The Tour de France is the world's best-known cycling race, a three week long road race that covers a circuit of most areas around France, and sometimes neighbouring countries. The race is broken into stages from one town to another, each of which is an individual race. The time taken by cyclists to complete each stage becomes a cumulative total in order to decide the outright winner at the end of the Tour.
As with most cycling races, competitors enter as part of a team. The race normally consists of 20-22 teams of 9 riders each. Traditionally, entry in the Tour de France is extended to teams by invitation only, with invitations being granted only to the best of the world's professional teams. Each team, known by the name of its primary sponsor, wears distinctive jerseys and assists one another, and has access to a shared 'team car' (a mobile version of the pit crews seen in auto racing). However, most scoring is individual, and no substitution is permitted.
Description
The Tour is a "stage race" divided into a number of stages, each being a race held over one day. The time each rider takes to complete each stage is recorded and accumulated. Riders are often awarded time bonuses as well as their prizes for finishing well. Riders who finish in the same group are awarded the same time. Two riders are said to have finished in the same group if there is less than the length of a bike between them. A rider who crashes in the last three kilometres is given the time of the group in which he would have otherwise finished. The ranking of riders by accumulated time is known as the General Classification. The winner is the rider with the least accumulated time after the final day. It is possible to win the overall race without winning any individual daily stages (which Greg LeMond did in 1990). Winning a stage is considered a great achievement, more prestigious than winning most single day races. Although the number of stages has varied, the modern Tour has consisted of about 20 stages and a total length of 3,000 to 4,000km (1,800 to 2,500 miles). There are subsidiary competitions within the race, some with distinctive jerseys for the best rider.
Most stages take place in France though it is common to have stages in nearby countries, such as Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, the Netherlands, Ireland, and Great Britain (visited in 1974 and 1994 and start of the 2007 tour). The three weeks usually includes two rest days, sometimes used to transport riders long distances between stages.
In recent years, the Tour has been preceded by a short individual time trial (1 to 15km) called the prologue. Since 1975, the traditional finish of the Tour has been in Paris on the Champs-Élysées, the only time the city's most symbolic avenue is closed other than for the processions of July 14, the national holiday. Prior to 1975, the race finished at the Parc des Princes stadium in western Paris.
Stages of the Tour can be flat, undulating or mountainous. They are normally contested by all the riders starting together with the first over the line being accorded the victory, but they can also be run as races against the clock for individuals or teams. The time-trials often have a very significant effect on the overall outcome because they separate riders by substantial margins, whereas in some conventional stages the participants finish packed together or in a few large groups. The overall winner is almost always a master of the mountain stages and time trials, rather than the more straightforward flat stages.
The race alternates each year between clockwise and counter-clockwise circuits of France. For example, 2005 was a clockwise direction Tour — visiting the Alps first and then the Pyrenees — while the 2006 race went in the opposite direction. For the first half of its history, the Tour was a near-continuous loop, often running close to France's borders. Rules intended to restrict drug-taking have, since the 1960s, limited the overall distance, the daily distance and the number of days raced consecutively, and the modern Tour frequently skips between one city or one region and another.
A feature of the Tour almost from the start has been those stages which take place in the mountains, which are physically very arduous to ride at speed. The roads that climb them are now in good condition but at first they were no more than tracks of hard-packed earth on which riders frequently had to get off and push their bicycles. Even into the 1950s and 1960s, the road at the summit of mountains could be potholed and strewn with small rocks, and falls and serious injuries were quite common.
Mountain passes such as the Tourmalet in the Pyrenees have been made famous by the Tour de France and they attract large numbers of amateur cyclists every day in summer, anxious to test their own speed and fitness on roads used by the champions. The physical difficulty of climbs is established in a complex formula that rates a mountain by its steepness, its length and its position on the course. The easiest climbs are graded 4, most of the hardest as 1 and the exceptional (such as the Tourmalet) as unclassified, or "hors-catégorie".
Some recur almost annually. The most famous hors-catégorie peaks include the Col du Tourmalet, Mont Ventoux, Col du Galibier, the climb to the ski resort of Hautacam, and Alpe d'Huez.
