Open Thread - Wednesday, July 1, 2015 - The Tour de France Edition #1
Good Morning, 99 Percenters!
Today's Open Thread is about my yearly addiction. Bear with me. 
I bet you did not know that on this day in 1903, the first Tour de France bicycle race was run. This year marks the 102nd running of the Tour de France. The Tour was not run during the war years of World War ! and World War II. This year, the first stage of the Tour de France begins on Saturday July 4 in the Dutch town of Utrecht. The Netherlands has more bicycles than people and cycling is an every day way of life for the Dutch people. The Netherlands has made bike lanes and bike paths a priority over motorized vehicles.
In many cities the paths are completely segregated from motorised traffic. Sometimes, where space is scant and both must share, you can see signs showing an image of a cyclist with a car behind accompanied by the words 'Bike Street: Cars are guests'.
So the rabid cycling fans of Utrecht will host Stage 1 which will feature the only individual time trial of this year's event. Yes, the Tour ventures outside France for a few stages nearly every year. Last year, it ran three stages in Britain and they were among the best racing in the Tour. And I bet you did not know that the Tour de France is the largest spectator sporting event in the world. Many Europeans plan their vacations around following and watching the Tour de France.
The Tour de France cycle race - the number of spectators at recent events is estimated to be 12 to 15 million. Many other cycle races and similar events will have huge number of spectators. This number is the aggregate number of spectators over the whole three week event, but still phenomenal numbers.
Last year in Yorkshire, England, the crowds were unbelievably huge. I have watched the Tour since the mid 1980's and I had never seen the crowds like those who turned out in Yorkshire last year. The route for the Tour is different every year, so cities bid to be included on the route. The Tour provides a huge economic boon to any town it visits, particularly the start and finish towns of each stage.
The Tour de France's visit to Yorkshire has been the "grandest" opening to the race in its history, according to the race's director who said five million may have watched the spectacle over the weekend.
Speaking after stage two finished in Sheffield, Christian Prudhomme said the huge crowds seen for the second day out on the route were "unbelievable, incredible, amazing, astonishing."
The official police estimate for the number of people who lined the route of the Grand Depart in Yorkshire this weekend is 2.5 million.
I am a huge fan of this sporting event despite the negative publicity that has surrounded it in the past, particularly during the Lance Armstrong years. Despite the doping allegations, I firmly believe that professional cycling is now one of the cleanest sports around. While some individuals still try to get around the doping controls, the years of whole teams consistently participating in doping are gone. Sponsors do not want their product names to be tainted by such allegations and in the past have dropped their support for teams accused of doping, so there is an incentive from the team perspective to be clean. Further, the development of the biological passport has done much to ensure that riders are clean. While not 100% effective, it still is a great deterrent for riders to not dope. So while some sports continue to look askance at the use of drugs and steroids by participating athletes, cycling has been at the forefront of cracking down on cheaters.
Originally, the Tour de France race was created in 1903 (at the suggestion of a young cycling journalist, Geo Lefevre) by newspaper editor and cycling enthusiast Henri Desgrange as a way of increasing newspaper sales of L'Auto in hopes of overcoming its rival sports newspaper, L'Velo. It worked because today, L'Velo is decades long since defunct, but L'Auto continues today under the name, L'Equipe.
Lefèvre suggested a six-day race of the sort popular on the track but all around France.] Long-distance cycle races were a popular means to sell more newspapers, but nothing of the length that Lefèvre suggested had been attempted. If it succeeded, it would help L'Auto match its rival and perhaps put it out of business.
The first edition of the Tour de France consisted of six stages and was 2,428 kilometers long (about 1,508 miles) which made for very long stages often lasting seventeen or eighteen hours from start to finish. The original field consisted of sixty starters, but only twenty one finished. It was a grueling race, but it was also an instant success for the newspaper.
The race was an instant hit. L'Auto's circulation soared and Desgrange went down in history as the father of the greatest sporting event in the world.
