Tour Previews and Discussion

That was a pretty impressive analysis.  I am looking forward to reading your GC analysis and predicitions.

Last year, I saw a really nice Tour de France preview magazine/book/whatever that was really cool.  I would have bought it, but the TdF was almost over before I saw it.

This year I have made it my mission to understand "the Tour."  Last year Steph and I spent hours trying to figure it out. 

Get ready for a whole mess of stupid questions. 

For anyone that wants to understand the TdF better, you can just google it.  There is a wealth of information on the internet.  I would learn the terms, mtn classifications, and the different jerseys.  A little history doen't hurt.

Here is my favorite tidbit.  I think it is pretty funny.  Without looking it up, who knows what the Lanterne Rouge is?

Post some of your questions about the Tour here. I am going to do an additional preview piece titled "The First Time Tour Viewers Guide" and I want to make sure that I answer your questions. If you don't feel comfortable posting your questions here you can email them to me tricoachbrett2005 at yahoo.com

For those of you local, we need to have a Tour viewing party somewhere (preferably in HD). Suggestions?

What is a team trying to accomplish each day?  Is it to finish first or stay in the pack?

Lanterne Rouge is French for Red Lantern.  The Lanterne Rouge is the last person that actually finishes the race.  This is not an official designation.  As a matter of fact the TdF organizers discourage any reference to the Lanterne Rouge.  The reason that I find it so amusing is because in years past, people that could not win would actually go to extraordinary means to be the Lanterne Rouge because they could make a lot of money in appearance fees in subsequent races that year.  The Lanterne Rouge has developed a cult type following.  Here are a couple of interesting articles disucssing the Lanterne Rouge.

http://www.byjamesraia.com/articles/8/1/Lanterne-Rouge-The-Honor-Of-Being-Last-In-The-Tour-de-France/Page1.html

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121691877739881571.html

Belgian Wim Vansenant has became the first person to be the Lanterne Rouge three times by being the last person to finish last year.  Part of the reason for the Lanterne Rouge developing a cult following is the thought of what it takes to hang on to such a tough race as opposed to just dropping out.  final note-  there is a time cutoff each day, if you do not finish within a certain percentage of the day's leader you are cut from the race.

Brett here is a question for you.  It is not really about understanding the race, but I was trying to find out the difference in mph of the Lanterne Rouge and the winner.  I looked up enough information once to figure it out, but I am having trouble finding the times of the last guy in the different GCs now.  It seems to me the difference is almost always less than one mph although over 2500 miles that adds up to a lot of hours.

As for your second question, what about Taco Mac?  That assumes they show it, but I am sure that would if they thought that it would draw a big crowd.

Brett, Brian, anyone else correct me if you feel I say anything that is not correct, because I am not an expert by any means but to answer Doug's question.  Different teams are trying to accomplish different things on different days.  That was real clear wasn't it.  

Of course everyone would like to finish first everyday, but that is not possible.  The race is designed to be an all around event that includes sprints, climbs, time trials, and teamwork.  Also, you get tired  after a few weeks of riding so you have to plan your strategy to pick the days that you feel you have the best chance of advancing your cause.

As with most sports, a lot of it comes down to money which comes from advertisers.  Obviously winning the whole shabang or winning stages or winning the different jerseys are all goals.  So on different days, different teams have better shots at glory depending on the strength of the team.  Some have better sprinters, some have better climbers, some better GC guys so any given day one team may want to win a stage or just hang tight and wait for their day.   One interesting thing to note is that if you have a weak team, you may not have a chance at winning ANYTHING.  These guys just want TV time for their sponsors.  They want their riders to either lead a breakaway or at least be a part of it.  This gives their sponsors "air time" and is an important part of the race because money is what keeps the race (and all professional sports) going. 

