So where have all the mountaintop finishes gone?
The chance for the baying crowd to snare a rider with a musette. Crouching too long whilst catching the once in a lifetime photo - to be part of the once in a lifetime rider crash, beamed to the four corners of the world highlighting your lifetime of idiocy.
Denied.
But more importantly, what becomes of the humble promo sunhat?
Given away in their thousands to grace the vein bulging foreheads of sunburned (ironic isn't it), drunken cycling fans. The simple sunhat maintains it's steely understated grip on the world of advertising head wear and surely has been with us through the ages of road racing.
Yet who's taken any notice?
What happened to all the hat's given away through the ages?
Are there collectors of historic versions?
Do they exchange hands via a sunhat blackmarket, frequented by men in trenchcoats, sunglasses, strange handshakes and suitcases of money?
Is there a café somewhere with them framed and plastered to the wall?
Does a museum exist?
Can we visit it?
