The Prologue - Wiggins Declares Himself the Favorite

The Prologue for the 2012 Tour de France is in the books, and Bradley Wiggins (Sky) has emphatically declared himself the man to beat. Riding toward the end of the day, he was six seconds slower than Sylvain Chavanel’s time at the mid-point. But he turned on the after-burners over the rest of the course, and nipped Chavanel’s final time by a half-second to take the lead. Ten minutes later, Fabian Cancellara (RNT) beat Wiggins’ time by seven seconds to win the stage and the yellow jersey for tomorrow. But Cancellara is not a threat to keep the GC prize all the way to Paris. The bigger threat on that front should have come from Cadel Evans (BMC), the defending GC champion and the last rider of the day. Alas, Cadel finished ten seconds slower than Wiggins.

The GC battle is not decided already, of course, but Wiggins is in the driver’s seat. His lead over his most likely challengers ranges from the 10" over Cadel Evans to 31" over Frank Schleck (RNT), with 10 or 15 possible contenders somewhere in between. It’s a long three weeks before Paris. We’ll have to see if anyone can shake up the standings in the mountains or in two more much longer time trials. Team Sky will be protecting Wiggins all the way, as they did in the Dauphiné, and any challengers will need an even stronger team effort to defeat him.

This short stage of the race had no real bearing on the battle for the sprint points and the green jersey. However, one hopeful sprinter, Peter Sagan (Liq), was disappointed in his result. He has made a name for himself this year winning several of these prologue time trials. But today, he nearly crashed on the course, had to un-clip his shoe from the pedal, and ended up way back in the pack at minus 24" compared to the winner. Similarly, GC hopeful Tony Martin (OPQ) had a flat tire, had to exchange bikes in the middle of the race, and finished at minus 23".

In my post on the Giro d’Italia, I identified Ryder Hesjedal (Garmin) and Joaquim Rodriguez (Katsuha) as possible GC contenders. Hesjedal is only 11" behind Wiggins, so he could still be a factor, but I missed the boat on Rodriguez. He didn’t even make his Katusha team’s nine-man roster for the Tour de France. Ooops! My bad.


I predict that stages one and two will involve breakaway attempts that will be reeled in by Liquigas-Cannondale (for Peter Sagan) and Sky (for Mark Cavendish), and possibly by other teams with sprinter hopefuls. These two stages should end with fierce sprint battles, and we’ll see if Cavendish will continue his dominance.

Stage three, has some steep climbs near the end that will not be conducive to a sprint finish. Look for a breakaway to succeed (either an all-day break, or a late break, or both), and possibly some shake-up among the GC contenders. Wiggins and Evans should be able to protect their positions, unless they go after each other. If that happens, there could be fireworks!

Levi Leipheimer (Omega Pharma-Quickstep) is still in the hunt for the GC yellow jersey, with just a 21-second deficit to Wiggins after the Prologue.  This photo shows Levi (yellow jersey) in the Park City Criterium, Tour of Utah 2010.

It's Just Not Cricket!

Forbes Magazine recently published a list of the top 100 athletes world-wide, based on compensation. It says "world-wide," so you would think that would include cyclists, right? Well, I looked, and there wasn’t one bike racer! Not one! The bottom of the list came in at a mere $16.6 million. Chump change! You might as well get a desk job, if that’s all you make. The most embarrassing part was that two cricket players from India made the list, but no cyclists! Cricket! Curling, or darts, maybe. But cricket? The top football player got $26 million just in salary, without playing for a whole season. A golfer, chased up a tree by a wedge-wielding wife, could lose more, just in endorsements, than the $16 million minimum. The top 100 athletes combined made $2.6 billion last year! There are about 30 of the world’s poorest countries with GDP lower than that! But no cyclists in the top 100.

So, how much do cyclists make? CyclingTips, A website out of Australia, pegs the minimum salary for riders on the top pro teams at about $44,000. That goes up as the riders achieve good results, especially in the most prestigious races. For the top riders, the salaries are listed in the range of $1-3 million. With endorsements, appearance fees and other earnings, maybe they double that? Still, a long ways from making the Forbes Top 100!

This has caused me to noodle on how to better monetize the sport. Let’s assume that they already maximize the amount they can make from sponsorhips and endorsements.  Basically that is advertising revenue. And I’m sure that the Tour de France and a few other big races already get as much as they can from broadcast revenue. Again, that is advertising-based.

Why can’t they create a gate revenue model? In what other sport do the spectators get to watch for free? (Well, besides your kid’s Saturday soccer games, of course.) I realize it would be hard to charge admission for spectators all along the full length of a 200-mile stage of the Tour de France. But it would be feasible to block off large sections at the start and near the finish line, or at the summits of the big climbs, and to charge admission for those areas. People spend thousands of dollars in air fare, car rentals, hotels, meals, etc. to come to France for the Tour. An extra $20 or so for a prime spot to watch the race would be nothing to them. In fact, it could make the experience BETTER! They could reserve the spot in advance, and not have to camp-out to hold the space. Crowd control would be more civilized. Racer safety would be improved. The barriers marking the reserved space could carry advertising (more revenue!) The organizers could sell concession licenses for beer, food and souvenirs. They could rent nearby farm pastures for paid parking, with a shuttle to take the spectators to their reserved spots. This would reduce congestion and improve the experience. The possibilities just keep expanding! I should get a royalty for these ideas!

Remember, you heard it first right here.

Park City Criterium, Tour of Utah 2010.  Notice the crowd barrier with advertising for Bingham Cyclery.  It would not be that hard to charge admission for such a prime viewing spot.

Belgium Has a Split Personality!

The Tour de France starts tomorrow in Liège Belgium (or Belgique to the French). The northern half of Belgium is called Flanders, site of bloody World War I battles that inspired the poem: "In Flanders fields the poppies blow, Between the crosses. row on row." Well, as you might expect, the people of Flanders speak Flemish. But Flemish is really Dutch; they’re just too proud to admit it. Or they don’t like to call it Dutch, because it sounds too much like Deutch (German), which it almost is anyway. And of course the real Dutch live in Holland, but just when you figure out where Holland is on the map, you see that it is really called the Netherlands. Meanwhile, the Dutch-speaking Flamands (Flemish) live in Belgium, which they call België. And their capital city is Brussel, which the French-speaking Belgians call Bruxelles, and the English and Americans call Brussels. (Finally something the Yanks and Brits agree on!)

