This is a really interesting and somewhat hilarious article on some of the old school ideas that Tour de France riders used to use to try to get an advantage during racing. One of them was smoking a cigarette before a big hill climb which was thought to open up the lungs lol.
I can remember as a kid back in the 1960s the big debate about cigarette smoking and cancer. The tobacco companies trotted out an "expert" who went on TV to tell the viewers that cigarette smoking was good for your health and exercised the lungs. He even equated the cardiovascular benefits of smoking one cigarette to jogging a mile.
