Tour de France Stage 12

The biggest news from the Tour de France’s big debut in the mountains actually occurred thousands of miles away in the eastern province of Canada, where somewhere, someone did something that caused a break in the fibre-optic line, and thus a disruption in the cable service, right in the middle of the broadcast of stage 12.

So I missed the feed station, and first two climbs, but got to see the intro, Paul, Phil and Bob’s picks, and the last 5 miles of the final climb to Luz-Ardiden.



The final climb was everything that was promised. The contenders including Alberto, the Schleck brothers, Cadel Evans, Ivan Basso, and yellow Jersey holder Thomas Voekler powering up the hill. Simultaneous attacks by the schleck brothers to try and break the group. A sustained breakaway by Samuel Sanchez and Jelle Vanendert. Crouds and crouds of fans lining the course, shouting encouragement to their favorite riders, at times almost closing in the roads.



The hilights of that final ascent:
1. Brother Frank manages to break away from the group of contenders, and almost bridges to the breakaway to challenge for the stage victory.
2. Sammy Sanchez hangs on for the stage victory.
3. Frenchman Thomas Voekler retains the yellow jersey on the national French holiday of Bastille day.
4. Alberto loses more precious seconds on the contendors.



What stood out was that of the Schleck brothers, Frank looked much more comfortable. Alberto failed to attack and send out the message that he was serious. Nobody really stood out. Which makes me think that this years winner won’t be the first one to attack the mountains, but the last one to crack.

The overall standings can be found here.

Tour de France Primer, Making Time

This post is key to understanding how someone wins the Tour. Riders gain a time advantage, and move up the standings in two ways.
1. During Time Trials
2. During breakaways where gaps form between groups of riders



First the groups.
Each stage that is not a time trial, starts with a mass group called the Peloton. That main group rides together in a pack. At the end of the stage, everyone in peloton gets the same time regardless if they are the first rider in the peloton to cross the line, or the last.

If the peloton splits into several groups, each group gets it’s own time, but each rider in that group gets the groups time. If a single rider or a small group of riders breaks away and finishes before the Peloton, every rider in that breakaway group gets the same time.

2 Riders try to Breakaway from the main group.

If it sound confusing, bear with me, and read on.

If the entire peloton finished stage 1 together in 2 hours flat, then the time for every rider in the race would be 2:00:00. All 198 riders would be tied for first place overall in the general classification.

If 1 rider broke away from the Peloton, and finished in 1 hour 59 minutes, that would be his time, and he would lead the general classification by 1 minute, while every other rider would be tied for second.

In the case of this years tour, stage 1 saw a massive crash smack dab in the middle of the peloton, and front half of the pelaton kept going, while riders in or behind the crash became separated. This happened just as the sprinters were ramping up to prepare for the sprint finish, so the riders caught behind, including defending champion Alberto Contadore, could not catch the front group, and ended up finishing more than a minute behind.

Breakaways are often tried, but rarely successful in flat stages, however, once the tour hits the mountains, riders have an opportunity to gain significant time on their rivals. That’s what makes the mountains so important.

Next the Time Trials
Rider versus clock plain and simple. These are stages where each rider starts on their own, and rides for time. This is where we see the cool aerodynamic helmets, and frames, and skin suits. Some years also have a team timetrial where the teams ride as a group in a line. Again the team gets the same time, but riders on good teams can gain time advantages over rivals on weaker teams.

Lance Armstrong in the 2009 TDF Time Trial.

Lance was a good climber, as well as a good time trialist, and most years also had an awesome team. That’s what made him so good.

Tour de France Stage 11

Stage 11 moved into the sunny south western region of France where the conditions were predicted to be the warmest and driest yet in this years tour. Only problem is the weatherman didn’t get the memo.

Rain and cold wreaked havoc on the riders during stage 11, but didn’t dampen the spirits of Mark Cavendish as he netted his third stage victory. From listening to commentary from Paul, and Phil, I believe Cav had predicted 5 to 7 stage wins during this years tour. So far he has 3, with a couple of more very close seconds. I believe there may be a few more opportunities to come.

