While the terraces are full, the barbecue hiss and the sun finally do its job, thousands of Brabant men are pulling in. Not to hide from the heat, but for something holy: the Tour de France. With a cold beer in hand and the monotonous murmur of cycling commentators in the background, they collectively disappear into a kind of summer trance. Women often watch with raised eyebrows. Why on earth do you want to look at men for three weeks who are painfully slow mountains?
In the podcast Ni na Lammers listening, by actor Frank Lammers and podcast maker Nina van den Broek, it clashes considerably here. Frank, convinced cycling fanatic, is not talking about the cycling circus. Nina does not understand a beet.
“You finally have a vacation, the weather is nice and then you sit in for three weeks to look at slow males. And then also listen to even slower comments. Then I think around six o’clock: oh fine, that TV can go out … And then the dick programs come over it.”
Yet that slow is exactly where it is in him, Frank explains. “Watching sports is meditative. Certainly cycling. You just disappear in a meditative state.” Where some people grab yoga, others grab the remote control and the Eurosport channel. It is the male mindfulness, it turns out.
“I have been appealing all day with friends about yesterday’s stage.”
But it’s not just the peace. It is also the nostalgia. “We grew up with Radio Tour de France,” says Frank. “Tiedelie, Tiedelie, Tiedelielie …” It’s Summer Feeling in Audio.
And the magic is not only in the sport itself, but also in the endless conversations around it. “I have been appealing all day with friends about yesterday’s stage. Sending videos to each other, discussing falls, Van der Poel who does things on his bike that really can’t … It is inexhaustible.”
Listen the whole discussion about the Tour in the new episode of the Podcast Ni Na Lammers listen.
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