Culture : An Icon That Is France : To the nation, the Tour de France is more than just the world’s most difficult bicycle race.

As the last rider struggled up the steep grade to the finish line, the disappointment of the large crowd and, indeed, France itself, seemed to roll up the mountain with him.

“He has lost the yellow jersey! Ronan Pensec has lost the yellow jersey!” a cacophony of broadcasters announced from loudspeakers and hundreds of hand-held radios that lined the route.

Pensec, his weathered face pale as snow, dropped to the ground and slumped against the base of the winner’s platform. Only 27, he looked decades older, heavy-limbed and haggard. His one-day reign as bearer of the maillot jaune --the yellow jersey that represents overall leadership in the Tour de France bicycle race--had ended.

True, he had nine more days of racing to try to regain the lead. But such recoveries are rare in the Tour de France. In the cultish vocabulary of the Tour, he had “exploded.”

On this day, an Italian named Claudio Chiapucci won the right to wear yellow on the next stage of the three-week-long race that concludes Sunday in Paris. Not far behind in the overall standings were two other racers waiting to strike, the Dutchman Eric Breukink and American Greg LeMond, the defending world champion.

Since it was created in 1903, more French racers (36) have won the Tour de France than contestants from any other country. But the last French win, by legendary five-time victor Bernard Hinault, was in 1985. In the meantime, the nation has become impatient--hungry for a victory that will restore its national pride.

The 2,100-mile Tour de France is the world’s most famous and most difficult bicycle race. But it is also a cultural icon that defines France, both geographically and spiritually, in a way that few other events can.

Although the course varies each year, the racers annually touch all the important regions of the country, from the wind-battered seacoasts of Brittany to the velvety, lavender-draped hillsides of Provence; from the flat vineyards of Bordeaux to the vertiginous, switchback trails of the Haute Savoie.

The race’s progress is meticulously charted in each day’s newspapers, giving the impression that the bicyclists themselves are cartographers retracing the outlines of France. In this regard, the race is a mystical reassertion of French identity.

From most American perspectives, the Tour de France is an incomprehensible spectator sport, offering roadside viewers only fleeting, blurred glimpses of sweaty men in tight black stretch pants hunched over handlebars.

Except for the rare circular stages of the race--where the riders double back to the starting point after a day’s ride--it is impossible for a spectator to see both the beginning and the end of any day’s racing. Unless they monitor progress on radios or portable televisions, bicycle fans can have little sense of the ongoing competition.

The race involves strategies and rituals as alien to most Americans as the infield fly rule is to most French. A key element, for example, revolves around the main pack of racers called the peloton.

During most stages of the event, riders stay in this pack. The peloton is the moving base from which various attacks and “breakaways” are staged during each day’s race.

Each peloton has a hierarchy and a leadership. It is an organic, moving, social structure that progresses along the arteries of France like a clot on wheels. No rider can be expected to win the Tour de France without serving several seasons’ apprenticeship in the pack.

In fact, many bicycle enthusiasts blame the peculiar personality of this year’s race on a failure of leadership in the peloton. On only the second day of racing, four competitors were inexplicably “allowed” to break away and race to a 10-minute lead over the others.

In bicycle racing, 10 minutes can be an eternity. Last year, LeMond, the American champion, won his second Tour de France by a margin of eight seconds after overcoming what had been described as an “insurmountable” 50-second lead by Frenchman Laurent Fignon on the dramatic last-day race against the clock.

And this year, the remaining 20 days and 80-plus hours of racing are focused on making up that 10-minute difference from Day 2.

In some respects, the European affection for bicycle racing is similar to the American preoccupation with baseball. Both sports lend themselves to infinite statistical and historical documentation.

Every year, the organizers of the Tour de France put out a 40-page fact book that details such trivia as the smallest town ever to host a Tour de France stage (Chaumeil, 218 inhabitants, 1987) and the average weight of this year’s bicycles (7.5 kilograms).

