Netflix's Tour de Force on the pain and purity of cycling's famous race

A peak behind the curtain of the 2022 Tour de France showed a rare purity into a sport that hasn't always been pure.

I’ve just finished Tour de France: Unchained, Netflix’s peak behind the curtain of the 2022 edition of the grand tour. Following in the footsteps of Drive to Survive and Full Swing, the show introduces viewers to some of the riders at the top of the cycling game with a sprinkling of some of the contenders and domestiques that make up the peloton as they compete in the grueling 23 day, 2,100km and change race over snowy mountaintop and French village and valley.

It was a fascinating watch, an insight into a sport that has been mainly cut off from the microscope of cameras and mainstream attention for many obvious reasons in the past.

With the veil finally rolled back, it showed riders at their most vulnerable and most defiant as they process one of the most demanding exerts of physical and mental energy anywhere in sport.

This was not about what makes these guys go in the morning, how they fuel their bodies, train, rest or recover. This wasn’t about team politicking as it plays out in F1, nor the egotistical mindgames and underhandedness of team managers. It most certainly wasn’t about the politicking of the organisations themselves as has transpired in golf.

No, this is purely and utterly about the sport of cycling. In a sport that has so often been unpure, it was a glimpse into sport at it’s now rare purity.

Unchained is about what makes these riders tick mentally. This is about the epic endurance they battle with, all to win in the most famous cycling race on the planet—to etch their names in folklore forever.

It’s about why they would choose to push their bodies to the very max, amidst a chaos of cliff-edge descents and hurtling peloton where one miscue could spell disaster—an end to a stage, a tour or a career.

Coming away, I didn’t feel any real negative emotion towards any of the characters presented, because this wasn’t what they show was about. If people tuned in hoping for drama and soundbites and bickering bosses and team transfer speculation, they would’ve been disappointed.

No, this was about cycling and the mental fortitude to simply go out and do it, the battle with oneself to hop on a saddle and ride for 160km every day and beat the guy doing the exact same thing next to you. Sure, there are teams competing against each other, tactics and decision making, but ultimately it was about getting to the finish line and beating every spark of feeling in your brain and body that is screaming at you to stop doing this absolutely mental thing.

In the run-up to this year’s Tour, it was a welcome antidote to the recent changing landscape of modern sport. Cycling has had high profile problems long before many other sports, but as it takes a backseat to power, money and Saudi investment funds, maybe the sport we were once quick to raise an eyebrow at is now becoming the most pure of all.