QI, Series F

[After confirming that the reason Tour de France cyclists shave their legs has nothing to do with aerodynamics or speed]

Hugh Dennis:
It's a shame it doesn't make any difference, because I've been using the fact that I don't shave my legs as an excuse for going five hours slower than the guy who won.

Stephen Fry:
Which stage did you do?

Hugh Dennis:
There's an open stage every year. An amateur stage. You do it two weeks before they do it. Eight thousand of us, and by the end, there were four thousand of us left at the end of it. I started in 2400th place, and I finished in 3400th place.

Stephen Fry:
Oh no.

Alan Davies:
You mean a thousand people overtook you?

Hugh Dennis:
I was passed by a thousand people. And it took me... it took eleven hours to do this stage. The winner of the actual proper stage when they did it the next week was a guy called Vinokourov, I think his name was. He did it in five hours, but he was using someone else's blood. And he was thrown out of the stage that night for blood doping.

Phill Jupitus:
[Laughing.] Someone else's blood!

Hugh Dennis:
But it took me nine hours to catch up to the bloke with the one leg.