2005 Tour de France Thread!!!

[Shannon]

The Tour de France, the world’s most prestigious cycling race, begins July 2 and runs through JULY 24!

21 teams of 9 riders face one of the toughest challenges of their lives and to add to the excitement of the 2005 event, six-time winner, LANCE ARMSTRONG, will be fighting tooth and nail for an unprecedented seventh victory before he retires.

For more information, visit the following websites:

• TourDeFranceNews.com
• Official Tour de France website
• Tour de France Stage Guides

[Shannon]

Anyone wagering against Lance winning his 7th consecutive Tour win? Anyone wagering he'll be dethroned this year? How about any takers on if this will really be his last year?

These guys get their bikes up to 60 mph on some of those mountain descents, and 30 mph is pretty much their "norm" outside of sprints and descents. I've been up to 22-23 mph on my bike on a descent (I'm a newbie) and it's mind boggling to imagine screaming down a mountain on thinner tires, in high altitude (less oxygen) air, sometimes on slick asphalt and with THRONGS of people in the street waving things at you... all the while going 60 mph. You gotta love PAIN and calculated RISK to thrive in the Tour.

[Shannon]

From www.Canada.com:

(AP) - Lance Armstrong has a black eye, a cut over his right eyebrow and abrasions on his hands and knees.

The six-time defending Tour de France champion crashed at low speed during the start of a training ride last week. He lost control on his time-trial bike and sailed over the handlebars, his helmet splitting in two on impact.

Armstrong shrugs it off. Bumps and bruises are small stuff for someone who's beaten cancer and rewritten cycling's record book.

"I'm excited about the race," Armstrong said from Nice, France, on Sunday. "I feel very good on the bike, and I would even venture to say that I feel better than I've ever felt."

Take your marks, everyone!

[ploddinTod]

Kinda gets you and Justin pumped up for your training rides, huh?

[Shannon]

Hmmm... lost a couple posts, there. A few surprise issues cropped up from the server upgrade, and it looks like we lost a few posts.

In response to your post, Absolument (Absolutely), the Tour and Lance's 7th tour bid are terrific inspiration for our newfound/rediscovered enjoyment of cycling... albeit at a much slower pace and far shorter distances.

It's hard not to be amazed by a race that lasts for three weeks and covers 2,240 miles through mountain climbs so steep they're classified as "Beyond Classification" to describe their intensity/difficulty! :eek:

[Shannon]

More Tour coverage here (CyclingNews.com)

[Shannon]

Lance had been leading until today's (9th) stage, at which he has fallen to 3rd. Is he biding his time, or is this the end of the Tour de Lance?

I haven't seen any of the TV coverage yet, but I suspect this was more a case of some riders that are strong sprinters deciding to do a breakaway, and Armstrong and the other overall leaders deciding to let these guys burn themselves out -- take the stage win, but probably at the cost of having strength in later, harder stages loom.

BTW, here's OLN TV's daily Tour de France video highlights

[Shannon]

And so ends the longest running thread on WildTexas.com where the only poster was me. I'm curious why Americans (or at least Texans!) are so apathetic about the Tour de France, given the 7-year reign of American Lance Armstrong, as well as a crop of Americans who have been doing well (George Hincapie, Lance's long-time teammate, won his first Tour stage this year; and former Lance teammate Floyd Landis while not a major player proves American cycling is a very different beast thanks to Lance's relentless pursuit of the GC (General Classification) title in the Tour.

Anyway, Lance made it a record-extending 7 Tour wins this year and you can read more about him and his teammates at Team.Discovery.com.

Since we're talking about Lance, here's a Sports Illustrated collection of photos of Lance's early years. Let's hope that with his Tour cycling retirement, he can now focus more time and energy on his children's early years.

[Shannon]

I didn't realize it, but did you know that Lance Armstrong was the youngest rider EVER to ride in the Tour de France -- he was 21 at the time and was not yet diagnosed with cancer (testicular, brain and lung).

[ploddinTod]

I didn't post to this thread but I was following the Tour. I'm not really into cycling, mainly because it's dangerous so close to the Megapolis. Where do you go where it's semi-safe??

Anyway we're proud of that tall Texan Lance for his amazing victories. :cool:

[Shannon]

I've ridden 3 times in a group ride (75-100+ riders) through Alamo Heights and downtown San Antonio, after dark no less. I don't think that particular ride is really my thing, so I will ultimately start opting out of that ride. I bought a mountain bike for a reason, after all, so I plan to get more into trail riding.

McAllister Park here in San Antonio is superb and our current favorite for bike riding since it offers many (25+ miles) of trails, some of which are pretty technical and then plenty of paved riding (streets). We also have ridden the San Antonio Mission trail several times -- paved walking/biking path that takes you to every Spanish mission except the Alamo. Guadalupe River SP is too rocky, so I've only done that one once and we had to bug out after Justin fell several times and I ran over a cacti (with the bike, not my body!)

We've gotten great feedback on riding at Pedernales Falls SP (Wolf Mountain Trail) and the Madrone Trail at Canyon Lake, so those are two more we'll be checking out. As well as O.P. Schnabel in Leon Valley (San Antonio).

Lots of places to ride off roadways, and if you're in a group road riding's a little safer but you have to have a certain mindset and I don't really seem to have it (eg. don't mind sucking exhaust from cars and dealing with the occasional road rage nutcase, don't mind being trapped between a VIA bus and a wall of cars in the other lane, etc.

Biking is superb exercise for my knee -- my hamstrings are coming back slowly (where my new ACL tissue was taken from) and my quads are almost equal between my post-op leg and my normal leg.