It’s HOT outside, so maybe a long bike ride isn’t in your immediate future. Maybe instead, you have decided to sit down and watch the Tour de France on TV. If you’ve never watched a bicycle race in the past, it can be a bit confusing- starting with the fact that bicycle racing is a team sport…but has an individual winner????
That’s right, there are teams riding in the tour- and in most cases, those teams are working for one or two individuals on the team, in hopes that that someone on the team will win the race (that someone is referred to as the “GC” – or “General Classification” leader). They do this by a variety of tactics- starting with drafting. When you watch the race, you will often see a whole row of people from the same team all in a line. If you look closely- those guys are about 2 inches apart, making that pace-line extremely dangerous. The idea is, the person at the back of that line works much less than the person at the front of the line- so if they are doing things properly, the front person is constantly changing, and staying fresh. The GC guy on the team never comes to the front of the line, until the very end of the race- he’s got fresh legs, so he can then sprint to the finish.
Drafting behind just ONE other rider allows you to work 40% less. Imagine the advantage of being behind a whole line of people. At the Centurian race last Summer, me and my team got into a big draft line coming out of Cross Plains- the draft allowed us to easily ride up Garfoot hill (a BIG hill between Cross Plains and Mt. Horeb) at better than 20mph, at times coasting up the hill.
At the Tour- while the GC winner gets to wear the Yellow Jersey and gets all the attention, there are other competitions going on.
Polka-Dot Jersey: This is the award for “King of the Mountains” and as you would guess- it’s awarded to the best climber on the tour. Points are awarded with each big climb, at the end of each day the rider with the most cumulative King of the Mountain points is awarded the Polka-Dot Jersey.
White Jersey: This is the award for the best young rider- 25 & under. An American is currently wearing the White Jersey- Tejay van Garderen from the BMC Racing Team.
Green Jersey: This is awarded to the points leader. Points are awarded every day for various things along the way…mid-race sprints, hill-climbs, stage wins, etc. Again, the Green Jersey is awarded each day to the man with the most cumulative points.
Yellow Jersey: This is the big one. The one that gets all the attention. It’s said that a Frenchman who wears the Yellow Jersey for one day of one Tour de France will never have to buy another drink as long as they live. It’s a BIG deal. The Yellow Jersey is actually quite simple. It’s the overall race leader- the guy with the lowest cumulative time when you add up the times from all the days of racing. So, if I spent 3:45 on the course yesterday and 5:23 on the course today, my cumulative time would be 9:08 (if my math is right)- if that’s lower than all the others, I’m wearing the Yellow Jersey.
This all gets a little confusing with some of the nit-picky rules. Like the fact that everyone crossing the finish line in a big pack are all given the same time. Like, if there’s a crash within the last 3k of the race, anyone involved in the crash or effected by the crash is given the same time- no matter when they cross the line. So, if the guy in the Yellow Jersey can just stay with that main pack, he’s got a pretty good shot at keeping the Yellow- at least at this point in the race. Once we get into mountain stages (when that pack breaks up a bit) and individual time trials (when it’s truly INDIVIDUAL), he’ll have to watch some of his competitors a bit closer and work to stay with other top riders if they sprint ahead.
Speaking of the pack. That big pack of riders is known as the “Peleton”
At the bottom of the TV screen you will see some times scrolling across the screen. The first thing that scrolls will be a note as to how many riders are currently in the lead- usually anywhere from 2 to 5. After that you might see the word “chase” or “chase 1” and a time listed after that- that time refers to how far back the first (or second) group of riders chasing the leaders is. Next up will usually be “Peleton” and again a time- and again, that time refers to how far back the peleton is from the leaders. Next to any of those, you might see a picture of one of the jerseys- that just tells you where the guy wearing that jersey currently is racing. If the Yellow Jersey is in the peleton, there will be a picture of a yellow jersey on the same line as the word “peleton,” if he’s in the first chase group, you’ll see the picture there. Usually at this point in the race, the Yellow Jersey will hang out in the peleton- again, later when they hit the mountains and things spread out- you might see him up with one of the chase groups, but probably not with the leaders- as the leaders very rarely win the race- they don’t have the advantage of riding in a long pace-line and conserving their energy.
Some local connections to the Tour…
The Nissan/Trek/Radio Shack team formed this year after combining the two Trek sponsored teams (Radio Shack and Leopold Trek). Trek bicycles is headquartered in Waterloo, Wisconsin.
Christian Vande Velde rides for the Garmin-Sharp team. Christian has 2 top 10 overall finishes at the Tour de France (best finish- #3) and he lives near Chicago. Christian’s brother competed in the cycling events at the National Transplant Games a couple Summers ago here in Madison. Pat Gallagher was the race announcer for those races (with Christian looking over my shoulder the whole time).
Robbie Ventura is one of the television commentators for the Tour de France. Robbie also owns Vision Quest Coaching- which trains a lot of athletes, from the Midwest for Ironman Wisconsin and runs some very well-respected cycling camps. Had Chicago won its bid for the Olympics, all of the cycling events would have happened in the Madison area- Robbie designed those courses.
Robbie, Christian and Trek are all big supporters of cycling in Wisconsin.
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