I assume you meant to ask, "What is a simile <em>in </em>"The Hands of an Angry God." So, one example is the simile in which the author compares God's wrath to a terrible flood (“The wrath of God is like great waters that are dammed for the present...”).
The central idea refers to the number of existing women to see the show, which outnumbered the number of men. Despite the fact that cycling is not considered a sport for women, attendance at the show suggests the great number of followers that this sport had in itself.