Now most of the rest of Belgique is called Wallonia, and the people are Walloons, and they speak French, because for a long time Belgium was ruled by Spain. (I know, it doesn’t make any sense! Just stay with me.) But the French speakers in Bruxelles are mostly not Walloons. They are some other brand of French. Which brings up the point that Brussel/Bruxelles is smack in the middle of Flanders, and both Flemish and French are the official languages. It is the capital of België/Belgique by vote of the Flemish and Bruxelles French, to the consternation of the French-speaking Walloons.

There really is no point in all of this, except that Liège is in Wallonia, the Walloon south-eastern portion of Belgique, and that is where this year’s Tour de France will start on June 30. Wallonia also includes Luxembourg, but it is now a separate country (if a Grand Duchy qualifies as a country). And of course Luxembourg is the home of Andy and Frank Schleck and the RadioShack-Nissan-Trek cycling team. (How did those Walloon, French-speaking boys get such German sounding names?)

Let the Tour begin!

Beautiful baptismal font in the main cathedral of Liège.  It has nothing to do with cycling, but it is one of Liège's cultural treasures.

A 16th Century restaurant in Old Liège.  The sign over the door would not lie, would it?

How to Lose the Tour de France

We’ve been talking about how to win, and the different prizes. Let’s talk about how the Tour can be lost.

The most dramatic way is to suffer an injury in an accident. Every year several riders are forced to withdraw with broken ribs, collar bones, wrists, etc. There have even been some fatal accidents. If you watched the 2011 Tour, you may remember the spectacular crash where a car bumped Juan-Antonio Flecha, whose fall somersaulted Johnny Hoogerland into a barbed wire fence. Blood everywhere! Ripped his pants clear off!  Miraculously both were able to continue, but they each dropped about 20 places in the standings. Alexandre Vinokourov was not so lucky on that same day. After flying into a ravine full of trees on a wicked downhill crash, he had to leave the race with a broken leg.

Of the 198 riders who started the 2011 Tour, 31 failed to finish. Most from injuries, a few from fatigue, discouragement or illness, and some for being just plain too slow! You see, there is a rule that riders must finish the race within a certain time delay after the first rider crosses the line. Otherwise, they are not allowed to continue the next day. Four riders suffered that embarrassment in 2011.

Only one rider wins the yellow jersey, or the other prize jerseys. Of those who try for one of those prizes, most do not lose by leaving the race, but for more subtle reasons. They might have just one bad day in the mountains or in a time trial. They might get caught up in an accident-even without injuries–at an inopportune time in a critical stage. They might lose an essential teammate. Or their best might just not be quite as good as their chief competitor’s best.

Curiously, there is one loser in every Tour de France who wins a special prize. He is known as the Lanterne Rouge (the Red Lantern). It is just what you think–the red lantern hanging on the end of a train’s caboose. To "win" this prize, he must finish the race, but he must come in last place. It actually has some value–perverse bragging rights, post-race appearance fees, name forever remembered, etc. (No one remembers who was second-to-last!)

In 1979 two riders were neck-and-neck for last place going into the final time trial. They both rode as slow as possible, and one was 1 minute 40 seconds slower than the other–slow enough to win the Red Lantern. But wait! He was outside the time limit, based on the winning time for that stage. He was disqualified from the race, and the second-slowest turtle won the coveted prize after all. So, we only remember the name of Gerhard Schönbacher.

It seems like there ought to be a moral to this story, but, for the life of me, I can’t figure out what it is.

Is this our very own Matt Jensen, rolling up to the finish line of  l'Alpe d'Huez to collect the coveted Lanterne Rouge?  Congratulations, Matt!

Swiss Prelude to the Tour de France

Another prelude to the Tour de France was the Tour de Suisse (Tour of Switzerland) from June 9 to June 17. Like the Dauphiné, this race attracts most of the top teams, and some of their top stars, but not all. So, it helps us see who is doing well and who is not. But it doesn’t give us all of the head-to-head match-ups that will eventually play out in the "Big One."

Like the Tour of California, this race was a showcase for sprinter Peter Sagan (Liquigas-Cannondale), who won the short prologue time trial plus three sprint stages. Very impressive! Off-the-charts impressive! But wait! Again, Mark Cavendish (Sky) was not there. So, their head-to-head battles in July should be dynamite! Will we still be talking about this year’s Tour de France sprint battle 40 years from now, like we do the Foreman-Ali "Rumble in the Jungle" of 1974?

Almost makes us forget to focus on the GC race, doesn’t it? Well, the Swiss Tour had a surprise winner of the yellow jersey. At least it was a surprise to me. Alberto Rui Costa (Movistar) captured the yellow jersey early, by winning the second stage, and he never let go! Frank Schleck (RadioShack-Nissan), after dropping out of the Giro d’Italia, was on Costa’s heels the entire race, but could never overtake him. In the final stage, Schleck made a promising attack on the second-to-last mountain, but it proved to be too early. Costa and the other leaders caught Schleck before the last mountain, and Costa was able to defend his lead to the end with the strong help of his teammate Alejandro Valverde. Levi Leipheimer (Omega Pharma-Quickstep) was always near the leaders and finished third.

What does this tell us? Is Frank Schleck capable of challenging for the TDF yellow jersey? He has a strong team behind him. (I’ve seen reports that Chris Horner has been moved from reserve to starter, but that is not yet reflected on the TDF website. Horner would be an asset.) Is Levi Leipheimer sufficiently recovered from a broken leg earlier in the season to challenge for the yellow jersey? He’s listed in top position for his team on the Tour website. 21 stages of the most intense physical therapy imaginable–if it doesn’t destroy him and his leg, maybe it will heal him! Is Costa the real thing? He’s listed below Valverde on the Movistar roster. Did they switch places in this race so Costa could win some glory? Which one of them will ride as team leader for GC honors in the Tour?  And which one will sacrifice his body to protect and help the leader? Robert Gesink (Rabobank) was in 4^th place overall in Switzerland (see my earlier post on the Tour of California). Will he make a credible challenge for the TDF yellow jersey?

The suspense is building. Can’t wait for Saturday. Stay tuned.

Nyon, Switzerland, looking out over Lac Leman.  (Only in Geneva is it called Lake Geneva.)  Stages of the Tour de Suisse took place along the far shore of the lake, and also in the Jura Mountains behind the photographer in this picture.

What is the Dauphiné?

