As some of you are aware I have been an avid cyclist for a few years now. And for any cyclist who has ever raced, one of our highlights of the year is Le Tour de France. Although plagued with doping controversies from almost the start and somewhat tainted by big money teams, it remains arguably one of the toughest endurance events known to man.
It has grown a lot from its humble beginnings in 1903. Currently it covers about 3,000km of riding over a three week period. A bit like the US Postal service it happens in rain, sleet, and snow. There have only been a very few occasions when weather has actually caused issues such as delays or stage cancellations.
I have always enjoyed the month of July being able to watch the tour on television. Not always an easy thing to find though. During the ‘Lance’ years American television became enamored with the Tour de France, because they had a winner and lots of guys in the race. (Go figure…) So it was aired and re-aired multiple times daily.
Once Lance fell from grace of course, their love affair dried up considerably. It still gets once a day coverage; but may be preempted if there is some exciting NASCAR event or pro-bowling tournament on.
I was in the Denver airport on a layover once, during the tour. I felt like a sammich and a beer so I went into a restaurant. This was one of those places that had dozens of TV’s all tuned to sports. It was mid-day so the place was quite crowded. There was one open seat at the bar and as luck will out, the tv directly in front had the tour on. I ordered a nice draft Fat Tire and some food and settled in to watch the race. The guy beside me left and another took his place. No sooner had he settled in he asks the bartender to change the channel to the baseball game that also happened to be on the screens on either side of the one with the tour. (Obviously it would have been a challenge for him to move his head a few degrees to the right) The barman readily complied with his request.
At this point I said “hey I was watching that”. The barman pointed out in no uncertain terms that no one in their right mind would want to “watch grown men in Lycra riding bicycles”. To which I replied something along the line that this race was one of the largest spectator sports in the world. Both televised and in person. “Don’t be stupid” he says “Haven’t you heard of the Super Bowl?” After that it went downhill pretty fast, and a few more tense interchanges happened. (I’m a customer right…?) So I downed my pint and left without paying…
Some years what I have done is ride (or attempt to) every single day the tour rides. That’s 21 days of riding with two rest days. Even if it meant riding a stationary bike in some cheap hotel I would try to get the days in. I hadn’t done this for years and just when I was in a position to try this again the global Covid-19 pandemic hit and it looked like the tour was going to be in jeopardy of not happening.
Eventually it ended up being postponed by 2 months but went ahead on August 29th. This year I was going to try and loosely match the course types each day. So basically: flat, ‘hilly’ and mountain. There was no way however that I would try to match distance, elevation gain, or intensity.
So here is my TDF 2020:
Day 1: Flat | 25km | 116m elevation
Day 2: Mountain | 105km | 917m elevation (flat tire)
Day 3: Flat | 33km | 133m elevation
Day 4: Hilly | 45km | 358m elevation
Day 5: Flat | 33km | 129m elevation
Day 6: Hilly | 44km | 336m elevation
Day 7: Flat | 17km | 94m elevation
Day 8: Mountain | 22km |. 249m elevation
Day 9: Mountain | 105km | 918m elevation (hot)
Day 10: Rest
Day 11: Flat | 27km | 112m elevation
Day 12: Flat | 37km | 172m elevation
Day 13: Hilly | 55km | 417m elevation (flat tire)
Day 14: Mountain | 58km | 613m elevation
Day 15: Flat | 19km | 101m elevation
Day 16: Mountain | 78km | 831m elevation
Day 17: Rest
Day 18: Mountain | 35km | 326m elevation
Day 19: Mountain | 38km | 358m elevation
Day 20: Mountain | 45km | 311m elevation
Day 21: Flat | 35km | 130m elevation
Day 22: TT Uphill | 17km | 93m elevation (kom)
Day 23: Flat / Uphill | 63km | 318m elevation
This whole endeavor turned out to be a bit more challenging than I was thinking it would be. By the start of the third week my legs were just not recovering anymore. I had developed a pesky saddlesore and I was basically riding in survival mode. I was shorting planned routes, and really not into it any longer.
A bit disappointing when you do the math: 934km, and 7,041m elevation gain. When I do this next year, I will figure out a different strategy. It would be nice to double those numbers…
On the bright side, I was able, for the first time in years to actually watch every single stage on television. And this year, even though (and perhaps because of) some of the big names were not riding, it was a great race. ‘My Team’ (UAE) were doing pretty well, by winning a few stages, and carrying a couple of the points Jersey’s…
Tadje Pogacar Alexander Kristoff
Yellow Jersey Winner Stage 1
Polka Dot Jersey
White Jersey
Winner 3 stages
TdF starts this weekend!