The Official 102nd Tour de France, thread.

[MORTY]

I thought this years winner would of been announced by now.

 

[Indurain's Lungs]

Some nice cappage, there.. has ANY TdF done a proper circuit of France?

IE, with no plane hops, between stages?

The 1923 Tour seemed to do a good job of it - 15 stages at around 230 miles a stage, averaging 15mph!



To be fair, any of the early tours seemed to do much the same route!

 

[Horton's halftime iceberg]

Cycling podcasts all come to life around the Tour - here are 4 I try to catch everyday but alongside TV highlights its difficult to keep up

Five Live BBC did its preview from Lille yesterday

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02pcb42

The velocast is a pay service - put their preview show up yesterday

http://velocast.cc

The Telegraph - free and pay options - (which I hate to say is now one of the best) did theirs pre traveling - they have great guests and a home page picture taken next to where we were sitting

http://thecyclingpodcast.com

ITV yet to break ground

http://www.itv.com/tourdefrance/podcast

 

[Fignon's Ponytail]

poping over the channel then SB,not far from Dieppe?

Me and a mate are nipping over on the ferry as it goes right through Dieppe next Thursday. 12.30am ferry - arrive at 5.30am - caravan starts passing through town about 12.30pm - race flies past approx 2.30pm - ferry home 6pm. Going to be a fun but knackering day, all for £30 return as foot passengers!!

 

[Notters]

Well, I'll give it another go this year, and hope that all the hours of following it are not wasted, as in so many other years, by later ( or more immediate) revelations of cheating. Love the Tour, but for many years I've not been able to feel confident that what I watch each day is genuine; I wish it were otherwise, but hope I'll feel differently this time.

I look at it this way: it's still a ridiculous achievement even if they've taken everything that's going.

 

[Trufflehound]

I'm sure Utrecht will be keen to show off one of it's bike parking facilities:-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2i_pN4BKco

That's a bit tiddly. I believe the underground one in the newly rebuilt Delft station is bigger.

 

[Stat Brother]

Some nice cappage, there.. has ANY TdF done a proper circuit of France?

IE, with no plane hops, between stages?

Obviously plane hops is a new thing, but train hops are nothing new.

Basically 102 years ago the rides left the start, rode round the corner, said "f*** this" and jumped on a train
(He wrote with a fair amount of poetic license)

Continuing on from [MENTION=30266]Saladpack Seagull[/MENTION]'s comments, Le Tour is steeped fabulous stories of cheating.
Even though I'm sure it's been done already the cycling book I'd write is:-

'Cheating Le Tour'.

I'd love to see if I could complete the tour with the minimal amount of effort, by putting into practice ALL of the skulduggery that has gone on from the past.

Sadly thanks to the 1990's and Lance there's no longer a market for a jolly jape cheating my way round France.
Using trains, fishing wire & a cork, legal amphetamines, hiding in ditches, holding cars, and any number of other reasons to not actually ride.

There's a lot of similarities between cycling and baseball with how cheating turned 'professional'.

 

[Stat Brother]

Me and a mate are nipping over on the ferry as it goes right through Dieppe next Thursday. 12.30am ferry - arrive at 5.30am - caravan starts passing through town about 12.30pm - race flies past approx 2.30pm - ferry home 6pm. Going to be a fun but knackering day, all for £30 return as foot passengers!!

Cheaper than going to the Albion.

 

[Bold Seagull]

I thought this years winner would of been announced by now.

Thumbs down on grammar and humour!

 

[Fignon's Ponytail]

Cheaper than going to the Albion.

Far less stressful too hopefully. Will be sipping beer & enjoying some local cuisine all morning in the build up to the caravan - then grabbing any freebies they chuck our way. A friend works on the MTN Qhubeka team as well, so will keep an eye out for him in the team cars....the South Africa flag is at the ready!

 

[Bognor Bystander]

Just reading 'French Revolutions' by Tim Moore who is a couch potato journo who takes on most of the Tour stages. Interesting and humorous read as he makes his way around France eating Le Snickers and drinking cola with a few short-cuts/cheats along the way.

 

[Fignon's Ponytail]

Very good read that book. Used to love reading cycling books all the time, but I have so many at home now I've never opened that I've become the Lanterne Rouge of bookworms.

 

[Horton's halftime iceberg]

Just reading 'French Revolutions' by Tim Moore who is a couch potato journo who takes on most of the Tour stages. Interesting and humorous read as he makes his way around France eating Le Snickers and drinking cola with a few short-cuts/cheats along the way.

Great book, I am going to try the Ned Boultings ones for my Tour reading this year, they come recomended

 

[Horton's halftime iceberg]

.the South Africa flag is at the ready!

I have to tell our SA TDF story.

