The July 2007 Tour De France Bike Challenge

If you plan on riding a road bike, tri bike, unicycle, exercise bike, bmx, trainer bike, spin bike, mountain bike…ANY BIKE (that you pedal yourself) in the month of July then the 2007 Tour De France Challenge is for YOU!

The concept is simple, post your intention to participate in THIS THREAD in the Challenge Forum and then work out the number of bike sessions (tour stages) you are going to ride between the 7 – 29 July .

Then you will get put on a team roster and take a turn at Tour De France glory in 2007!!! Friendly banter and sledging will be encouraged BUT REMEMBER… the only place you can back it up is on the bike. As with all stage races consistency is key…

So what are you waiting for? If you ride join the 2007 Tour Challenge NOW!

The Challenge Rules:

Depending on interest teams will have up to 9 team ‘riders’ just like the Tour teams and team leaders can be decided by nomination or volunteers in each team.

I will post the initial team line ups on July 4-5 (Wednesday/Thursday) or earlier if we have the number of entries to warrant it then add additional teams or team members on the Friday (6 July) prior to the event starting. Late additions will of course be more than welcome!

The winning team will be determined but the overall % of goal amount of stages achieved by the team. In the event of a tie, the winner will be decided by the amount of team members who reached their own individual goal.

Individuals who achieve more than their committed stages will not have these additional rides counted towards their team total but please add them to the reporting so we can acknowledge your team members hard work!

Teams will need a team name and feel free to also nominate team colour/colours, mascot and even theme song. Any volunteers with artistic skills are welcomes so we can try to give every team its own jersey design to make it stand out in the peloton.

All types of riding can be included as a stage based on YOUR activities and training plan or even racing so if it’s a bike and you use pedals to power it with your legs then it can be counted towards your committed stages (workouts) for the three week Tour De France. However, riders must complete a minimum of 15 minutes ride time per session.

Throughout the challenge, in addition to the number of stages cycled, team leaders will also be collecting the times and types of sessions raced (loosely based on their TDF definition of flat/rolling, mountain and TT stages) by their team members so we can compare our efforts with those in the peloton in France using average speeds, course distances and other interesting facts from this years Tour De France.

Team members will be required to post their weekly results with their team leader each Monday with team leaders sending me their team results by Tuesday afternoon so I can try and get all tracking online Tuesday night/Wednesday morning (USA time of course!)

In the event of illness or injury team members can withdraw from the 2007 Tour De France Challenge if all team leaders agree. I will maintain a team leaders thread for any issues that may arise and to keep everyone up to date with any information or queries.

Most importantly this is meant to be FUN!!! So enjoy, encourage, inspire and have FUN!!!!