventually I could do it somewhat faster than 15 minutes.
I looked it up at Strava. 5,47 km...
That's beautiful: 5 kilometers and 470 meters.
An average of 6%.
The time to beat: 14:56. That's Tim Krabbé his personal best in June 1978.
He rode it on June 30, 1978. That's four days after the Mont Aigoual.
All I see is 'Thijs Zonneveld, recon 15:15.'
Very impressive, for a recon.
My time is now 17:30.
Already 2:30 minutes slower than Thijs.
So there's work to be done.
I know a few people who climbed it faster than 15 minutes, even below 14.
And I've always been very curious what God could do on that mountain.
So that's up to Laurens.
The record of d'Uglas is set by Thijs Zonneveld. 13:16.
I'm going to shift to the outside ring number 19. Same gear as Tim.
When he rode his personal best.
Now it's all or nothing.
Hi.
Come on. Very good.
Come on.
Very good.
Riding on the big ring is hard.
We have to have a tactical meating when we're up there. 
-Caffeine pil?
Give the guy a pill.
How do you feel?
- Fine, but tactical meeting up there.
Of course.
The dilemma: or we after Thijs his KOM, or we aim for the Strava KOM.
When I go all in for Thijs' KOM, there's a chance I blow myself up and we have to come back tomorrow.
But the Strava KOM is doable?
-Yes, that's doable.
Don't know about Thijs' KOM and going all in...
Damn, what's up with that guy?
Back in 2004 I rode with a French team and won some races.
It wasn't a big deal, but the local papers wrote about it.
Tim had read that article en wrote me an e-mail about it.
So one morning, sitting in my little French appartment, I receive a mail from Tim Krabbé.
How great is that?
In '43 Wielerverhalen' he writes a lot about Col d'Uglas and climbed it many times.
Something like Strava, but before Strava.
Just to improve his personal best.
He always wondered what a good rider could do on that climb and if he could beat his time.
So he asked me if I wanted to try it.
If I wanted to come up there and try to beat his time.
I went up there and we trained together and I climbed the Col d'Uglas.
Obviously with a standig start and not behind a camera car.
Damn, you're fast.
Still 15 seconds ahead of KOM.
You're still gaining ground.
You're fast.
Jezus christ.
Dude, you're going 26, 27...
Best time ever on the d'Uglas. No one ever rode faster.
All you have to do is keep up the pace.
Few minutes and you're done. Than we'll have a picknick, man.
This is where you excel, when it hurts.
350 meters, come on.
Jezus christ.
12:48 dude. Damn.
Bizzare man.
This one'e for you, Tim.
Did you read 'The Rider'?
Yes, I was sucked into it.
It really conveys what it means to be a rider, in what kind of universe you live.
Basically you live in a bubble.
For a rider cycling is his whole world, but it really doesn't matter that much.
In 'The Rider' it isn't that important...
...but let's be honest: Tour de France isn't that important. We make it important.
And the book captures that perfectly.
Were you happy in the final of a stage?
-Yes, of course.
It's fantastic. Your consciousness narrows and in the end that's all there is.
Once, in the Vuelta, I rode up front with two other guys. They were climbers.
That has been the only time I really experienced 'the flow' during riding.
I wasn't on earth anymore, so to speak.
It was like I was in a tunnel and I couldn't hear anything anymore.
I couldn't feel any pain.
Were you or were you not able to solve a simple equation in that moment?
No, that's not possible anymore at that moment.
When you're watching the news as a commentator you might think: man, how can you be so stupid?
But you just can't think straight anymore.
And you can't calculate 13x12.
A mandatory book to read for every young rider?
No
But it's well worth reading.
Somewhere he writes about Lebusque that all he wants to do is ride very fast.
The difference between riding fast and winning a race is very important.
People don't get it. You can see it in the Tour de France.
The autonomy of the riders is restricted.
Because they have to operate within a team. That causes a predictable tour.
You ruin the young riders who can win a tour in a million different ways that way.
But they come up with one and that has to be the way to do it.
The book showes us there're a lot of possibilities to choose from.
How you can have a setback, while you were winning.
And when he has a setback: 'I look like a big duck with large flat feet.'
And then Lebusque catches up with him and understands the rider has lost his mojo...
...but they can't let Reilhan win, so they have to screw him over together.
Fantastic.
You won't see something like that in cycling today.
Now they're like: stay put, wait...
Where have your balls gone?
The sad thing is, once they're gone, they won't grow back.
That books shows what it means to have balls in a stage.
They discoverd how to 'live slow' over here.
Kilometre 104. I'm on Kléber's wheel. Reilhan took off too soon, he is not gaining any more ground.
Now Reilhan is going to be crushed.
