Tour of Colombia rich in tradition, competition

updated 8:43 p.m. ET June 25, 2007

BOGOTA, Colombia - It's the most punishing cycling race you've never heard of. Stretching 15 days, the Tour of Colombia traverses the length, width and - most challengingly - the height of the mountainous landscape in this violence-wracked nation.

Reaching head-piercing altitudes thousands of feet beyond anything found in the Tour de France, the race, whose 57th edition begins July 28, is a test of stamina that would likely leave even Lance Armstrong gasping for breath.

The suffer-fest's toughest stage is a 10,875-foot pass known forebodingly as "La Linea" ("The Line") - in which riders setting off in a lush, tropical valley must grind their way 13 miles up to the freezing, oxygen-starved Andean plateau before embarking on a treacherous, winding descent back into the jungle heat.

In addition to the leg-numbing climbs, there are also stray mules to dodge and the forced detours caused by mudslides. Menacingly near to the road, leftist rebels may also hide in wait, though except for a three-hour delay when a platoon was spotted near La Linea during the 1962 Tour, the presence of the four-decade old insurgency has been more feared than felt.

With a first-place prize of barely $10,000 - versus $600,000 for the Tour de France winner - the Tour, or Vuelta as it's known in Spanish, has been all but shunned by the sport's top European and American riders.

Instead, it's become a showcase for the unique brand of hardened riders known in Colombia as Los Escarabajos - the beetles - for the "beetle-like" determination that they use to haul themselves up almost any mountain.

Almost universally, the beetles hail from peasant families in the heavily Indian, mountainous regions of Colombia. Ironically, their gaunt-like, stringy physiques - the result of poorly nourished upbringings - are a source of their aerodynamic strength in the saddle.

True to their modest roots, the beetles have created a niche for themselves as climbing specialists among Europe's premiere pedaling squads, acting as domestiques, or "servant" pace setters, to star teammates, among them Armstrong.

"They're like moths drawn to light - no amount of logical reasoning can explain how or why they do it," said Matt Rendell, an English author of "Kings of the Mountains," which chronicles the travails on-road - and off - endured by Colombia's cycling heroes.

As difficult as completing the Tour may be -and only 83 of last year's 133 entrants did - for many, just making it to the starting line is a steep challenge.

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To fund a strict training regiment that begins every day before dawn, Juan Carlos Benavides, 23, works as a day laborer digging potatoes near his peasant family's modest home on a high-altitude plateau outside Bogota. Other racers must sell raffle tickets to pay the nominal entry fee. Almost all of them, before the Vuelta, will take their bikes to church to be blessed.

"My goal is just to finish the race," said Benavides, whose bare-boned team Sabana Centro trains outside Bogota for its first-ever Vuelta.

Part of the race's allure - and the reason why riders well into their 40s still compete - is its rich tradition. Nowhere else in Latin America does cycling figure so prominently in the national culture.

In the 1950s and 1960s, winners were feted like superstars - with one legend, Ramon Hoyos, being immortalized in 1955 in a series of chronicles written by then journalist and future Nobel Prize-winning author Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

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