Dauphin (pronounced "dough-fan") is the French word for dolphin. An early ruler of the area around Grenoble had a dolphin on his coat of arms, so his nickname, Dauphin, became a title for the regional ruler. During one period the region was sold to the king of France who gave it to his son, the heir apparent to the throne, and the title Dauphin came to mean the heir to the king. This diverse and beautiful region around Grenoble–from the Rhône River into the central Alps became known as the Dauphiné (pronounced "dough-fee-nay"). Years ago, a local newspaper organized a bike race in the region which is now called the "Criterium du Dauphiné," or sometimes just the "Dauphiné." It is an important race each spring setting the stage for the Tour de France.

So, what did this year’s Dauphiné tell us about the upcoming TDF?

First of all, the Dauphiné is only 8 stages, compared to 21 for the Tour de France. Many of the teams for the Tour participate in the Dauphiné, but not with all of their top stars. The teams use this race as a place to let some of their younger riders develop by mixing with some of the super-stars. But some of the sport’s top riders do contest the Dauphiné as a warm-up and to build their brand for the Tour.

Team Sky entered several of their top riders and authoritatively put their stamp on this year’s Dauphiné. In doing so, they put the cycling world on notice that Bradley Wiggins claims the rank of favorite for the Tour de France. His most fierce challenger in the Dauphiné was Cadel Evans (BMC), the defending GC champion from last year’s TDF. Evans finished a respectable 3^rd place overall, but Wiggins took 1^st, with two teammates at 2^nd and 4^th. The other teams in the Tour got a dramatic lesson on the value of support riders in carrying the star to victory.

Cadel Evans remains among my favorites for the Tour’s yellow jersey, but he will need stronger support from his team. Less impressive among GC contenders coming out of the Dauphiné were Vincenzo Nibali (Liquigas-Cannondale) and Tony Martin (Omega Pharma-Quickstep). Andy Schleck (RadionShack-Nissan) had high hopes in this race, and for the TDF, but crashed and injured his back. He eventually withdrew from the Dauphiné, and will be unable to ride the Grand Tour in July.

One rider who will not appear in the Tour de France this year, but who made a great first impression in the Dauphiné was Australia’s Luke Durbridge (Orica-GreenEdge). He won the prologue time trial, beating both Wiggins and Evans. Earlier in the year, he won the GC prize and the best young rider prize in the Circuit de Sarthe (a stage race in the Loire Valley of France), including a stage win in the time trial. At just age 21, he is also the reigning national time trial champion for Australia. He is a rider to watch for in future editions of the Tour de France. Remember, you heard it first right here!

The Dauphiné did not shed much light on the sprinting for the Tour. Bradley Wiggins’ star teammate for the sprints is Mark Cavendish who skipped this race. Instead, Cavendish threw down his gauntlet in the Giro d’Italia. With Cavendish in the sprints and Wiggins going for the GC, Team Sky looks primed to dominate this year’s Tour de France.

But don’t crown them just yet. Remember, lots of big names were absent from the Dauphiné, it was only an 8-stage race (not 21), and the more one team tries to dominate, the more the other teams work together to neutralize the bully. Which other teams or riders do you think will answer the challenge from Team Sky?

Some of the switchbacks in the middle section of the Alpe d'Huez.  This beautiful, challenging, classic Tour de France climb is in the heart of the Dauphiné region of France.  (But don't expect to see any dolphins.)

The Giro d’Italia - a Predictor for the Tour?

The Giro d’Italia is one of the three "Grand Tours," along with the tours of France and Spain. It is almost as old as theTour de France, and comparable in many ways. Taking place through most of the month of May, what can it predict for July? I gleaned three main themes:

1. Mark Cavendish (SKY) is still the presumptive favorite for sprint king;
2. Frank Schleck (RNT) and several other expected GC contenders may be only pretenders; and
3. Ryder Hesjedal (Garmin) and Joaquim Rodriguez (Katsuha) could be contenders for the yellow jersey.

Cavendish won three flat stages, and could have won 6 with a little luck–and with his old lead-out train. Too bad for him, the old team folded, and his new helpers are not as experienced. Some of them did not even survive to the 18^th stage which Mark might have won with his old crew. Matt Goss (Orica-Greenedge) captured one stage, and was close in a few others, giving Cavendish his most consistent challenge. But Goss was eliminated from the race in the mountain stages for finishing too far behind the leaders, so he was not a factor in stage 18. American Tyler Farrar (Garmin) challenged on a couple of early sprints, but abandoned on the first tough medium mountain stage. Mark Renshaw (Rabobank) a former set-up man for Cavendish showed promise as a sprinter, and Cavendish misses him in his lead-out train. Will this year’s Tour de France be a war between Peter Sagan (Liquigas-Cannondale) and Cavendish? They did not face each other in the Giro.

Andy Schleck is injured and will not ride the TDF this year. His brother Frank is the expected GC contender for RadioShack-Nissan, but he did not show well in the Giro. He fought gallantly for an impressive 3^rd place in Stage 7, but was otherwise a non-factor. Besides, Frank and his coach Johan Bruyneel are already lining up their excuses: "Too many kilometers of time trials in this year’s Tour." (Bruyneel will not attend the Tour to avoid detracting from his team’s focus as he is sucked into the Lance Armstrong doping allegations.) Other would-be contenders who disappointed in the Giro include Roman Kreuziger (Astana), Damiano Cunego (Lampre), and Ivan Basso (Liquigas-Cannondale). Kreuziger did win Stage 19 in the mountains, but by then he was over 12 minutes behind the GC leaders, so it didn’t figure in the race for the pink jersey.  Another fan favorite from prior Tours who will miss it this year is Thor Hushovd (BMC).  He abandoned mid-way in the Giro with a virus, and is still recovering.

Ryder Hesjedal demonstrated the point I made in my last post, about the GC victory requiring strength in both the mountains and the time trials. He was near the top in all three time trials, and played a cat-and-mouse game with Joaquim Rodriguez in all of the mountain stages. He didn’t win any of the climbing stages, but was close enough to trade the pink jersey back and forth with Rodriguez throughout the race. In the final-stage time trial, he beat Rodriguez by 47 seconds, and dramatically snatched back the pink jersey (GC prize) by a mere 7 seconds overall, after three weeks of racing. The Garmin-Barracuda team deserves much of the credit for the win, as they won the team time trial to give Ryder Canada's first ever pink jersey.  Then they rescued him several times on the grueling mountain stages, keeping him always within striking distance.  Rodriguez showed himself to be a worthy contender. He was first in one mountain stage and a close second in two others for a decent edge over Hesjedal in the climbing.  His final time trial was better than most pundits expected, but not quite good enough to hold the pink jersey for the final podium.  Both of these riders will be fun to watch in the upcoming Tour de France.

