So The Tour de France is without a doubt the world’s greatest sporting event. It would be easy to say that the Tour is a monumental inconsequential undertaking: 200 or so idiots on bikes intentionally putting themselves through extremes of pain, heat, cold, mountains, crashes etc. And to an extent it is a contest in pointless suffering! But to leave it at this would fail to recognise the Tour for what it truly is. The Tour is a potent cocktail of brute strength, tactics, amazing scenery, chivalry, teamwork, endurance and a ridiculous amount of pain that punishes you all day every day for a whole month! Australians however are widely uneducated in the Tour and so constantly miss important subtleties. It is very similar to the way that American’s (such as Jed Bartlett) don’t like 5 day Test matches in Cricket, they don’t understand the subtleties and therefore can’t appreciate the sport! It’s the same with Australian’s and the Tour!

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Nudged into the race by manager Les Harrison, Folkard lapped up his first experience on a bike three times as powerful as the one he has ridden during his rise through the UK circuit, and dazzled a packed American crowd to tear through the field... Harrison, manager of the Team Minards Pavlou Solicitors race team, said: “James looked like he had been racing a superbike for years after only 20 laps on the bike. “We had no tyre warmers with us and the rear tyre was past its best. Folkard kicked off the month in the USA by testing a bike which could be used for future endeavours Stateside and during his visit, the 20-year-old took the opportunity to race at New Jersey Motorsport Park as part of a Labor Day race card.

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