Much has changed since that first Tour in which only individual riders competed and the stages were incredibly long. Now, the Tour is run over a 23 day period (21 days of competition and 2 rest days) and competed by 21 teams consisting of nine riders each at the start. The Tour de France is a team race with an individual winner. Each team has designated its own top rider and the rest of the team is there to do one of two things. First, the team is there to provide support for the captain or top rider by acting as wind block so he can save energy for later or by setting a pace for him, particularly in the early parts of the tough mountain climbs. The second thing some members of a team can do is to win an individual stage. Winning the overall which determined by the shortest total elapsed time over the twenty one days of racing is the top priority for the best teams. But not all teams have a lead rider who is capable of winning the overall. So many of the lesser teams concentrate on getting a stage victory which is very prestigious for both the rider and the team.
In the overall categories, there are five main prizes. The first is the overall winner who is the rider with the lowest accumulated time. He is the winner of the prestigious yellow jersey. The second most prestigious title is the green jersey (points title) which is given to the best sprinter. There are designated sprint points along the route and points given at the finish of each stage. On many of the flatter stages, the sprinters will battle each other at the finish which often can be chaotic. The third jersey is the polka dot jersey which is awarded to the "king of the mountains" or the best climber on the mountain stages. It is based upon accumulated points that are awarded on these climbs. The fourth jersey is the white jersey which is awarded to the best young rider, age 25 or younger and it is based upon overall time like the yellow jersey. The last award is given to the best team and that is based upon the accumulated overall time for the first three riders on each team on each stage. This video does an excellent job of explaining the jerseys and what it takes to win each one.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qt8cImriITo]
My husband and I gave up our satellite five years ago so I could not watch the Tour on television any more. I had a major sad as a result. But wait! My addiction has been satisfied because three years ago, I found that I can purchase an on-line subscription to watch the Tour on my computer. It turned out to be a great buy because I see every stage from start to finish and without commercials. Yesterday, I purchased my subscription, so I am ready to go for this year. 
The only thing is everyone knows not to interrupt me when I am watching the Tour.
I have cycling anticipation on my mind today. What is on your mind today?
Comments
I used to ride quite a bit in my 20's.
When I got my first government job I bought a new bike and decided to ride to work and back three times a week.
It was 25 miles each way for a 50 mile round trip. I used to do it in about an hour and 15 minutes on a good day (one way), averaging
about 17-18 mph. That would be pedaling hard the entire time. I rode from my home in Kenosha, WI to work at the VA in
North Chicago, IL. It was mostly flat but the wind in that area can be a killer and inevitably it would be against me in the
morning then turn around and be against me at night.
I was playing a lot of basketball also, playing in high level AAU leagues and tournaments in the Milwaukee and Chicago
area. So that was the time I was in the best shape of my life. I had the legs to be a road racer, but I was too into basketball
and softball to focus on that full time.
Shortly after that I transferred to a job in West Germany where I also hooked up with a pro German basketball team and played
for five years.
Definitely have lost interest in the Tour because of Lance Armstrong and the drugs. It taints the competition so much that it makes
it hard to take seriously.
Me too, Al
Except I did most of my riding in my thirties and forties. Back in my running days, I was a very good age group runner on the local level and I had a number of running friends who were also triathletes, so I decided to do a triathlon. Doing a triathlon meant I needed to work on my swimming and cycling. I enrolled in a swim conditioning class and invested in a very nice bicycle. In doing a triathlon, I was most worried about the swim leg, but less so about the bicycle leg. Boy was I wrong! It turned out that I was a good natural swimmer and made great progress in the class. However, try as I might, I simply was not a good cyclist. My aerobic conditioning from running did not translate into cycling and I would struggle to keep up with the pack in group rides. As a result, my triathlon career was non-existent.
I know a lot of people feel like you do about the Tour after Lance Armstrong. But the same people seem to have no problem with football and baseball where there is still a lot of steroid use. To its credit, cycling has never tried to hide the problems with blood doping and has aggressively worked to clean up the sport. All riders now have the biological passport which helps the regulators uncover any abnormalities. It has been used for distance runners and in track and field. where a significant number of athletes have been caught blood doping. I believe tennis now uses the biological passport too. It is not foolproof but it is thus far the best thing for preventing cheating.