Aaron Kennard suffering his way up the legendary Mt. Ventoux, where many a Tour de France has been won and lost!

Tour of California Insights for the Tour de France

In mid-May top riders from around the world contested the Amgen Tour of California, perhaps the most prestigious bike race in the USA. Many of the teams that will ride the 2012 Tour de France were represented, but with only some of their top stars. The race was only 8 stages compared to 20 for the Tour, so it is not a perfect predictor for the Big One. But let’s see what it can tell us.

Robert Gesink (Rabobank) could be a force. This Dutchman (pronounced "Hay-sink") has placed well  overall (GC) in the last two TDFs.  But last September, he crashed while training and broke his leg in 4 places.  He came back strong in the Tour of California. He won the tough Mt. Baldy 7^th stage and vaulted over Dave Zabriski to claim the yellow jersey. He’s young and strong, and could improve on his 2010 5^th place at the TDF.

Peter Sagan (Liquigas-Cannondale) could be a sprinter to challenge Mark Cavendish. He is from Slovakia and rides for an Italian team. Or I should say, his team rode for him in California. He won 5 stages, which says a lot for him. But his team gets a lot of credit too. They chased down breakaways, and they played the chess moves just right in leading him to the finish line each time. (He came close to a 6^th stage win, but the solo breakaway rider barely managed to survive to the finish.) In the first two stages, Sagan’s team waited for him when he crashed and punctured, and then they carried him back to the front of the peleton, where they set him up to come out of nowhere for those first two stage wins. He is a strong, cagey sprinter; and he has a fierce team helping him. Cavendish could have his hands full!

The best placed Americans in the Tour of California were: 2. David Zabriski (Garmin-Barracuda), 3. Tom Danielson (Garmin-B), 4. Tejay Vangarderen (BMC), 6. Levi Leipheimer (Omega Pharma-Quickstep), and 8. Chris Horner (RadioShack-Nissan). Zabriski won the stage 5 time trial, and wore the yellow jersey for two stages. All of these are capable of scoring well at the Tour de France, but Horner is currently listed as a reserve for RNT, so he might not even be riding in the Tour.

This race illustrated the importance of the time trials and the mountains in determining the GC winner. Sagan won 5 stages (almost 6) out of 8 total stages, and he wore the yellow jersey for 60% of the race. But he lost about 3 minutes to both Zabriski and Gesink in the time trial, and another 26 minutes to Gesink and Zabriski at Mt. Baldy.  He ended up in 42^nd place overall. Gesink and Zabriski placed high in both the time trial and the Mt. Baldy stages, and they finished in 1^st and 2^nd place overall, with only 46 seconds separating them.

In the flat stages, the GC contenders don’t care if they win, as long as they stay with the peleton, because everyone in the peleton gets the same time–even the sprint winners like Sagan. The GC boys don’t even care if a breakaway survives to win a stage, as long as it does not include another GC hopeful. Of course, the GC riders and their teams will push the pace of the peleton to keep the breakaway time gaps small enough that they can overcome such gaps with their power performances in the time trials and the mountains.

So, the Sagans and the Cavendishes get their glory in the sprints, while the Gesinks and the Zabriskis win the overall prize in the time trials and/or the mountains. Two separate races within the race.

Ashley and Matt Jensen battling for those extra few seconds for the stage win and the yellow jersey as they near the summit of the legendary Mt. Ventoux.  The whole Tour de France hangs in the balance!

A Brief History of Time - TDF Lite

With pleasure bordering on mirth, and with genuinely feigned erudition, I present this phantasmic revelation of the REAL historic origins of the Tour de France.

For, you see, the Tour did not start in 1903 as reported in usually reliable sources such as Wikipedia. It actually began in the year 50 BC.

It seems that when Julius Caesar conquered Gaul (today’s France), a small village of hardy peasant/warriors refused to yield. Their resistance to Roman rule was a constant embarrassment to Caesar and his garrisons. Thus, according to renowned and best-selling French historians Goscinny and de Uderzo, a Roman inspector general named Lucius Fleurdelotus imposed a blockade around the village, intending to starve them out.

The villagers responded with a challenge of their own. They bet the Roman inspector general that their greatest heros, Asterix and Obélix, could leave the blockade at will, and make a tour throughout Gaul, gathering the gastronomic specialties from each region. Upon their return they would invite the inspector to a grand banquet featuring all of the collected culinary marvels. If they succeeded, the inspector general would lift the siege, return to Rome, and report to Caesar his failure to conquer the Gaulish village.

This Tour de Gaul was the REAL first Tour de France.

It just goes to show that Wikipedia doesn’t know everything!

Asterix lays out the route for the first Tour de France.

This was before the invention of the bicycle. so they traveled by other means - horses for this stage . . .

. . . Roman chariot for another stage . . .

. . . And could this be the first Postal-sponsored team?

At the end of the Tour, the victors presented their prizes.  And that's the REAL origin of the Tour de France!

More Tidbits on the Teams

I mentioned in my last post that the two Belgian teams Lotto - Belisol (LTB) and Omega Pharma - Quick Step (OPQ) have confusing connections and genealogies. It’s almost like they are the offspring of siblings or something. Lotto, the Belgian lottery, has been sponsoring bike teams since 1984, with a variety of co-sponsors, including Domo-Farm Frites, makers of Belgian fries. (Don’t insult a Belge by calling them "French fries!"). The Lotto-Domo team from 2003 is essentially today’s LTB, with new partner Belisol, a Belgian maker of windows, doors and solar panels. (No one said that co-sponsors must have anything in common!) Meanwhile, Quickstep (laminate flooring) and Omega Pharma (pharmaceuticals), through its subsidiary Davitamon, has also sponsored a team since 2003 that included a bunch of staff and riders from an earlier Domo-Farm Frites team. Omega Pharma has been connected to Quick Step through the years, but also teamed with Lotto in 2010 and 2011 for the Omega Pharma - Lotto team. So, this year, Omega Pharma’s name is still in the Tour de France, but not with Lotto, as it was the previous two years; for now it is with Quick Step, again, as it was in prior years. Did I lose you?

