July 16, 2004

TdF Explained

Today's 12th stage of the Tour de France, under way as I type this, could go a long way toward deciding whether Lance Armstrong or another rider wins the overall race. The reason: it's the first stage with seriously challenging mountain climbs.

Some readers who don't follow professional cycling or the TdF may find themselves confused as to why Lance Armstrong, trailing the race leader by almost 10 minutes, is not being described in the press as being on the verge of losing the race.

It's actually rather simple. Lance is one of only a handful of riders - fewer than 10 - in the race who are good enough in all phases of professional cycling to win the overall race.

The TdF includes a team time trial, where each entire team (of up to nine cyclists) races as one unit over a set course against the clock. All team members are given the time of their fifth-place finisher. Lance's team is always competitive in the team time trial. The TdF also includes an individual time trial, where each racer rides alone against the clock. Lance is always competitive in the individual time trial. THe TdF includes numerous stages that are either flat or roll along through fairly gentle hills and moderate climbs. And it includes a few very tough mountain stages, where the rate of vertical climb is described as "beyond category."

The Tour starts with around 200 riders, most of whom are not good enough in all phases - the relatively flat road stages, time trials and the mountain stages - to compete for the overall title. Some of these riders compete for stage wins, either by winning sprints in the last few hundred meters of a day's race, or by trying to break away from the front of the main pack (in French: peloton alone or in a small group of riders who will all try to sprint at the end for the win. You can win the overall Tour without ever winning a stage.

Riders are not completely solo - they ride with teams of up to nine riders. Some riders on a team are there only to support the team leader - riding in front of him for reducing wind resistance, etc. On mountain stages, some will pace their leader up the mountain as far as possible before running out of gas, allowing their leader to save energy for the final stretch of the climb by riding in their slipstream.

For a week now, a young French cylist named Thomas Voeckler has worn the yellow jersey of the overall race leader, and yesterday and the day before two other French riders each won a stage.

None of them is considered a "general classification" rider - meaning, that when the mountains come, none of them is considered to have the ability to keep up with Lance Armstrong and a handful of other riders. In one past tour, Lance was more than half an hour behind the race leader until the mountain stages, but rapidly took the lead away from the sprinters and the flat-land specialists.

Among the riders considered to have the capacity to win in the GC: Lance Armstrong, German cyclist Jan Ullrich, Americans Tyler Hamilton and Levi Leipheimer, Spanish riders Roberto Heras and Iban Mayo, and Italy's Ivan Basso. Armstrong has leads over the six riders ranging from 45 seconds to more than 5 minutes.

Today's stage, a 122.5-mile ride from Castelsarrasin to La Mongie, features a grueling 8-mile climb to the finish line high at an altitude of about one mile on a mountain that is a legend in the Tour: The Col de Tourmalet. Most of the names on the race leader board yesterday won't be there after today's stage.

What you'll see today is Lance's team - U.S. Postal - push the pace as the stage course reaches the first of the two climbs, and lesser riders will fall off the pace and lose a lot of time in the overall standings. One the second of the two climbs, you may well see Lance, aided by a few of his teammates, try to break away from the pack and put some distance - on the road and in the standings - between himself and some or all of his main rivals - Ullrich, Hamilton, Leipheimer, Heras, Mayo and Basso. Of course, those six riders will do their best to counter any such attack and hang with Lance.

And as tough as today's mountain stage is there are more in the days to come.