By Stephen Thomas

Anyone can take a spin around the block, but only the fittest and the few can ride the Tour de France.

The Tour is the most grueling event in sports. For three weeks each July, nearly 200 cyclists push themselves up, down, over and around the perimeter of France. This year's Tour covers 2,405 miles and ends in Paris on July 27.

The Tour expects men to climb the Pyrénées at a snail's pace and descend the Alps with blistering speed. It makes only the rarest concession to weather. Rain, sleet, snow, blinding heat? Ride on, domestique. The Tour demands that cyclists ride an average of more than 100 miles per day, which they do, day after day after day, at an average speed of about 24.4 mph. Throughout the three-week ordeal, riders are granted one day's rest.

The Tour isn't just a race for the world's best cyclists. It is also a carnival that captivates a country. Every day in each town, roads are closed and intersections blocked hours ahead of the riders. First comes a parade of sponsors' wagons, from which hucksters toss corporate trinkets to the crowd. After the last racer has finished that day's stage, organizers take apart the bleachers, take down the booths and pack away the banners. Then the whole spectacle moves to the next town, trailing thousands of fans, media members and team personnel in its wake.

To the millions of French people who line the course throughout, the race is a national treasure. To the riders themselves, the Tour is far and away the most important event of the year. The scars tattoed on the arms and legs and faces of riders who have crashed and continued bear witness to their drive.

It is said that it is the Tour that makes riders famous, not the riders who make the Tour famous. Together, they combine to make compelling theater.

The quotes accompanying each photograph were found in The Quotable Cyclist: Great Moments of Bicycling Wisdom, Inspiration and Humor, edited by Bill Strickland (Breakaway Books, 1997)