Tour de France 101: Banana Hammocks and Jesus

What do these share? They were both spotted on the sidelines along the climb up the Tourmalet during stage 9 of the Tour de France on Sunday. The banana hammocks were extreme- of the thong variety- and were worn by a pack of shirtless Aussies sporting fluorescent green afro wigs and their country's flag draped about their shoulders. If not for the flag, I would have bet these were Americans, but I now have proof that frat-boy antics are universal. As for Jesus, I just don't know what was going on there.

Today is a rest day for the Tour cyclists, and somewhat of a rest day for me. I was out of town for a few days and missed all the action from the latest stages. So I've just been reading news summaries and thought I'd skip any form of cycling "lesson" or discussion of strategy to talk about something that doesn't have anything to do with cycling per se, but everything to do with the Tour de France: fans.

One of the most enjoyable aspects of watching the Tour during its mountain stages especially are seeing the legions of fans that line the route along the tough climbs, waiting for a glimpse of their cycling heroes, running alongside, and even touching them. In no other spectator sport can you get this close.

Ridiculous costumes and animated gesturing abound, and there are the requisite antler helmets and naked guy or two. I am dreaming of going to see the Tour in person, and part of that dream is to be included in the fan melee. I have this notion that it must be like a big, beer-tinged, international funfest- a sharing of the love of sport among loud brutes Americains, flamboyant Aussies, laddish Brits and crazy Euros alike.

Antler Guy- a US export

The flipside of this is how out-of-hand some of these fans seem to get. I often worry that one of them is going to push over one of the cyclists or let a stray beer bottle roll out onto the road. Seriously, I don't know how this doesn't happen, and I think it has in the case of a rider getting knocked over.

Dieter "Didi" Senft as El Diablo- a Tour regular

But this doesn't even compare to the avid fans of the original Tour de France races in the early 1900s. Below is an account of over-zealous fans in the 1904 Tour, who felled trees to hold back rivals and beat up others at night outside the city of St. Etienne.

In the climb of the col de la Republique, leaving St-Étienne, supporters of the regional rider, Faure, assault the Italian, Gerbi. He is thrown to the ground, beaten like plaster. He escapes with a broken finger... A bunch of fanatics wielded sticks and shouted insults, setting on the other riders: Maurice and César Garin got a succession of blows, the older brother [Maurice] was hit in the face with a stone. Soon there was general mayhem: "Up with Faure! Down with Garin! Kill them!" they were shouting. Finally cars arrived and the riders could get going thanks to pistol shots. The aggressors disappeared into the night. (1)

I'd like to think the modern-day fan, though at times idiotic in his or her fervor, has progressed to a more civilized state.

fandemonium in Basque country

1. Chany, Pierre (1986), La Fabuleuse Histoire de Cyclisme, La Martinière, France, p 60

Tour 101: Fresh Horses

All day I've resisted sneaking a peak at today's stage results, and am now reaping the benefits as I watch the drama unfold on Versus as I write. This will probably be my last entry for a couple days, as I'm off to lands where a wireless connection can find no purchase. The commentary I've found interesting today is the talk of how crazy week one of the Tour is. All the riders are fresh, all the riders are strong. It's a free-for-all for the sprinters, the climbers, the time trialists- everyone wants to ride up front. There are also a lot of riders on the road. 180 riders have started this race, but not all of them will finish. With all those guys out there, a lot of chaos and (it follows) a lot of crashes occur. We saw some of that in yesterday's team time trial, and also several isolated crashes so far on today's ride.

Recap

So now I've got the results for today's Stage 5 from Le Cap d'Agne to Perpignan. Vive la France! Redemption for French team BBox after yesterday's horrific dirt crash came with Thomas Voeckler's stage win. He attacked early and managed to hang on through to the end. The always bold Mark Cavendish came in third and was a bit deflated.

Selected standings:

1. Fabian Cancellara
2. Lance Armstrong
3. Alberto Contador
4. Andreas Cloden
5. Levi Leipheimer
9. David Zabriskie

Today's Lesson: Echelon

If there is one thing I hate on a ride, it's wind. I can handle heat and rain to an extent, but wind makes any ride miserable. Not only must you work harder unless you have a tailwind (which I have yet to experience), but descending in strong winds is downright, death-grip scary.

I already talked about the benefits of pacelining, and with today's crosswinds, the same idea applies, though it's not a straight end-on-end line of cyclists. A cyclist in a crosswind will ride just back and to the side of the rider in front of him, forming a diagonal line or "echelon" (see far right image in above graphic). The echelon will pivot in response to the direction of the wind. When you can see an aerial view of the echelons in motion, it is a thing of beauty. But I'm fascinated by road racing, so that's just me.

Photo: (PASCAL PAVANI/AFP/Getty Images)

Tour 101: A Hair's Breath

That is Fabian Cancellara's lead over Lance Armstrong, who has moved his way into second place after today's Stage 4 team time trial in Montpellier. Seriously, how do they measure this stuff? Thousandths of a second?! An interesting Tour is shaping up early on, as Lance seems poised to take the maillot jaune perhaps in tomorrow's flat stage from Le Cap d'Agde to Perpignan.

Selected standings:

1. Fabian Cancellara
2. Lance Armstrong
3. Alberto Contador
5. Levi Leipheimer

I was thinking the whole time that Lance would be riding as a domestique for Alberto Contador, who was named team leader for Astana. But I wondered about that last night while I listened to Lance in an interview at the conclusion of Stage 3:

"I have tried to stay out a little bit of the debate about who is the leader?" Armstrong said. "I have won the Tour seven times, so I think I deserve a bit of credit."