It must be about 2008, we are camping in the Pyrenses and this particular day we have got up early, bikes on the car and got close to the Peyresorde then slowly made our way up to a high vantage point.

Next to us are sitting two SA men about late 40's early 50's with a SA flag.

They were from some small mining town outside of Jo'berg and big Robbie Hunter fans talking about seeing him ride around there in crazy heat. They watched the TDF avidly and ran a business selling sweets across SA. They both had families but decided they would fly to France to watch the final Pyrenean stages and as their experience was watching the TDF mountain stages, what they thought you did was rent a motorhome and go pitch up on top of the climbs to cheer on Robbie SA most famous rider, riding for Barloworld.

They convinced the families that they could do this on business time and money as they were going to meet with a Haribo sweet seller/dealer in Marsaille. So they flew into Charles de Galle, got a taxi down the road and picked up the Hire motorhome, they got about a mile down the road when they got in a squeeze and a Bus just ripped the side of the motorhome. After all the dramatics of the accident they discover they are not insured, gulp, expensive motorhome. They talk to the families who convince them not to come home, so they ended up renting a small car and buying a small two man tent.

They had driven down to the stage and hiked up the climb on the way to Marsaille and were great company that day, one of them gave me his castle brewery baseball cap.

So the end of the story is they are excited about seeing Robbie their home town cyclists and have the flag at the ready - only for Robbie to climb off the bike at the bottom of the climb and he never came up. This is just one of many stories from the scores of people from many nations we have spent time with over the years by the road in France.

To this day I have no idea if they signed a deal to sell Haribo across SA, but I hope they did and made their money back.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

I have to tell our SA TDF story.

It must be about 2008, we are camping in the Pyrenses and this particular day we have got up early, bikes on the car and got close to the Peyresorde then slowly made our way up to a high vantage point.

Next to us are sitting two SA men about late 40's early 50's with a SA flag.

They were from some small mining town outside of Jo'berg and big Robbie Hunter fans talking about seeing him ride around there in crazy heat. They watched the TDF avidly and ran a business selling sweets across SA. They both had families but decided they would fly to France to watch the final Pyrenean stages and as their experience was watching the TDF mountain stages, what they thought you did was rent a motorhome and go pitch up on top of the climbs to cheer on Robbie SA most famous rider, riding for Barloworld.

They convinced the families that they could do this on business time and money as they were going to meet with a Haribo sweet seller/dealer in Marsaille. So they flew into Charles de Galle, got a taxi down the road and picked up the Hire motorhome, they got about a mile down the road when they got in a squeeze and a Bus just ripped the side of the motorhome. After all the dramatics of the accident they discover they are not insured, gulp, expensive motorhome. They talk to the families who convince them not to come home, so they ended up renting a small car and buying a small two man tent.

They had driven down to the stage and hiked up the climb on the way to Marsaille and were great company that day, one of them gave me his castle brewery baseball cap.

So the end of the story is they are excited about seeing Robbie their home town cyclists and have the flag at the ready - only for Robbie to climb off the bike at the bottom of the climb and he never came off. This is just one of many stories from the scores of people from many nations we have spent time with over the years by the road in France.

To this day I have no idea if they signed a deal to sell Haribo across SA, but I hope they did and made their money back.

Brilliant stuff. Memories like these will stay with these guys forever. Short term loss, long term gain.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

Great book, I am going to try the Ned Boultings ones for my Tour reading this year, they come recomended

I've read the first, and loved it. Coincidentally, I've just started reading the second.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

Just reading 'French Revolutions' by Tim Moore who is a couch potato journo who takes on most of the Tour stages. Interesting and humorous read as he makes his way around France eating Le Snickers and drinking cola with a few short-cuts/cheats along the way.

"Will the Tower be passing through here?"

I loved this book, and also Gironimo - his book about cycling the hardest ever Giro course on an antique bike in retro gear. Brilliant stuff.

 

[hans kraay fan club]

Watching the presentation of the team's live on Eurosport right now. The Dutch chap on stage in the blue suit, isn't Hans Kraay is it.....?

 

[armchairclubber]

[MENTION=435]Stat Brother[/MENTION] has anyone already set up / interested in a Tour Fantasy League this year ? Just joined a very easy & free to use one via velogames.com. Can create a league and post code if interest here

 

[Pogue Mahone]

[MENTION=435]Stat Brother[/MENTION] has anyone already set up / interested in a Tour Fantasy League this year ? Just joined a very easy & free to use one via velogames.com. Can create a league and post code if interest here

We used to do that loads, for all the races. It kind of died a death, people lost interest after a couple of years.

I enjoyed it at the time, but have felt a sense of release since we stopped - I find it more fun watching and having nothing, apart from British success to worry about. So, for that reason, I'm out.

Sorry!