Ten meters behind him, Kléber accelerates again. 
I'm on his wheel.
Reilhan can't keep up with us.
The race is being decided here.
In a flash, I look back. Only Reilhan, thirty meters 
behind us now, then nothing. No Lebusque.
Lebusque couldn't even answer Kleber's first jump.
Kléber hammers away; this is looking like a full sprint.
He shifts and I shift.
But it is nothing more than a push of the lever: things here don't get around having names.
Pam!
People along the road - the line must be up there.
Things here don't get around having names.
You just past that part like it is nothing.
I know, but I'm more interested in 
the race than the book.
Camprieu. And back out of Camprieu
There's the hundred-meter downhill stretch I've been longing for for the last forty-five minutes
Been racing for three and a half hours, one to go: 
Kléber and Krabbé up front.
'Easy now' Kléber hisses. Aha, that's a relief.
I ease off a little
I think if Tim would have continued 
riding fast at that moment...
...Reilhan never could have make it back to him.
That's what you were thinking about just now?
No, not just now. When I read the book.
It's one long story of self-victory.
It starts pretty quickly. I don't think he's going to make it today.
A bit overambitious and pretty early on he's suffering.
He tries to mask it and sees others are suffering as well. But the demise is there.
You think: Come on, man.
As a reader you're strong mentally and think: go to the place in your mind where you're strong.
He does it eventually.
And the first time I got on a bicycle, I noticed how difficult it is.
How difficult it is to overcome your own demise.
I heared from people who still ride with Tim today, he still is resilient.
That man is 78 now, but still very hard to drop.
All thanks to how strong mentally he is and that's what you read in the book also.
Here it is. Monte d'Aigoual. 6,7 kilometers.
-4%
Look at the road.
We're already climbing for 20 kilometers before reaching this point. But the Tour comes from that direction.
New asphalt, they always renew the roads for the Tour.
What comes before this one? The Luzette?
-Yes.
But we're both...
That direction.
Mont Aigoual consists of three parts.
We did the first one.
Two to go.
It rains here a lot...
...but when you're a raindrop and you fall on the south side of the mountain top...
...you'll end up in the Mediterranean Sea.
And if you fall two inches to the north side, you'll end up in the Atlantic Ocean.
You'll have a totally different live.
OK, the race.
Suddenly he knows. There's going to be an attack, but he decides when.
It's like you don't want to come out of bed in the morning...
...but your body suddenly made the jump en decided for you.
This is where Tim was first. This part.
Our executioner.
From the Netherlands. Difficult stage it was.
The executioner came back later on.
That book really layered over it and it always stayed that way.
That romantic part of cycling.
It was a force in the peloton that wasn't normally there, but is very essential for the experience of being a rider.
Every rider must deal with pain and the way you explain things to yourself...
...determines what you're going to do.
If you're struggeling and think you're going to die, you won't attack.
He describes all of it.
'All pain turns to pleasure after the finish.' 
That kind of remarks.
What's your most natural reaction when you see an enemy lying on the ground?
Get him on his feet.
If you're a cyclist you kick him to death.
You have to leave the deeper things alone. If you write well, those layers will be added automatically.
Just like the people will find a café that's good.
The whole book is filled with Nietzsche... the urge to live.
Unbridled zest for life.
Every good book is driven by the story. All the other layers must casually make their way into it.
And the book must give you the opportunity to place those layers yourself
I'm sure 'The Rider' says some deep things, but what those are?
Not a slightest idea.
In one tour, he describes a single live.
That single race...
...you could say it's a completed live.
On July 10, 1960, Roger Rivière came up this same road.
Rivière was twenty-four years old, had already been World Pursuit Champion a few times...
...and was the future winner of no fewer than four Tour de France.
The 1960 Tour de France would going to be the first.
He was already number two in the general classification, with a marginal lag behind Nencini...
At the top of the Col de Perjuret, Rivière shifted down and began on the descent....
...that would have been a right turn for Lebusque and me.
The Col de Perjuret is a meaningless col. Rivière descended on Nencini's wheel.
He missed a curve, it's as simple as that.
He tumbled headfirst over a wall and floated through the air.
A man's brain keep working while he's floating through the air.
Rivière is floating there magnificently.
All his responsibilities are behind him.
Now it's up to the powers greater than his to decide what's going to happen.
Rivière fell fifteen meters. He landed in the bed of a little stream...
...covered in dead leaves.
He remained lying there perfectly still, his back broken.
His head, on those dead ferns, is glistening with sweat, his right hand is tucked onder his cheek...
...his left eye is open: it has seen everything from the change of a wheel up to and including death.
They say that afther his accident Rivière was as cheeful as ever.