Most Americans could care less about this confusing, nearly-incestuous, relationship between the two Belgian teams. But this year it matters. Levi Leipheimer, an American star with solid TDF credentials (and strong connections to Utah) is riding for OPQ. So, we’ll be cheering for his new Belgian team. (Besides, we once hosted a Belgian foreign exchange student, so that makes us almost part-Belge, doesn’t it? Bonjour, Florence, comment ça va?)

Another interesting team situation this year is the HTC - Highroad story. Here was a team, whose evolving names included T-mobile and Telekom, that had existed for at least 20 years, and boasted of TDF GC champions Bjarne Riis and Jan Ullrich, familiar names Kloden and Vinokourov, and 2011 TDF sprint champion Mark Cavendish. But their sponsor pulled out at the end of 2011. When they failed to find a new sponsor, the team folded. Cavendish has gone to SKY, but the question is whether he will have a powerful lead-out train like he had at HTC which enabled him to win 20 stages over several years, and the coveted green jersey.

I am anxious to see how the holdovers from Léopard - Trek will mesh with their former competitors from the U.S. RadioShack team. They would normally support Frank Schleck for GC (his brother Andy is unable to ride), but there are some big names from the RadioShack side as well. Watch RadionShack - Nissan (RNT), riding under the Luxembourg flag. There are no Americans in the top nine. Only Chris Horner is listed as a reserve.  It must be a strong team if 5-time TDF veteran Horner is a reserve.

The U.S. team BMC, with its Australian defending GC champion Cadel Evans, will be a team to watch. Americans on this team are Hincapie and Van Garderen, with Bookwalter listed as a reserve.  The other U.S. team is Garmin - Barracuda, with four Americans, Danielson, Farrar, Vande Velde and Zabriski, plus one Canadian, Hesjadal. Alex Howes is an American reserve.  The reserves will only ride if someone above them is unable to start the race.  There are no substitutions if a rider has to abandon after the start of the Tour.

I have been intrigued early this season with the successes of a new Australian team, Orica GreenEDGE (OGE). The team is new, but it has some riders with experience and firepower. And they have that caution-to-the-wind Australian flair. Prepare to be entertained!

Finally, a team that impressed me last year was Europcar (EUC). This all-French team has been around for a long time, but Europcar is a fairly new sponsor, and has breathed new life into the "équipe française." They were a wild card invitee in 2011, as they are again in 2012. No one expected them to challenge for the GC prize, but Thomas Voeckler surprised everyone by capturing the yellow jeresy for stage 10 and defending it until stage 19. He finished fourth overall. Pierre Rolland, won a stage and also won the white jersey for best young rider. As a team, they were creative and courageous as they animated the race for the glory of France last year. France has been low on heros in its own special race lately, so my favorite French team to watch this year will be Europcar. Besides, it was two perfect-fit Europcar Ford station wagons that we used on our own mini-Tour de France in 2011. They served us well, merci infiniment!

Oh, wait!  That's not our rental car!  That's a classic Deux Cheveaux!

Here's one of our two twin rental cars (from Europcar), with Nan passing it near the top of l'Alpe d'Huez.

Teams Riding in 2012 Tour de France

As in prior years, there are 22 teams selected to ride in this year’s Tour de France. The TDF website announced in April that 18 teams were selected by UCI rules, and 4 were given "wild card" invitations. The UCI qualification applies to the teams with the most UCI points through the relevant measuring period. There may be some other elements in the formula, but I won’t bore you by drilling deeper in to the minutiae. (Of course, Suzanne recognizes this as my long-winded way of disclosing, without actually admitting it, that I really don't know what I'm talking about.)

The teams will be numbered from 0 [zero] to 21. Each rider will wear a unique number that will reflect his team and his position on the team. Rider number 1 is usually the previous year’s GC champion, so his team would be Team 0, and his number would be 001, but they drop the leading zeros. This year that should be Cadel Evans, riding for BMC. The rest of the BMC team should have numbers 2 through 9. The next team will be number 1, and its riders will wear numbers 11 through 19. This continues through the 22^nd team as team number 21, with riders 211 through 219. Confused yet? At my most recent check of the TDF website, the team numbers and rider numbers had not yet been published, but they will be listed once the race starts. If you watch on television, and you know your favorite team’s number you can identify its riders not only by their unique jersey colors, but also by their numbers.

Most teams assign the number 1 spot on the team to their most promising GC contender. But last year’s HTC team had their famous sprinter Mark Cavendish in the first position. He justified his star billing by claiming 5 stage wins and the overall green jersey for most sprint points. In his multi-year TDF career, Cavendish has now won 20 stages. Most riders would sell their birthright for just one TDF stage win. No wonder he wears number 1 for his team!

Here are the teams invited to compete in this year’s Grand Tour, along with a few notes:

18 UCI-Qualified Teams:
AG2R la Mondiale (ALM), France.
Astana Pro Team (AST), Kazakhstan.
BMC Racing Team (BMC), USA.
Euskatel - Euskadi (EUS), Spain. From Basque Region, mostly Basque riders.
FDJ - BigMat (FDJ), France. BigMat sponsor is French equivalent to Home Depot.
Garmin - Barracuda (GRM), USA. Was Garmin - Cervelo in 2011.
Orica GreenEDGE (OGE), Australia. New to TDF in 2012.  This is a team to watch.
Katusha Team (KAT), Russia.
Lampre - ISD (LAM), Italy.
Liquigas - Cannondale (LIQ), Italy.
Lotto - Belisol Team (LTB), Belgium. See next post for confusing genealogy and ties to OPQ, below.
Omega Pharma - Quick Step (OPQ), Belgium. Levi Leipheimer's new team. 
Movistar Team (MOV), Spain.
Rabobank Cycling Team (RAB), Netherlands.
RadioShack - Nissan (RNT), Luxembourg. Merger of US and Lux teams, see next post.
Sky Procycling (SKY), Great Britain. Inherited Cavendish from HTC which folded.
Team Saxo Bank (SAX), Denmark.
Vacansoleil - DCM (VCD), France.

4 Wild-Card Teams:
Team Argos - Shimano (ARG), Netherlands. Rode in 2009 TDF with Skil as a sponsor.
Cofidis le Credit en Ligne (COF), France.
Saur - SoJaSun (SAU), France.
Team Europcar (EUC), France. An old team with new life and a new name in 2011.

More team notes in next post.

Jeff Louder of BMC nearing the finish for his victory in Stage 4 (Park City Criterium), Tour of Utah 2010.  Notice the rider's number on uniform and on bike.  Third team (20's), rider no. 3.