Dutch bike racing fan Tim Ruisendaal, 38, one of the several thousand Europeans who follow the Tour around France each summer, keeps track of a dream team of racers he has put together to participate in a fictional competition with other members of his bicycle racing club back home in Rotterdam. Like similar rotisserie baseball teams in the United States, the dream teams take on a life of their own.

In part, this fantasy side of the sport helps explain why thousands of men and women trek annually to the roadsides, set up their picnic tables and wait for the racers, accompanied by fleets of motorcycle escorts, hovering helicopters and publicity trucks.

Meanwhile, towns lucky enough--and rich enough--to host the start or finish of any day’s race segment, are transported into a kind of civic bliss. The honors are distributed according to a combination of competitive bid and geographic necessity. And the underlying politics of the Tour can be more interesting than the race itself.

The 20-mile 12th stage of this year’s event, for example, was between Fontaine and Villard-de-Lans, cities that could hardly be more different. Yet, both want essentially the same thing from their roles as Tour hosts: some priceless name recognition and respect that will lead them out of recent fiscal problems.

Fontaine (population 24,000) is an industrial suburb dominated by neighboring Grenoble. It has a Communist mayor and a 35-member City Council controlled by a coalition of leftist parties.

The main employer in town, Pomagalski S.A., manufactures ski lifts. But in recent years, the company has cut local employment from 440 to fewer than 300, aggravating the situation in a town where unemployment stands at 14%. Like other industrial suburbs, Fontaine also has problems with drugs. Forty heroin addicts are registered at local clinics.

Fontaine city officials hoped that the Tour de France might help attract more light high-tech industries to their community. “We want to leave the shadow of Grenoble and shed the negative image we have as one of the ‘red’ suburbs,” said Assistant Mayor Yves Contreras.

By contrast, Villard-de-Lans is a mountain village dependent on winter tourism. Set on a plateau between the Vercors and Lans mountain ranges, its permanent population of 3,500 swells to more than 25,000 at the peak of the winter ski season. The city government, under the leadership of a moderate former mathematics teacher, Albert Orcel, caters mainly to the whims of the local souvenir vendors and hoteliers.

And those constituents have not been happy lately. Three dismal winter seasons with almost no snow in the mountains have brought near economic ruin to Villard-de-Lans. Last winter, for example, the town’s ski lifts operated at only 10% capacity.

Villard officials hoped that the Tour would help emphasize the town’s qualities as a summer resort, particularly for the growing mountain bike business. “The Tour de France puts us on the map,” said Mayor Orcel. “Even people as far away as Colombia know about Villard de Lans.”

And what did it cost the town treasuries? For Fontaine, the right to host the race was a bargain. For political and scheduling reasons, neighboring Grenoble, which won the initial bid for the 12th stage of the race, was unable to participate. Sensing his chance, Fontaine Mayor Yannick Boulard negotiated the price down from 250,000 francs ($45,000) to 120,000 francs ($22,000).

The cost to Villard-de-Lans was nearly 10 times that amount, mainly because the mountain town served as both the finish for the 12th leg of the race and as the start of the 13th.

Most residents in the two towns pitched in to welcome the event. In his small bakery and confectionary in Fontaine, Francois Rodriguez made a giant, yellow candy jersey flanked by two nougat bicycles flaked with almond chips.

But not everyone is so supportive.

Villard de Lans childrens’ clothing shop owner Jocelyn Meret contends the race does nothing to help her business--and on the day of the race actually hurts it. Part of the problem, she said, is that bicycle race fans are mainly “proletarian.”

“I have nothing against them personally,” she said, “but they come here with a loaf of bread under their arms and a bottle of water. They are not from a class of people ready to buy anything.”

Meanwhile in Fontaine, cafe owner Stephan Janon, a right-winger in a left-wing town, sees the Tour de France as a plot on the part of the Communist mayor.

“There will be a lot of publicity for the mayor and his friends,” said Janon, “but it will do nothing to help attract new business to this town that is mostly living on welfare anyway. Anybody who thinks that the Tour is going to attract a rich American with a suitcase full of money is crazy.”