I will say this. I do not believe the majority of riders are cheating now based on a number of observations of the riders and how they ride in recent years. There are no super human efforts like we would see in the Armstrong days. We now see very tired riders after a hard stage. Also there is a lot of pressure from the team sponsors who do not want to be associated with a team that cheats.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
Hi, Gulfgal98, I used to bike as a child ...
commuting to school back and forth til age 18. After that no biking in my life anymore. I felt a little bit ashamed about it, because at my last job, many of our correspondents and the producer and technical crew biked to work. And most of them were in the mid thirties to mid fifties.
But that also meant, you had to have a salary to afford the rent or a house or apartment to downtown DC that was in "bike-distance". Most of us locals, who live here and are not sent over from Germany to work on a contract and get a "living allowance for their rents", had that kind of privilege. So, we had to commute from further out by car, bus and/or metro. We had some dare devil camera and technical folks who came via motor cycle (sometimes in superman outfit .. :-). Downtown DC has now a lot of "bike lanes". It makes some streets very narrow for cars, and the congestion has increased for that reason. I was always confused that bikers don't have to obey the same traffic lights constraints that cars have. In addition we have a lot of bike stands, where you can rent a bike for your trips. I looked up the prices and was quite amazed how expensive they are. I don't see many people using those bikes.
A couple of weeks ago, my son forced me to use my bike. (Heh, that's what you get back for raising your kids). So, I tried it after 40 years of no biking and I felt very insecure. I would use it in a park with wide bike paths, but not in inner city traffic. Just don't trust my capabilities of managing my bike in critical situations.
I have to admit I never followed the Tour de France. I lost interests in sports since the times there is so much money involved. The olympics became politically and economically events that sometimes get me upset. I feel, that money has corrupted honest competition among athletes and the whole spectacle puts huge burdens on countries who host them. Sad that.
Other than that what is in my mind are the news from Europe. There is a lot going on and the only thing I regret is that I can't translate properly into English what I read.
Have a good day and thanks for you nice OT.
correx - most of us locals had NOT that kind of privilege/nt
In most states
bicycles are governed by the same laws as motor vehicles and are required to obey those laws.
Your complaint about cyclists not obeying the laws is one I have heard before. When I was cycling, everyone I knew who was an avid cyclist obeyed all the laws because it was dangerous not to do so.
As far as bike lanes making the streets harder for motorized traffic, I have my own thoughts on that which most here may not agree with. I think one of the biggest problems in the United States is our dependence upon individual automobiles often with only one occupant. The automobile made the development of urban sprawl possible and now we are paying the price with the impacts to our climate from our over dependence upon carbon based energy. I understand your issues with commuting because I did that myself when I worked, but we need to find a way to change our perception of transportation alternatives.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
Good day GG and all...
good read, informative and fun, GG, thank you.
We've known since the twenties that building more roads leads to more traffic, not less; but alas, the moneyed rubber, oil and automobile interests won the battle at city councils (as today, they purchased the politicians), eliminating trolley systems and the concept of mass transit.
I purchased an inexpensive bike last fall at Kmart's closing sale. Began riding on our easy community trail. Didn't ride this winter, too much work and have yet to get back out there; big note to me do do so.
Cheers to the yellow jersey, enjoy, seeing the beautiful countryside is a bonus.
may be I didn't get this right
I just experienced over and over that when I had to stop because of a red traffic light at a crossroad, a biker passing my car could cross over the crossroad ignoring the red traffic light relying on his eyes as to car traffic that would cross him, while doing so. I had asked my colleagues about that and most said if they, as bikers, would have to obey all red traffic lights at crossroads, they could as well drive a car, because it takes the advantage of being faster than the cars in inner-city traffic jams away. Most of them bike, because it's the fastest (and cheapest) commute for them. May be it's just those "misbehaving" DC bikers... :-).
I never had seen this in Germany. So I thought it may have to do with different regulations here in the US.
I am all for biking, I think I will get one of those:
Hard to fall down from that one. And I could do my shopping with it...