Pro Cycling Teams in General

In the big pro sports most familiar to U.S. sports fans–football, baseball, basketball, and hockey–the teams are closely-linked with particular cities. These sports need a home venue–stadium, ball park or arena–which is often financed in partnership with the city by way of tax incentives or even shared building costs. Another key financial element is the sale of naming rights for the facility. A big company attaches its name to the stadium to reap the advertizing benefit. The ownership of the team may be held by a wealthy family or business. Occasionally, a team moves when the owners sell out, and a new city and sponsor build a new, bigger, fancier venue. But most of the teams stay in place for decades.

In these sports, the players are "owned" by the teams. There are a number of "minor leagues" where new talent is developed–high schools, colleges, and the actual minor leagues. Each major league has a draft where the weakest teams pick first, to acquire the best new talent. This is intended to move the leagues toward parity. But with trades, inter-team purchases and free agency, the best talent tends to gravitate to the richest teams. So, the leagues impose caps on player compensation or other restrictions on player mobility to push back toward parity. It’s an imperfect system, but the fans understand it more or less.

With pro cycling, the team dynamics are much more fluid. There is no single venue for each team. In fact there is no team-specific venue at all. So, the teams are not closely tied to any particular city. Consequently, there is no revenue from spectator admissions, local TV/radio contracts, parking or concessions. The primary source of revenue is advertising. Therefore, most of the pro cycling teams are sponsored by companies that are motivated by the advertizing value of the name recognition.

Example of non-paying spectators.  2010 Tour of Utah, Park City Criterium.


The team might be "owned" by a manager or management group that assembles a core of coaches, trainers and perhaps some key riders; and then that "owner" negotiates with sponsoring companies for contractual naming or other advertising rights. In exchange, the team receives a budget from the sponsors to hire riders and run the team as it competes all over the world. A "super team" might have a budget from its sponsors of $25 million or more.

A few teams are assembled by a national or regional sports body with the view of promoting the sport in that country or region. In this case, some of the budget comes from public funds. But even there, corporate sponsorships play a big role.

Some of the corporate sponsorship contracts may only run for a year, and the major naming contracts may only run for as little as five years. Sponsors might pull out early, or decline to renew, for a variety of reasons, including business setbacks, poor performance by the cycling team, or bad publicity from the cyclists. In this latter category, drug and doping scandals are the kiss of death. In fact, some teams have been banned by the sport’s governing body (UCI) because of such scandals, even if the sponsors might have been willing to continue. The point is, the life expectancy of a pro cycling team is much more tenuous than that of a pro team in those other sports.

Even when the teams do not die, they morph from one year to the next. The same management group may continue from year to year, but with a different mix of sponsors each season. Thus, the name may change by adding or dropping a sponsor’s name. Or the group may emerge in the new season under a completely different name.

In 2011, Team RadioShack was a U.S. team, and Léopard-Trek was a Luxembourg team. (Each team had riders from other countries, but the team nationality reflected the origin of the team’s management group and/or primary sponsors.) In 2012, the U.S. Team RadioShack no longer exists, and the Luxembourg team is now called RadioShack-Nissan. (Trek is still a major sponsor, so the initials are RNT.) The surviving Luxembourg team still has the same management group (Léopard) and most of its riders from the 2011 TDF, but it also has five of the 2011 RadioShack riders, as well as RadioShack’s former head coach. The rest of the RadioShack riders, including some of its biggest stars are now on other teams.

Next post, a look at the teams selected to ride the 2012 Tour de France, with some comparisons to the 2011 lineup.

Levi Leipheimer, Tour of Utah 2010.  Some UCI rule prevented him from riding for Team RadioShack in this race, so he rode as an independent under the sponsorship of Mellow Johnny's (his RadioShack teammate Lance Armstrong's bicycle shop).  Levi did not follow his RadioShack coach and teammates to the Luxembourg team for 2012.  Instead, he is riding for Omega Pharma - Quickstep.  This is his ninth pro cycling team (not counting Mellow Johnny's) in his 15-year pro career.

Tour de France Prizes

Warning!  Reading this post while drowsy may be dangerous to your health – danger of whiplash or lost teeth when your head falls off your shoulders into a stupor of thought!  If you are wide awake, we can begin.

As I said in an earlier post, there are many prizes and ways to win in the Tour de France.  In fact, on the official website you can download the rules in a pdf file.  It is 44 pages, half in French, half in English.  The prize money section alone is 5 pages.  (The following summary is based on the 2011 prizes – I have not yet found the 2012 file on-line.)

Most of the prizes are awarded to the individual riders, but it is likely that, in their contracts with their teams, they are required to pool the prize money and share it with the team.  Few riders can win prize money without the help of their teammates.  The rider awarded the prize may get a larger share, but there is very likely a sharing formula within each team.  (Any reader with actual information on this issue is invited to share it by posting in the comments.) 

Not all of the rewards are monetary.  In every race sanctioned by the International Cycling Union (the UCI), the leading riders earn UCI points. For the 2011 Tour de France, descending numbers of UCI points were awarded for the top 20 riders overall, and for the top 5 riders in each stage.  These are relevant in determining which riders and which teams earn season-long awards.  They are also relevant when riders are negotiating contracts with teams.  A rider with more UCI points from year to year commands a richer contract with his current team, or as he changes teams.  Also, the cumulative UCI points total of all the riders on a given team has a bearing on the team’s UCI ranking, and its eligibility to participate in the most prestigious races.  This year there is a lot of buzz about which team Alberto Contador will join when his suspension ends in August.  One of the terms of his suspension is that he cannot earn UCI points for the next two years.  Although he may help a team win races, a team needing UCI points would be penalized in ranking and eligibility by taking him.  This illustrates the importance of UCI points.

Another non-monetary reward is prestige.  On each team’s website, all the riders are listed, along with their racing accomplishments.  Stage or race wins or high placements, or other awards are listed.  A Tour de France stage win or day wearing the yellow jersey is like gold in that list of prizes.  (A yellow jersey is most commonly used in other for the GC leader, but it is not universal.  For example, the Giro d’Italia – Tour of Italy – uses a pink jersey.)

OK, enough beating around the bush!  Here’s the money part!  (Based on the 2011 TDF.)  I will use U.S. dollars, but my conversions from Euros will be rounded, since the conversion rate changes all the time.  The top 20 riders in each stage win cash, starting at $10,000 for first place and going down to $250 for 20^th place.  At the end of each stage five riders are awarded prize jerseys which they will wear for the next day’s race.  They are for the best scores in 5 categories: (1) General classification (GC), meaning overall best time for all stages so far – yellow; (2) most sprint points so far – green; (3) most climbing points so far – polka-dot; (4) best young GC rider – white (born after Jan. 1, 1986), and (5) most aggressive – red number bib.  There’s a daily prize for the jerseys ranging from $2,500 for red bib, $440 for yellow jersey to $250 for white.  Certain mountain summits have special cash prizes of $6,300.  At the end of the entire Tour de France, every rider that finishes wins prize money in the GC category, descending from $565,000 for first place to $500 for last place.  In the other categories, the prize money goes to the top 8 (top 5 for youth), with top prizes of $31,000 or $25,000.  Finally there are prizes for the fastest teams, by stage and overall, totaling $220,000.  I may have missed a few.  But, in the 2011 Tour de France, total prize money was $4,300,000.  (In addition, each team received $64,000 towards expenses.)

Sure, the winner of the yellow Jersey gets about $600,000 of the $4.3 million, but there are lots of prizes for other riders and other teams.  Plenty of incentive each day to do different things to win prizes.  So, even though the most attention is on the competition for the yellow jersey (GC), there are lots of other prize sub-plots developing each day to add interest – not only to each day’s finish, but even to various interim locations along the way.

Wake up now!  It’s time for a picture!

Tour of Utah, 2010: Ceremony awarding price jerseys.  Left to right: David Tanner, sprint points leader; Darren Lill, best Utah rider; Levi Leipheimer, GC/overall leader - yellow jersey; Paco Mancebo, climbing points leader; and Ian Boswell, best young rider.

More Bad News:

This blog is not intended to be a crime blotter; nor to simply regurgitate news from other sources. But it is about the Tour de France. And the latest news on Lance Armstrong is inseparable from the TDF.

In a nutshell, a U.S. federal grand jury in February closed its two-year investigation into alleged doping by Armstrong without any criminal charges being filed. But, now the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency has accused Armstrong of doping, declared him ineligible for competition (he currently competes in triathlons), and announced its intention to strip him of his 7 Tour de France titles. Armstrong denies any wrongdoing in the strongest terms.

It is sad for the Tour, no matter the final outcome. I have long admired Lance Armstrong for his cycling achievements, and I still want to believe that he is innocent. I don’t intend to comment further on this subject in this blog. I have no picture for this topic. There are endless news sources with extensive write-ups. Here is a link to one such source:

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/armstrong-charged-with-doping-by-usada

NEWS FLASH! Andy Schleck Unable to Ride 2012 Tour de France!

Andy Schleck, 2010 Tour de France champion, fan-favorite and top contender in recent years, will not ride in this year’s TDF. He suffered a hard fall last week in the Criterium du Dauphiné race and broke a vertebra near his pelvis. He bravely continued that race, but was forced to abandon two days later. This was the final blow in a difficult season for the Luxembourg star. His brother Frank will have to carry the load alone in this year’s Tour. Get well soon, Andy! We hope to see you in top form again next year.

Evidence of enormous fan support for Andy Schleck in the avalanche-protective roof on the Col du Tourmalet climb in the Pyrénées.  Sadly, there will be no Andy on the road in this year's Tour de France.  Get well soon, Andy!   [Photo by Aaron Kennard]

But First A Word About the Mountain Stages:

Before I put you to sleep with the intricacies of points and scoring, let me first say something about the mountains. It is the climbing stages in the Tour de France that really capture the world’s attention. The GC or overall winner is very often decided in the mountains. He doesn’t necessarily have to win any of the mountain stages, but he must consistently push the pace in the peleton until he forces his closest rivals to "crack," to "explode," to "blow-up," or in other words to "run out of gas" and fall behind him by precious seconds. Or if his rival decides to attack, he must match the rival or lose those same precious seconds. If he can win one or two of these stages in the process, that’s frosting on the cake! Glory on top of Glory!

The mountain stages may be anywhere from 70 to 125 miles long, requiring between three to six hours of steady riding. There may be just one big mountain at the end of the ride, or several killers, one after the other. The most dramatic of these stages have summit-top finishes, where the riders’ legs and lungs and hearts are pushed to the brink of collapse. I am gasping for breath just thinking about it!

Among the legendary mountains is the Alpe d’Huez, a ski resort village about an hour drive by car up an alpine canyon from Grenoble. It sits at 6,100 feet elevation, less than 10 miles from the canyon floor at 2,300 feet. The cyclists arrive at the base of the climb after 3 to 5 hours of riding (much of it up and down other nearby summits), and they then must call upon their last reserves of strength and courage to race to the top through 17 painfully steep switchbacks. Each corner has a plaque honoring a prior winner of a Tour stage on this climb. The average slope is 8%, and the maximum slope is 13%. Trust me, it is steep. There are no level or downhill sections along the way for the riders to catch their breath. Of course, most of the 10 mile climb is overflowing with crazy spectators from all over Europe and the world who have been camping there for days consuming untold quantities of their national brews and/or the fine French wines. It makes for a wild ride!

If you are a biker and want to sample a comparable test of your fitness (without the hazard-duty enhancement of the sloshed spectators), consider riding the Three Kings race sponsored by the City of North Salt Lake (Utah), this coming Saturday, June 16, 2012. http://threekings.nslcity.org/  Here is a punishment of 12.4 miles up three separate climbs totaling nearly 2,800 feet of elevation rise. The highest elevation (5,650 ft) is less than the Alpe d’Huez, but the average elevation will give you comparable oxygen deprivation. And each of the Three Kings has a maximum slope that is steeper than the steepest on the Alpe d’Huez: 14%, 20% and 15%! Prizes for men, women, youngest, oldest, and even the "lantern rouge." (I’ll explain later.) Are you up to the challenge?

Matt Jensen (City Councilman/organizer of Three Kings Race) half-way up the Alpe d'Huez - swtichback No. 10 out of 17.

Pro Cycling Is So Different from Other Sports

There’s no Super Bowl, World Series, Stanley Cup or other play-off championship in cycling. It may seem like the Tour de France is cycling’s championship event, because it gets the most attention. But it comes in the middle of the season, not at the end. It is one of three "Grand Tours," along with the Giro d’Italia (Tour of Italy) and the Vuelta a Espagna (Tour of Spain). Other countries also have their own multi-day national tours, and there are dozens of regional multi-day races throughout the season. In addition there are lots of single-day races. Many of these "smaller" races have long histories and enormous prestige within the sport. Some, like the Tour of California and the Tour of Utah, are newer, but are gaining in prestige and are attracting the best riders and teams. Each race has its own character. Because it is three weeks long, the Tour de France has more variety than most races, and every year it follows a completely different route, so even the Tour itself is completely new from year to year.

