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Cycling Embraces Risk, Reward and the Super Tuck

Lionel Bonaventure/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

ARREAU, France — In this tiny commune in the Pyrenees, granite massifs and blue-green forests rise sheer, and we stand, myself and a crowd of several hundred, munching baguettes and sipping wine. We hear a great shout and then glance up the steep road to our east, where hurtling around the corner is …

… an aquamarine-clad human projectile.

Pello Bilbao of Team Astana is hugging the top cylinder of his bike, his butt off his seat, his head and upper chest extended over the front bars, looking like a tree sloth on a favorite branch.