Bicycles and cyclists
must obey all the same laws as motorized vehicles in the two states with which I am familiar, Florida and North Carolina. If they fail to do so, they can be ticketed just as a car can be.
It is very frustrating to me as someone who supports cycling even though I no longer ride myself (due to my having vertigo) that too many people are ignorant of the laws regarding bicycles. Bicycles have both the same responsibilities under the law and they have the same right to the road under the law in the two states that I referenced. Cyclists (not bikers...bikers refers to those who ride motorcycles) who disregard the traffic laws are ignorant and are the ones who give cyclists a bad reputation.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
bicyclists
must also obey the auto rules of the road here in California, and I think it's that way nationwide.
It's possible the perception that bicyclists are more scofflaws than motorists arises from incidents like those described by mimi: bicylists blithely sailing through lights and signs instructing them to stop. Bicyclists here are not so foolish as to ride through red lights—and I don't think those that do so in DC would have a very long lifespan—but they will occasionally glide through stop signs. This, it is true, is a pretty blatant violation of the traffic laws, but I think if any honest motorist were to track how often s/he and surrounding motorists infract the innumerable traffic ordinances, on any typical drive, s/he'd conclude that bicyclists aren't any worse than the car people. Also, here, the stop-sign running is on a definite decline, because the fines have been elevated to where they're seriously painful.
That bicyclists must behave as do motorists is reflected even in the DUI laws. I had a musician friend who piled up so many DUIs in his car they stripped him of his auto-driving privileges. So he took to his bike. Then he started accumulating bicycling-while-intoxicated offenses. We were afraid he'd offend this law sufficiently so that they'd take his bike away, too. But then he entered a spasm of relative sobriety, and the crisis passed.
The perception that bikes and bike lanes "clog the road" is auto-centric; cars are bigger and more numerous, and therefore it seems to me would be more properly regarded as the cloggers, as compared to bicyles. Of course, as a person who would prefer to move around by horse or mule, I personally regard them both as cloggers. ; ) Horses don't really believe in bicycles, and most mules, if a bicycle suddenly comes up from behind, will kick it into the next county. Goats will actually eat bicycles, but not many people ride goats, at least in this country, and at the present time. ; 0
A horse will eat a steering wheel, if given the chance.
And that's enough of that.
I'm glad the tubes are allowing you to enjoy the Tour. The tubes do have their uses. ; )
:-) you crack me up - so funny - I imagine riding a camel now
I have to research the laws for DC for cyclists. I just commuted (and had to) through a lot of DC's inner old town streets. They are relatively narrow and everybody needs to get to work on time, the cyclists too. So, I guess, we all here jump the lines and lights more often, sometimes there is serious road rage among cyclists and car drivers. Probably that's the reason why they try to regulate it with so many new bike lanes. Now you have to pay attention to all the many directives painted on the street's. Dare you if you are not on the correct lane at the right moment to go where you intended to go.
Ha. I don't drive anymore much downtown. Either I get a ticket, or I get scared or I am late. All things I don't like.
camels
were actually invented in North America. They were called Protylopus, were the size of a rabbit, and lived in South Dakota. Then they decided to grow to the size of a goat. And so on. They finally became something resembling close enough the modern camel around 3-5 million years ago, at which time they spread to South America, and then into Asia across the Bering land bridge. Unfortunately, humans eventually came into North America over the same land bridge, at which time they exterminated the North American camel, together with native sloths, bears, tigers, mammoths, and many other animals that had lived perfectly happily here for millions of years, until the dern humans had to show up.
White-people humans returned the camel to the American southwest in the mid-1800s, when it was believed they might prove superior to horses in serial-killer outfits. But they were just too ornery, and the project was abandoned. Some got loose and went wild, though; the last confirmed feral camel sighting was I think in the 1940s, in Texas. (Rumor has it this animal was plucked up by Dr. Moreau, who bred it with both a steer and a human, and thus produced Rick Perry.) However, if you go out into desert country, and consume enough liquor and/or mushrooms, chances are you'll see one.
wow, now I have to contact the NSA to find out
YOUR sources. I am crushed and outta here. Thanks for the fun.
camels in Texas
Several years ago, we drove through Texas we saw camels on ranch lands. I am not sure why they were there, but we saw them on more than one site.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
those
are probably among the offspring of Rick Perry. Good idea to stay away from them. Because they can go wild and trample people.