But now, the mountains. As the tour inches closer to Spain, the tour enters the Pyrenees with three major climbs, so stay tuned for fireworks.

Tour de France Primer Part 1

For the Tour de France newcomer, there are probably a ton of questions relating to the event ranging from how do you win, to what do the different colour jerseys signify.

I’d like to provide a series of brief, easy to read tutorials for the interested reader to transform into a longtime fan. The first lesson is pretty basic.

The tour is a bicycle race held primarily in France starting the first weekend of July, and running for 21 days. There are other races, but the Tour de France is the grand daddy of them all. Here are some facts about the tour to help understand what you are watching on the TV.

1. The winner is the finisher with the best overall time at the end of the event.

2. The race route changes every year, but always finishes in Paris along the Champs Elysees.

3. The race is broken into stages which mostly travel from point to point, although some stages, usually time trials, start and finish at the same location.

4. There is 1 stage per day, for the entire 21, with the exception of two rest days, usually scheduled after the second and third weekends.

5. Besides the overall winner, there are other prestigious competitions within the race including the sprinters challenge, and the King of the Mountains.

6. Although the race takes place primarily in France, it does cross over borders into other countries in some of the stages. This years race ends stage 17, and begins stage 18 in the Italian town of Pinerolo

That’s some of the basics, but stay tuned, there is still a lot more to come.

Tour de France Stage 10

Only one more stage left before the tour moves into the Pyrenees. Stage 10 had the potential to have yet more fireworks as the final couple hundred metres featured 2 extremely sharp turns just as the peloton raced to the finish line, as they were fighting for position to set up the sprinters for the stage win. Fortunately, the entire group made it through unscathed.

German Andre Greipel inched out his former teammate Mark Cavendish at the line. Cav is running out of stages to meet his prediction of winning 5 to 6.

France’s Thomas Voeckler stays in touch and retains the yellow.

The Netherlands Johnny HOOGERLAND recovered sufficiently from his horific stage 9 crash and encounter with a barbed wire fence, to retain the polka dot jersey, 33 stiches in all.

Stage 11 will be a last chance for the climbers to sit back in the pocket, and stay out of trouble as the sprinters take centre stage.

Stage 9

2 more days for the sprinters, then we hit the Pyrenees. France celebrates the rest day with one of its countrymen, Thomas Voeckler in the yellow jersey, and crashes, crashes, and more crashes.

A former pro rider I spoke to last year said he felt that the 2010 tour was the cleanest (From a doping point of view) in years. He reasoning was that the number of crashes early in the 2010 event was an indication that riders were not recovering as quickly after the stages as in past years, and the fatigue coupled with the nerves in the first week was causing the crashes that impacted some of last years favorites including Lance.

If you follow that reasoning, this year is the cleanest in decades. There have spectacular, and dangerous crashes on nearly every stage so far this year, with one of the most spectacular and senseless coming on stage 9 when a car carrying a TV crew for French TV, swerved to avoid a tree on narrow roads, and crashed into Spain’s Juan Antonio Flecha, who then nailed Dutchman Johnny Hoogerland who subsequently crashed into a barbed wire fence. Both riders ended up back on their bikes, and finishing the stage with Hoogerland taking the polka dots.



So after a rest/visit your buddies in hospital day, its two more days of sprint points, then the contenders, or who’s left of them, turn to come out and play.

Tour de France Stage 6

Not much to report on Stage 6, so I’ll keep it short.

Longest stage of this years race, a 5 man break that builds a 11 minute lead only to see Italian Adriano Malori, lone remaining rider, caught with less than 3k to go. Now that's Pelaton Precision. I guess it seemed like a good idea at the time, I am sure the rookie will be wishing he stayed in the pelaton when the mountains arrive.

Thor remained in the hunt for the stage win, and retained yellow, while fellow countryman Edvald Boasson Hagen edged out cousin Mat Goss for the stage win.

Only other item of note, Alberto seems to be able to stay in the spotlight with several bike changes, while the Schleck brothers are rarely mentioned. What ya think about that?

On to stage 7, and we are nearly one third of the way to Paris.