Former Tour de France Cyclist Actually Forgets How to Ride Bike
Top Twenty Finisher in ‘94 Race Still Unable to Figure it Out
Bicycle Schmicycle. Jean Pierre Bontecou's repeated attempts to find his balance have failed much like this go at it on a Nice street.
NICE, FRANCE (Sportsman’s Daily Wire Service)— It’s been said once you learn to ride a bike, you never forget. Well, apparently Jean Pierre Bontecou has forgotten. A top twenty finisher in the 1994 Tour de France, Bontecou had stopped cycling professionally and given it up altogether eight years ago to pursue a career in advertising. Then, last week, his four year old son Claude wanted to learn to ride a bike. Bontecou confidently pulled his still sleek looking custom made model from the garage and got on. However, much to his surprise, he was unable to balance himself at all.
Refusing to give up, he got right back on but fell off again almost immediately. Bontecou was stunned. He had completely lost the reference point for balance and clumsily tossed the bike back into the garage, stormed inside his home and poured himself a briming goblet of Grand Cru Schlossberg St. Catherine Cuvee L’Inedit, Domaine Weinbach 2003 as a confused Claude cried on the crumbling steps of their 18th century chateau.
“This is fucking madness,” the elder Bontecou angrily lamented through a translator. “I was a top cyclist, and now this? This?”
A few neighbors have seen Bontecou repeatedly attempt to right himself on the bicycle in the wee (or should we say oui) hours of the morning, under the cloak of darkness, but to no avail. Lucien Mousseinne, who lives next door to Bontecou and speaks some English, could barely contain himself when relaying the story to TSD. “He thinks no one is looking,” Mousseinne said, “But I have a great view of him starting off at ze top of his driveway. He peddles and falls off right away. The language he uses is, how you say, ‘filthy‘. Who forgets how to ride ze bicycle? What a putz.”
Word of Bontecou’s cycling woes have caught the attention of the French media, but they have issued no formal reports because they are still unsure whether to label him a bumbling idiot or comedic genius.