Seems the sieg-heiling version of the Germans used camels to ferry gas to their fucked-out tanks in Russia. They marched on a road of bones.
I saw that
about camels gone wild. Very sad.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
Not so much in Michigan
It all depends....
Where I live, it is pretty hilly. Unless you are Lance Armstrong and on steroids, it's a big pedal.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
i
think you misread that.
The added notation "[t]his includes speed limits, stop signs and red lights" applies to "each person riding a bicycle . . . is subject to all of the duties applicable to the driver of a vehicle by this chapter."
Not to "except as to the provisions of this chapter which by their nature do not have application."
Here's the law cited, 257.657. Good luck finding "provisions of this chapter" that proclaim that bicyclists do not have to obey speed limits, stop signs, or red lights. ; )
Where I am in NC
This is a very big cycling area in this part of western NC. Most of it is mountain bikers who ride the numerous trails in the national and state forests around here. The local small college has won a number of cycling and cyclocross championships in the last several years. There are a number professional cyclists in the general area who use the nearby mountains to train and one pro even lives in my small town. He was on a Tour de France team last year, but has opted to concentrate on racing in the US this year because he and his wife recently had their first child.
One of the biggest events every year is a ride that attracts over 1,000 amateur cyclists from the United states and Canada each year. The locals love having the cyclists here because they tend to be older and have money to spend. That one event is a big economic boon for this town.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
MB pointed in his midday open thread over at the gos to this one
article, which illustrates pretty well, why one can get upset over the olympics.
What the abandoned venues from the 2004 Athens Olympics look like now
Look at the photos. There are many and it's really, really one of saddest things I have seen in the last days about Greece. Wow. Too many photos to show here. There are lots of them, one worse than the next.
War in the Sinai
Is this even on the action list?
Shakes head
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
bicycled New England one summer
I was 15 at the time. I think the organization was called American Youth Hostels....something like that. We met up in Springfield, Mass and did a 25 mile ride around the town the first day. Ouch! But that got my muscles into shape. The next day we headed north. The trip took us to Vermont, New Hampshire, back to Massachusetts, into Boston, down to Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard. No, we didn't bike over the water! Come on, now. That'd be silly. Took the ferry of course. We ended up in Woods Hole, RI where my Dad picked me up.
Highlights included getting to our hostel and finding it closed! I don't mean no one was there, I mean really closed. So we took off for the next one on our list and ended up doing 110 miles that day. I loved cycling around Nantucket. Those were the days when I was competent. I blew out a tire, patched it up and continued on my way.
I look back and note how fast we went with no helmets. But we were free!
Great story!
I once did a two day, two hundred mile ride. It was an organized ride and that year about 500 people rode it. We had great support with food and rest stops along the way. I was in my forties at the time but in good shape. My riding partner had a bad knee so she was basically riding one legged, so I was able to keep up with her. She told her husband to wait by the phone in case we needed him to pick us up. When we got to the turn around point, we had a choice of camping out at a local college gym or renting a motel room for the night. We took the motel. The next morning I woke up and saw my bike there in the room and realized I had to ride it back home.
I have run marathons and even once did a 50K ultra, but even though I trained for it, that two day ride was the hardest thing I ever did. And I never did it again. 
Sadly this year they cancelled that ride for the first ever due to lack of interest.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
Wkileaks released new documents revealing
NSA spying extensively on German government officials since the nineties.
The Euro Intercepts
WikiLeaks Drops New Docs Detailing NSA’s Hobby of Spying On Allies
All over the German press. Gosh, what kind of voyeur compulsiveness ...
Retirees and Elderlies in Greece - heartbreaking scenes
on the streets in front of the banks. Desperate and some breaking down crying. One man said he hadn't eaten since two days. Seen in the evening news of German TV.
what is happening in Greece
is just criminal and the banksters want even more out of the Greek people. Greed has no end for this horrible people who act like the Mafia.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy