The Tour de France begins Saturday

http://rogerailes.blogspot.com/2007_07_08_archive.html#182141406541057724#182141406541057724

Anybody actually hear this?
Damn, I wish I had.

 

Have they figured out how to time this yet, or does everybody in the lead pack get the same finishing time, even the guy who finished 12 seconds behind the leader? If you can put a chip on everyone who runs a marathon to get a correct time, I'd think you could do it for a few dozen guys on bicycles.
And how come Sunday is Stage 1 if they ran Saturday? What's that, a preseason race?

 

Saturday was the prologue, a short individual time trial.

As for the timing issues, they don't want individual timing because that could cause some serious crashes as guys tried to jockey for position. They'd rather have the main pack all get the same time rather than risk serious injuries at the end of each stage.

 

Inky, thanks for the explanation. Got it. So Stage 1 is really Stage 2 and we're racing but we don't really want to keep track lest someone try and pass and cause a shunt.
Is this also why everyone slows down when there's a crash in midrace?
Either they race or it's a parade and everyone gets a yellow shirt.

 

They race. They race like crazy.

You'll see the sprinters wiping each other out at the end of a stage trying to get time bonuses. The "same time" method of scoring for everybody in the pack keeps that from happening with all the riders.

 

I covered the 2000 Tour de France out of a motorhome, with a crazy, hairless photographer and my future wife sleeping off her jet lag in the back -- with a detour through Pamplona to run with the bulls. I wrote long features on the guy who designs the route and the guy in last place and the guy who rubs lotion on saddle sores mid-ride, every day, for 28 days. And covered a whole bunch of miles in between.

Easily the best, most memorable, most exhausting, most scenic, most expensive assignment of my career.

Idaho, make that trip.

 

Damn Jones, you keep rocketing up the charts in my eyes. I've been wanting to run with the bulls since I was a kid. I hope to do it for my 50th birthday (in 11 years).

 

If it were a one day race, they'd keep exact time of each rider. As it is, they still award placements -- and points -- from 1 to 200, or whatever, but will award a 'same time' to those in packs because the road invariably shrinks to a width too marrow to handle 150 cyclists at the same time. Simply too dangerous.

That said, I can agree with our naysayers to an extent. I wonder if awarding exact times would force more fierce racing from start to finish with the pack being stretched out significantly, or if it would just create massive carnage on the final stretch as people crash each other out.

However, I think people who look at the Tour de France and expect to see cyclists going balls out at every moment are missing the point. It's an endurance race. It's 1,500 miles or more of hard riding, not a 400 meter sprint the entire distance.

 

I'm trying to talk the wife into it. It'd mostly be a personal trip, but I'd like to mix a little work into it. Uma watched a portion of the Sunday stage with me on the tube and she admitted it would be wonderful to see the british countryside and france.

So, if we can talk some grandparents into housesitting for 10 days or so, we'll probably make the trip.

I better start the passport aplication process now, it might take two years to get it through the red tape.

 

They're simply fantastic.

 

naaasty crash with about 2.5k to go. Gotta wait to sort out the carnage, but there were a lot of big names that look to be injured and probably out of contention thanks to one idiot who couldn't keep his line.

 

Nice to see Steegmans get the win, though. Robbie Ventura would not shut up about the guy yesterday, raving about his lead-out ability, how much it helped McEwen's sprinting livelihood, etc. It kind of has the same feel as when Hincapie won the queen stage - a person who makes a team what it is, but doesn't get noticed like the leader.