The combination of endurance and strength needed to complete the Tour led the New York Times to say in 2006 that the "Tour de France is arguably the most physiologically demanding of athletic events." The effort was compared to "running a marathon several days a week for nearly three weeks", while the total elevation of the hill climbs was compared to "climbing three Everests
As with most cycling races, competitors enter as part of a team. The race normally consists of 20-22 teams of 9 riders each. Traditionally, entry in the Tour de France is extended to teams by invitation only, with invitations being granted only to the best of the world's professional teams. Each team, known by the name of its primary sponsor, wears distinctive jerseys and assists one another, and has access to a shared 'team car' (a mobile version of the pit crews seen in auto racing). However, most scoring is individual, and no substitution is permitted.
Description
The Tour is a "stage race" divided into a number of stages, each being a race held over one day. The time each rider takes to complete each stage is recorded and accumulated. Riders are often awarded time bonuses as well as their prizes for finishing well. Riders who finish in the same group are awarded the same time. Two riders are said to have finished in the same group if there is less than the length of a bike between them. A rider who crashes in the last three kilometres is given the time of the group in which he would have otherwise finished. The ranking of riders by accumulated time is known as the General Classification. The winner is the rider with the least accumulated time after the final day. It is possible to win the overall race without winning any individual daily stages (which Greg LeMond did in 1990). Winning a stage is considered a great achievement, more prestigious than winning most single day races. Although the number of stages has varied, the modern Tour has consisted of about 20 stages and a total length of 3,000 to 4,000km (1,800 to 2,500 miles). There are subsidiary competitions within the race, some with distinctive jerseys for the best rider.
Most stages take place in France though it is common to have stages in nearby countries, such as Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, the Netherlands, Ireland, and Great Britain (visited in 1974 and 1994 and start of the 2007 tour). The three weeks usually includes two rest days, sometimes used to transport riders long distances between stages.
In recent years, the Tour has been preceded by a short individual time trial (1 to 15km) called the prologue. Since 1975, the traditional finish of the Tour has been in Paris on the Champs-Élysées, the only time the city's most symbolic avenue is closed other than for the processions of July 14, the national holiday. Prior to 1975, the race finished at the Parc des Princes stadium in western Paris.
Stages of the Tour can be flat, undulating or mountainous. They are normally contested by all the riders starting together with the first over the line being accorded the victory, but they can also be run as races against the clock for individuals or teams. The time-trials often have a very significant effect on the overall outcome because they separate riders by substantial margins, whereas in some conventional stages the participants finish packed together or in a few large groups. The overall winner is almost always a master of the mountain stages and time trials, rather than the more straightforward flat stages.
The race alternates each year between clockwise and counter-clockwise circuits of France. For example, 2005 was a clockwise direction Tour — visiting the Alps first and then the Pyrenees — while the 2006 race went in the opposite direction. For the first half of its history, the Tour was a near-continuous loop, often running close to France's borders. Rules intended to restrict drug-taking have, since the 1960s, limited the overall distance, the daily distance and the number of days raced consecutively, and the modern Tour frequently skips between one city or one region and another.
A feature of the Tour almost from the start has been those stages which take place in the mountains, which are physically very arduous to ride at speed. The roads that climb them are now in good condition but at first they were no more than tracks of hard-packed earth on which riders frequently had to get off and push their bicycles. Even into the 1950s and 1960s, the road at the summit of mountains could be potholed and strewn with small rocks, and falls and serious injuries were quite common.
Mountain passes such as the Tourmalet in the Pyrenees have been made famous by the Tour de France and they attract large numbers of amateur cyclists every day in summer, anxious to test their own speed and fitness on roads used by the champions. The physical difficulty of climbs is established in a complex formula that rates a mountain by its steepness, its length and its position on the course. The easiest climbs are graded 4, most of the hardest as 1 and the exceptional (such as the Tourmalet) as unclassified, or "hors-catégorie".
Some recur almost annually. The most famous hors-catégorie peaks include the Col du Tourmalet, Mont Ventoux, Col du Galibier, the climb to the ski resort of Hautacam, and Alpe d'Huez.
The combination of endurance and strength needed to complete the Tour led the New York Times to say in 2006 that the "Tour de France is arguably the most physiologically demanding of athletic events." The effort was compared to "running a marathon several days a week for nearly three weeks", while the total elevation of the hill climbs was compared to "climbing three Everests
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and every year the level of disappointment slices to the quick. Always the drugs.
In a sport that should be admired by every human and many bears.
Not all watch soccer and some even hate it. While motor racing F1 is vaguely interesting when one of ones countrypersons is driving, otherwise why. But cycle racing should be worldwide watching.
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