Two shady promoters of a bicycle race need a signalman at each intersection of the course, so they hire pensioners on the cheap, give them an arm band and a stick, and tell them to stop all traffic while the bikes are going by. The film follows one very old man from the day he's hired in his one-room apartment in a rooming house to the end of the race the next day. He takes the job seriously, getting his dress shoes from a locked cabinet, wearing a tie, and standing rigid at his post, the intersection of a rarely-traveled country road. His rigors are interrupted by a groom and best man on their way to a wedding and by a hedgehog.