Riding in the Tour de France is the equivalent of running a marathon almost every day for almost three weeks, plus climbing three Mount Everests. Each day, riders eat up to 10,000 calories, the equivalent of 17 Big Macs.
Trivia
It Binds the Galaxy Together
In April 2005, Grabowiec, a village near Torun, Poland, named one of its streets after Obi-Wan Kenobi.
No word on property values.
First Class
When Canada Post routes letters to Santa Claus, it uses the postal code “H0H 0H0”.
Maximum Mileage
If you’re really dedicated, it’s possible to travel nearly 6,000 miles in a straight line within the United States.
A trip from Log Point on Elliott Key in Florida to Kure Island in Hawaii would cover 5,859 miles.
Showoff
George Bernard Shaw is the only person who has won both a Nobel Prize and an Academy Award.
He won the Nobel in 1925 and an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay in 1938 (for Pygmalion).
“I can forgive Alfred Nobel for having invented dynamite,” he once said, “but only a fiend in human form could have invented the Nobel Prize.”
She Ain’t Heavy
At 54 million pounds, the Statue of Liberty is the heaviest sculpture in the world.
Priorities
Jack Nicholson’s contract stipulates that he does not film movies during Lakers games.
Groundhog Day
The residents of Punxsutawney, Pa., have consulted “groundhog weatherman” Punxsutawney Phil each Feb. 2 since 1887 to see whether the nation must endure six more weeks of winter.
He’s said yes 88 percent of the time, predicting an early spring only 13 times in 110 years.
Cooped Up
Mike Tyson collects pigeons.
High-Rent Districts
World’s most expensive cities, according to a worldwide 2006 cost of living survey by Mercer Human Resource Consulting:
- Moscow
- Seoul
- Tokyo
- Hong Kong
- London
- Osaka
- Geneva
- Copenhagen
- Zurich
- Oslo
New York was number 11.