But going back to this morning's team time trial... I have to say the whole orchestration of the team time trial is awesome. And it brings me to today's lesson for friends not familiar with cycling strategy.

Today's Lesson: Paceline

The guys in today's team time trial were riding wheel-to-wheel in a tight line called a paceline. When you're riding like this, the rider out in front is doing the majority of the work by pulling the group, setting the pace, and blocking the wind for his teammates.

If you're following another rider this closely and they're providing a wind block, you're said to be "drafting" off him, or riding in his "slipstream." It really makes a difference, probably a 30% decrease in needed effort for the riders at this level.

Team Columbia-High Road in a paceline

The cool thing to watch today was the way one rider would lead for a while, then peel off and let his teammates go by until eventually joining onto the back of the paceline. Riders will rotate like this, taking turns pulling the paceline, like a well-oiled machine. It's awesome to watch and I can appreciate just how expert they are, especially after my own failed attempts at pacelining at a fraction of their speed, with various friends on recreational rides. Riding that closely behind another cyclist takes practice and concentration, and any careless mistake can take everyone down.

Nifty diagram of a paceline and various formations (like a flock of birds)

Tour 101: Stage 3 and some old scoundrels

Recap

Today's stage was 122 miles from Marseille to La Grand-Motte. Mark Cavendish phones it in at the end (sorry couldn't resist) with another handy sprint finish. Fabian Cancellara retains the maillot jaune while Lance Armstrong moves up to third in the individuals standings! Where is Contador? This should make for some interesting dynamics for Team Astana on Tuesday.

Selected standings:

1. Fabian Cancellara
2. Tony Martin
3. Lance Armstrong
4. Alberto Contador
8. Cadel Evans
10. Levi Leipheimer

Bienvenue a la Grande-Motte!

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels

Cheating looms large in major sports of late, especially in professional cycling. How about before, in the early days of the Tour, before modern doping (there were plenty of drugs used back then too, and those were legal, but that's for another post)?

Maurice Garin was the winner of the first Tour de France in 1903. He won again in 1904 but was later stripped of his title for cheating. He wasn't injecting himself with anything, but was accused of hanging onto or riding in cars and even taking trains to get ahead of other riders! He was in fact one among a number of cyclists who were accused of this. (1)

Maurice Garin

Modern day riders certainly couldn't get away with this what with live broadcasts (but wouldn't it be fun to see?). The modern day cheater is a doper. This can mean many things, but when I first started to learn about the subject, I was astonished to discover this was often in reference to blood doping. Blood doping boosts the number of red blood cells in the bloodstream in order to enhance athletic performance. Red blood cells are the vehicle for oxygen that the lungs and muscles need, so you can see how a marked increase in red blood cells would improve an athlete's aerobic capacity and endurance. Earlier dopers would get a transfusion of their own stored blood (or someone else's blood- eww) just before an event.

More recently, boosting red blood cells is achieved with the hormone erythropoietin (EPO). EPO stimulates the production of red blood cells, is easy to inject, and can boost the blood cell count for weeks.

While I don't support cheating, I would take the old-school cheaters over these modern guys any day, seeing them hopping in and out of cars that probably drove slower than modern cyclists can ride, like some farcical silent movie.

(1) The Unknown Tour de France, by Les Woodland. Van der Plas Publications.

Vive Le Tour! Tour de France 101

One of the best parts of summer is when it's once again Tour de France time, and I get to geek out on cycling even more than usual. Thank goodness for Versus channel, which lets us keep up with the action. I love it all- the riders, Bob Roll and Phil Liggett commentating, crazy naked Euros, and even the little jingle they play at the end of the broadcast when they show you the animation of the next day's route.

Most people don't realize that road racing is a team sport. A few years ago, I also thought it was just every man for himself. The truth is there is a lot of team strategy involved, and every rider on a team has his specific role, which is often one of sacrifice for the team's superstar.

I've been gradually learning the intricacies of road racing over my past few seasons following the Tour. One of the best ways to know something is to teach it, so besides just writing about what happened in each day's stage race, I want to detail an aspect about riding as a team that most people wouldn't necessarily know.

Recaps

The Tour began yesterday with the July 4 Prologue in Monaco. It was a time trial stage and Fabian Cancellara came out on top, which is not a big surprise since he's a time trial specialist. As an added girly note, Cancellara has taken over as my Tour hottie, replacing Tom Boonen (busted for cocaine too many times), and Ivan Basso before that (busted in the Operacion Puerto blood doping scandal).

Stage 1 was today, from Monaco to Brignoles, 187 km (about 116 miles). There were some rolling hills in the beginning, but the route flattened out made for an exciting sprint finish. The stage was won by consummate sprinter Mark Cavendish, from the Isle of Man, UK.

So after the first two days of competition, some of the individual standings are as follows:

1. Fabian Cancellara
2. Alberto Contador
6. Levi Leipheimer
10. Lance Armstrong

Today's Lesson: Domestique

In today's telecast there was great coverage of a domestique in action. A domestique (literally "servant" in French) is a rider on a cycling team who has a specific support role to help his teammates and the team leader. He may do anything from setting the pace, to leading a breakaway, to fetching water for his teammates.

The latter example is exactly what was shown today. A cyclist was pictured riding alongside the team car, fetching bottles of water- six in all- to carry and deliver to his teammates. He had one in each of his two water bottle cages, and two in each of his two jersey pockets. I always marvel at these guys riding alongside the team cars so closely, especially for a prolonged time, grabbing bottle after bottle of water. Even more impressive was that he would then need to catch up with his teammates to hand all the bottles off.