Tour de France for dummies?

[gauravbhatt]

Hi.

I work for an Indian news daily, at the sports desk. I have been asked by my editor to come up with a series of graphics for the ongoing Tour, called 'Tour de France for dummies.' The graphics, are more or less a beginner's guide to the event.

From whatever information I could find out, the following was the first graphic, based on an average Tour rider.

Cyclists in the ongoing 100th Tour de France will cover 3,404 kilometers over 21 stages in 23 days. The riders sprint through the stages at an average speed of 40-45 Km/hour, and reach speeds of 75-80km/hr at the finish line. The stages include six mountain stages with climbs 2,000 metres high, and 19 kms long, where the cyclists ascent at speeds of 33-40 km/hr.
A Tour rider has to drop the body weight, as well as the muscle mass in order to achieve an efficient power-to-weight ratio. The average body mass percentage is around 4-8%. A rider expends around 6,000 calories on a high mountain stage; roughly three times as much as a normal person.
Diet
Dietary carbohydrates - 61%, fats - 23%, proteins - 15%
Breakfast: Oatmeal, cereals to top the glycogen levels.
Before the race: Two hours before the race a pre-race mix of slow release carbs.
During the race: Energy bars, energy gels and tarts ever hour, along with a bottle of water or energy drink every half hour. Team assistants also hand out musettes filled with Panini sandwiches.
After the race: Protein shakes, and bowl of rice and egg.
Dinner: Vegetables for antioxidants, followed by a main course of whole grain and meat.


And a second one, on the bike and the technological evolution.

LIGHTER AND TOUGHER
The minimum weight of the bike has been set at 6.8 kg by the Union Cycliste Internationale for safety reasons.
The streamlined bikes are designed to reduce air-resistance. The designers have shifted from round-tube frames to oval or tear-shaped frames, maintaining a good power-to-weight ratio, while improving aerodynamic efficiency.

Driver suits
To reduce turbulence around the body, riders wear teardrop-shaped aerodynamic helmets, and a one-piece tight fitting skin-suit.

BIKE
GEARS
Manual gears are on the decline as riders are now able to shift gears at the push of a button. The electronic switches change gears faster and produce less wear on the chain.

FRAME
The frame is made of advanced carbon fiber material, instead of titanium or steel, to drop the overall weight while increasing rigidity.

WHEELS
The wheels are ultra-light and have a carbon fibre hub and rims to keep the weight to a minimum. The wheels weigh a combined 1.2 kg.

HANDLEBAR
Bike handlebars use titanium or carbon to bolster the performance. Designers favour hollow, drop handlebars to eliminate barriers to airflow.

SHOES
Instead of having to keep their feet in slots on the pedals, riders wear special carbon-soled shoes that lock into them.


However, I have limited knowledge of the Tour, and cycling in general. Can anybody kindly suggest me a few topics, or interesting themes to pick up on? They have to be beginner friendly, and could be fun facts, or a trend with lots of numbers or figures involved.

I would be highly grateful.

 

[DirtyWorks]

You might want to highlight the multiple races within the race and how they are used to keep the stages interesting.

For example, a rider pursuing the points jersey has far different goals than a rider pursuing the sprinter's jersey. These "races within the race" can impact the overall standings too.

And don't think the points/climbing/young rider competition is not valuable. Each are a hard fought honour.

You also will want to simplify the fact it is a team sport in every way, even though to the untrained viewer it sure doesn't look like it. Different riders can do different tasks depending on the stage.

 

[Zam_Olyas]

Hi.

I work for an Indian news daily, at the sports desk. I have been asked by my editor to come up with a series of graphics for the ongoing Tour, called 'Tour de France for dummies.' The graphics, are more or less a beginner's guide to the event.

From whatever information I could find out, the following was the first graphic, based on an average Tour rider.

Cyclists in the ongoing 100th Tour de France will cover 3,404 kilometers over 21 stages in 23 days. The riders sprint through the stages at an average speed of 40-45 Km/hour, and reach speeds of 75-80km/hr at the finish line. The stages include six mountain stages with climbs 2,000 metres high, and 19 kms long, where the cyclists ascent at speeds of 33-40 km/hr.
A Tour rider has to drop the body weight, as well as the muscle mass in order to achieve an efficient power-to-weight ratio. The average body mass percentage is around 4-8%. A rider expends around 6,000 calories on a high mountain stage; roughly three times as much as a normal person.
Diet
Dietary carbohydrates - 61%, fats - 23%, proteins - 15%
Breakfast: Oatmeal, cereals to top the glycogen levels.
Before the race: Two hours before the race a pre-race mix of slow release carbs.
During the race: Energy bars, energy gels and tarts ever hour, along with a bottle of water or energy drink every half hour. Team assistants also hand out musettes filled with Panini sandwiches.
After the race: Protein shakes, and bowl of rice and egg.
Dinner: Vegetables for antioxidants, followed by a main course of whole grain and meat.