So it is really about prestige and what part of that you can grab.  Obviously you want to win the whole race, if you can't do that, you want to win stages or one of the jerseys. If your team is not strong enough to win anything, you want recognition for your team and sponsors by leading breaks or being in them.  That accounts for why the peleton lets some breaks go and chases others down.  It depends on who is in the break and what they want out being in the break.   If they are after a stage or GC position, they may be chased down.  If they are just after their "fifteen minutes" of fame, they are probably allowed to stay away for awhile.

All that being said, sometimes nobody except the team itself can figure out why the team is doing what it is doing on a particular day.  If you follow the whole race on TV, you will hear then commentators trying to figure what the goals of a team are for a particular day.

sorry

Neal you pretty much nailed the answer to Doug's question.

Taco Mac would be great if we can get a good group to go and watch. The only thing is that a road stage is 3-4 hours of TV time. A Time Trial would be a better alternative, they are a bit shorter.

Great question Doug, you will have to wait for tomorrow for my answer

First Tour rider OUT of the Tour...Dekker tests positive for EPO and is gone...sad...

 http://velonews.com/article/94103/newsflash-dekker-positive-for-epo

This is going to hurt Silence-Lotto.

Yeah...good questions, Brian.  In light of the problem with doping in this sport, seemingly much more prevalent relative to other sports (with possible exceptions being football/baseball), I'd say it is fair to test back to some time frame - 4 years?, 6 years?, other?  A cheat once is likely to be a cheat again and if it takes advances in technology to identify the "once" - however many years back - than so be it.  This said, if a sample taken 6 yrs ago now tests positive and more recent tests have come up clean, do you ban the rider or do you simply put him on some type of probation, including all samples.  If samples taken during probation come back positive several years later, yeah, ban the cyclist - perhaps for life.

Yes, the sport does need to be cleaned up as you described and, unfortunately, I believe the process is still unfolding.  The sport may need to contract even more before blossoming again.

Perhaps they are hoping to finally catch Lance.

I think Lou has the right idea.  They should put a guy on probation and test him more if he comes up positive for traces of doping years ago.  It's not fair to expect a guy to be able to produce evidence to defend himself for something that happened 8 years ago. 

Interesting tidbits, like color analysis on the NFL shows, make the tour much more interesting to me.  I will answer my own question here.  It took me a while to look up but I found the results of the 2005 GC  http://www.ridemedia.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/tour-results-2005.pdf

The difference in Lance's average in 2005 @ 25.88 mph, which I think is the overall fastest average time for a TdF and the Lanterne Rouge (Iker Flores) was about 1 mph.  Flores averaged 24.71 mph.  I had done this before and it was less than 1 mph which I find pretty amazing that the average times are that close.  Don't take my word for it.  Check the numbers.  I am sure Doug will because he is more anal than I am. Another interesting tidbit here is that Wim Vasenenant was next to last.  If he had been about 11 minutes slower he would have added to his record of three Lanterne Rouges.

One last thing, the book/magazine/guide that I mentioned in my first post on this thread was put out by VeloNews.  I found a link to a guide for this year yesterday, but I can not find it today.  It was an excellant guide anyone wanting to understand the tour and stage racing for $9.00.

Ditto.

I am all for testing and getting the dopers out, but I am not sure about the validity of testing that far back.  You have a point about Lance. I do not trust the French testing agencies nor I am sure that their methods are completely accurate.  I did a fair amount of reading about their methods when they disqualified Landis.  I think they should constantly be on the offensvie for doping, but going back that far seems like too much room for errors, contamination and as you said a lack of ability to defend yourself.

Whooo... that is pretty bold.  Who do you have winning it?

I think it is pretty open this year.  My guesses are Contador, Schleck, or maybe Sastre.  I would never count Lance out though.  I thought he had a pretty respectable ride at the Giro, particularly after the broken collarbone.  I was a bit disappointed at Levi in the Giro.

I do think Astana has the strongest riders, but I am not so sure about putting that many stars on one team.  It depends on whether they get behind one leader early in the tour and all work together.  I think Saxo Bank (old CSC team) may be the strongest team.  I am really pulling for Garmin.  They have a descent team with six American riders.