There’s no fixed time or number of innings, quarters or sets in each contest in cycling. It’s not like golf where you play the same 18 holes for four days. Or bowling with its 10 frames and 300-pin perfect game. There’s no standard-size court or diamond or pitch or field. There’s no single way of scoring, such as a basket, a goal, a run, or a touchdown. In cycling there is not just one single format for every contest. For example, a time trial is a race against a stop-watch over a certain route. It may be as short as 5 miles; or it may be as long as 35 miles. It may be an individual time trial, where the riders leave the start one at a time separated by 2 or 3 minute intervals, and their finishing times are compared to determine the winner. Or it may be a team time trial where the team rides together and they all help each other because their time is measured by the finishing time of the 5^th team member across the line.

Another kind of stage is a criterium. In this day of racing the route is fairly short and encircles a town or a part of a town. The riders all start together, and ride that same route over and over for a set number of laps, or for a set amount of time, such as two or three hours! A criterium is fun to watch, because the spectator can stay in one place, watch the riders pass many times, and experience the whole drama of the race as it unfolds.

In most of the daily stages of the Tour de France, all of the riders from all of the teams start together in one giant bunch (called the "peleton"), and they ride for more than 100 miles. The route may be relatively flat, or it may be in the mountains with several long and steep climbs. The drama of any long bunch race like this (including a criterium described above) is to see if any rider(s) can jump ahead of the main swarm of the peleton and maintain that separation clear until the end of the race. A team with a rider in the breakaway will be happy to let the escape succeed, in hopes that their rider can win the stage and bring glory to the team. A team with no rider in the breakaway will try to lead the peleton and increase its pace enough to "reel in" the escapees, so that one of that team’s sprinters can burst forward from the peleton at the very last minute and win the race.

The point of this post was to illustrate the many different formats for cycling contests. This is a feature that distinguishes cycling from other sports. In the next post, I will explain the many ways to score points and to "win" in a race like the Tour de France.

Tour of Utah 2010, Criterium in Park City.  Levi Leipheimer (Yellow Jersey) followed by Paco Mancebo.

Pro Cycling Is Similar to Other Sports

To explain the Tour de France (and pro cycling in general), let me start by identifying its similarities to other sports.

Hmmmm. Let’s see . . . Similarities . . . Sheesh! This is harder than I expected!

Well, of course cycling has that essential premise of all sports: the perpetuation of childhood. The athletes perfect their conditioning and skill in order to play their favorite childhood game (and thus avoid adult productivity) as far as possible into their adult years. The spectators - whether watching live or by TV or other media - escape, at least temporarily, the real world of adulthood by immersing themselves as deeply as possible into the staged performance. Of course, no matter the sport, the cardio-vascular and aerobic health benefits realized by the spectators are essentially identical - zilch!

The appeal of vicarious escape is so strong from one sport to the next, that it fuels an endless array of industries: foods, beverages, every imaginable (and many unimaginable!) pharmaceuticals, and, of course, cars! It even manages to attract advertising dollars from such otherwise too-boring-to-survive sectors as banks, insurance and lawyers!

One of my favorite sports has a lot in common with cycling, and that is CHESS! Don’t laugh! I challenge you during this year’s Tour de France to count how many times the commentators trot out the chess metaphor to describe the run-up to a sprint finish, or the timing of attacks and counter-attacks in a crucial mountain stage. Yes, its similarity to chess is one of the reasons I like the Tour de France so much!

Playing chess in the park by Geneva's Reformer's Wall.  And did you notice at least three bikes in background?  Proves my point!

How Can You Stand to Watch This?

My wife, Suzanne, has graciously accepted the fact that I like to watch sports on TV. We have reached a two-part accommodation: (1) She gets first-dibs on her favorite police drama shows; and (2) I can otherwise watch sports if I simultaneously massage or tickle her feet. She also lets me hold the remote on two conditions: (1) I can mute the commercials, and (2) I can check the sports scores during the cop show commercials.

She is pretty tolerant of my tastes in sports, but there is definitely a hierarchy of acceptability. Football she understands from going to the boys’ high school games. Basketball is familiar and comfortable. The Olympics have variety and drama and can be pretty exciting (except for curling!). She will usually stay awake for any of those three. I’ve never acquired a taste for hockey (sorry Jimmy!) or soccer, so I haven’t tested her tolerance for those two. With baseball, tennis or golf, she only stays if she’s too tired to get up, and then she immediately falls into a deep sleep. For bowling, boxing, girls softball or darts, she will invariably leave the room and go work on her computer. Even the foot-rub is not enough to keep her for those sports.

But the bottom of the list for Suzanne is bike racing - the Tour de France! It’s not that she hates it; it’s just that it makes no sense to her. She loves France almost as much as I do, so she enjoys seeing the country side, but that’s not the main focus of the cameras. She just doesn’t see the point of more than a hundred guys in colorful uniforms racing along in a claustrophobic wave of bikes and bodies for five hours, followed by a mad scramble in the final one minute to determine only one solitary winner! They race through the most beautiful and varied countryside too fast and too focused on the wheel in front to see any of it. And then, as if to emphasize the pointlessness, they get back on their bikes and do it again, day after day, for three weeks! And so, she asks me "How can you stand to watch this."

In the coming posts, I will try to answer that question. Be forewarned, I have a reputation for giving long answers to short questions.

A random French castle visible from the road.  The Tour de France bikers would zip by without noticing it.

Introduction

I love all things French.  I have long been fascinated by the Tour de France bicycle race.  At the slightest provocation from my wife or kids, I will launch into some random contemplation of obscure trivia about the race, its participants, its locales, or about tangents that can lead just about anywhere.  Perhaps to save themselves from being held captive by such somnorific episodes of oral verbosity, they have encouraged me to publish my commentary in this blog.  My credentials to write such a blog derive from enthusiasm for the subject, as opposed to expertise.  My goal is to write with confidence; any accuracy will be only coincidental.  Enjoy the ride!

View of Le Bourg d'Oisans, while climbing l'Alpe d'Huez.