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Outside Magazine, July 2004
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2004 Tour de France: The Ultimate Guide
They're Dancing on the Pedals (cont.)

IN THE MIND OF Phil Liggett, pro bike racers are gladiators—"bronze gods" who "put each other into difficulty" with legs that are like "huge pistons." Except, of course, when they're thoroughbreds—"He's got the bit between his teeth!" Or, in the case of one suffering Danish cyclist at the 1993 Tour, a lower form of life: "And Bo Hamburger is, dare I say it, friiied!"

While American sports fans have happily endured the monotonous play-by-play that accompanies baseball and the lame, grammatically challenged clash-of-titans imagery that NFL commentators unleash upon viewers, a small but fervent cult has quietly formed among cycling freaks the world over. The fuel that drives their mania is called the Liggettism.

Web sites have been tracking these oracular nuggets since the early nineties, and in recent years the other half of the OLN duo, Paul Sherwen, has been responsible for a growing archive of Sherwenisms. Phil-and-Paul bingo cards can be downloaded (place a tile when Paul says "tough bi' rider" in his deep Liverpool–meets–East Africa accent), and the cult's fringiest elements have designed drinking games around the broadcasts (take half a drink every time Phil says, "My goodness me!"). Meanwhile, on group rides all over this nation, cyclists routinely talk about "stretching the elastic" and "dancing on the pedals."

The first recorded pedal dancer was Dag-Otto Lauritzen, who in 1987 was chugging to the finish on the Pyrenean peak of Luz-Ardiden, about to become the first Norwegian ever to win a stage of the Tour, when Phil gave birth to an outburst that was both hysterical and understated: "He's dancing on the pedals in a most immodest way!"

In 1998, the late Italian rider Marco Pantani, on his way to his first and only yellow jersey, was described by Phil in Miltonic tones: "He climbs like an angel!" And since then, many a grimacing rider at the end of his rope has been said to be "wearing the mask of pain!"

Though Phil is the more renowned wordsmith, his partner is no slouch when it comes to verbal zingers. In 2002, as he witnessed a heroic breakaway by one of Lance's teammates, Paul gave us one of the Tour's most memorable remarks: "And now you'll see Roberto Heras dig into his suitcase of courage!"

Pain masks and courage suitcases—is this a British thing?

"I never lie in bed thinking of what I might say the next day," Phil explains. "These are the words that come out of my brain at the time, because that's what the picture tells me. And until I see the picture, I don't know what the story will be."


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