He died of cancer at forty.
He was born for bad luck.
Nencini is pushed aside as a regular champion by our beloved Tim Krabbé, but he was a great champion.
I want to make note of it: he was the absolute best descender of the peloton.
And he descended so fast, that Riviére had to follow, because Nencini had the yellow jersey.
He started as the big favorite, but took to much risk.
In memory of Roger Rivière. Tour de France 1960.
We're 5 kilometers before the finish.
We recommend everybody to visit this place of the brewer of Jonte.
The brewers of Jonte.
The beer is brewed with water from the river.
It's so nice, just sitting here. Babbling of the creek.
You think we're going to make it to the finish today?
-I hope so.
Let's sprint for it.
Are we going to cook or to a restaurant?
-Restaurant.
Tim Krabbé would have cooked his own dinner.
#whatwouldTimhavedone?
Where's Lau?
Bye.
Dude!
You dirty...
Dirty backstabber.
You're a jackass. You sprinted like a jackass. What's true.
He's gearing is too big
Lebusque want's to help and goes past him, but has to force himself. So you already know...
...it's doomed. Certainly when you have to sprint for a long time.
Do I shift, shall I sit?
Just do something. But no, he stacks one mistake after the other.
I was just thinking of that part in the book, where he's talking about people that say
'Let's cross the finish line together.'
Tim had his opinion about that, right?!
You are a genuine Reilhan, you.
Good evening. How are you?
What did you think of it?
-Nice man.
Can I say one thing? I fell in love with the Cevennen.
The highlands, rough terrain, low on tourists, magnificent cycling.
Great food.
-Those little rivers.
The trout comes directly out of those little rivers.
We ate those fish. 5 out of 5 stars. But that's not why we got here.
Why was this book so great? I think I know why.
-Can I answer that?
Sure. Sure.
Well, on the back of this book it says: 'Tim Krabbé felt it, he experienced it.'
'De Kneet'
I read this book when I was fourteen for the first time.
I started cycling when I was sixteen, so I must have been fourteen when I read this.
As a child I was fascinated by demanding sports and suffering pain and all.
Gert-Jan Theunissen was my hero.
So in a way Tim Krabbé is a hero of mine, because he finished second in the tour of the Mont Aigoual.
A classic in the South of France. He had driven 300 matches already.
He really was a role model for me.
You know why I think it's such a success worldwide?
Because everyone who sat on a bicycle before and went fast...
...with a heartbeat of, let's say, higher than 165 bpm...
...recognizes himself in at least one aspect of the book.
Wether it's a professional rider who reads it for the match report...
...or is it someone who...
-An amateur.
...someone with a cycling group that rode ones a week...
...and wanted to be the first to reach the bridge...
Or stabs his friend in the back and wants to win the sprint.
The price is divided at the finish.
Everyone recognizes one thing of it and the crazy part is, it's a book of only 140, 134 pages.
Every sentence is spot on.
Whether it's in the descripton of suffering or pain and an philosophical insight.
Or maybe it's in the anecdote from the cycling history or just the match report.
Everybody can recognize himself in 
it and it 's very tightly written.
It's like reduced gravy and you know those are the best ones.
We saw the very first manuscript, right?
-With surgical precision.
Yes that's real craftsmanship.
He has rewritten the book with me in it.
And at my farewell party as a 
professional cyclist he read it to me.
That was really special for me.
So he cannot go wrong for you anymore.
No, that was really special to me
And Tim, he read that part to me
at my farewell party.
That was special right?
He starts at km seventy-two, I think it was about three pages.
And at some point the rider from 
Cycles Goff changes in to me
It was really special!
You're in the book The Rider man!
Yes.
And now we are on the finish line.
Let's drink a beer.
-And now it is finished.
Strange, how does he know my name?
And did I hear few Dutch words?
Are you Dutch, I ask him?
Not yet, he responds.
What do you mean, not yet?
Do you still have to be neutralised or something?
Kind of yes,  I have yet to be born.
I have to let that sink in a little bit.
Almost forty years old 
and yet to be born?
I heard you think, that you will later
 write about me.
Do you know the Rider?
The Rider? 
No.
Does not ring a bell,
what is it?
A book,
oh man such a good book!
It is a masterpiece and you are going to write it, 
about this race
I will decide what I write myself.
But in the back of my head something is boiling.
Maybe not a bad idea.
A book about the Tour de Mont Aigoual.
Yeah for sure dude, Tim has indirectly 
helped me pass my Dutch Final exams
I was telling nonsens about a book that I hadn't read.
And then came the rider, a book I did read. 
And I could allot about that one.
In's and out's, figures of speech, left right
and thats how I got a B minus on my Dutch Exam