And a second one, on the bike and the technological evolution.

LIGHTER AND TOUGHER
The minimum weight of the bike has been set at 6.8 kg by the Union Cycliste Internationale for safety reasons.
The streamlined bikes are designed to reduce air-resistance. The designers have shifted from round-tube frames to oval or tear-shaped frames, maintaining a good power-to-weight ratio, while improving aerodynamic efficiency.

Driver suits
To reduce turbulence around the body, riders wear teardrop-shaped aerodynamic helmets, and a one-piece tight fitting skin-suit.

BIKE
GEARS
Manual gears are on the decline as riders are now able to shift gears at the push of a button. The electronic switches change gears faster and produce less wear on the chain.

FRAME
The frame is made of advanced carbon fiber material, instead of titanium or steel, to drop the overall weight while increasing rigidity.

WHEELS
The wheels are ultra-light and have a carbon fibre hub and rims to keep the weight to a minimum. The wheels weigh a combined 1.2 kg.

HANDLEBAR
Bike handlebars use titanium or carbon to bolster the performance. Designers favour hollow, drop handlebars to eliminate barriers to airflow.

SHOES
Instead of having to keep their feet in slots on the pedals, riders wear special carbon-soled shoes that lock into them.


However, I have limited knowledge of the Tour, and cycling in general. Can anybody kindly suggest me a few topics, or interesting themes to pick up on? They have to be beginner friendly, and could be fun facts, or a trend with lots of numbers or figures involved.

I would be highly grateful.

What news agencies do you work for?

 

[StyrbjornSterki]

The Tour de France is the largest sporting event in the world for which the spectators pay no admission fee. But the spectators still are subjected to advertisements, just like when watching on television. In 1930, race organisers began allowing advertisers to drive promotional vehicles along the race route shortly before the start of the race in return for a promotional fee. Since spectator's admission to the event is free, this was key to keeping the race profitable in days before television.

For 2013, each advertiser must pay to the Société du Tour de France roughly €150,000 to secure positions for its three vehicles into what has become known simply as "the caravan." They drive gaily decorated vehicles, many playing upbeat music through aptly-named loudspeakers, looking very much like a circus on wheels. And as the caravan proceeds, the people in the vehicles throw thousands of trinkets and souvenirs and advertising products to awaiting race spectators at roadside. Over the full course of the three weeks, it is estimated the roughly 200 vehicles in the caravan will toss about 11,000,000 promotional items to the fans.

The reason the Tour de France's leader's jersey is colored yellow (in French, le maillot jaune) is that the earliest sponsor of the race was a French news company that printed its newspaper on yellow colored paper. This served the dual purpose of identifying the race leader to the fans lining the race route, as well as reminding potential customers whose newspaper they should buy. Yellow since has become the standard color for the leader's jersey in most of the world's stage races.

Pro cycling is a team sport. In the Tour de France, each team begins with nine riders, though many will finish with fewer than nine owing to injury, illness or, sometimes, rules infractions. The reason cycling is suited to being a team sport is that the racer's chief nemesis is the very air he rides through. On an average stage of le Tour, a rider will push aside about 1800 kilos of air. But when the racers ride in a file, like ducks in a row, only the rider in front pays the full price for the hole he drives through the air. Each subsequent rider needs work a little less hard to ride the same speed as the rider to his front. So by each rider taking a brief turn at the front of the line (known in cycling parlance as "taking his pull"), the entire group can maintain a higher speed without any single rider paying he full fare. No single rider or small group of riders (a "grupetto") can match the sheer speed of the larger field of riders (the "peloton") once they have taken the bit in their teeth and are riding at full chat.

Riders in the Tour de France usually are categorised according to the cycling discipline in which they are strongest. Some are strong time trialists, some are strong climbers, some are strong sprinters, and others are skilled in more than one discipline and are called an all-arounder. Each team will be a mix of these many talents but the team's star rider generally will be an all-arounder, because one must excel in many disciplines to stand a chance at winning the Tour de France. There also are competitions for best sprinter and best mountain climber (as well as most aggressive rider and best young rider), and a distinctive jersey to identify each competition's leader, but those are of lesser prestige (and prize money) than the GC, or general classification win.

The sprinters are something of a sideshow attraction, a distraction from the greater race, because they can win several of the individual stages but they stand virtually no chance at overall victory. The sprinting specialty requires a rider with a robust physique, and the weight of their muscularity tends to betray them in the mountains. Where slimmer riders race over the mountains, the sprinters struggle just to get across them. One of the Tour de France's most legendary and most colorful sprinters, Italian Mario Cipollini, never once managed to reach the end of the race in Paris. He always was forced to abandon because the accumulation of the previous weeks of Herculean exertion left him too exhausted to cross over the high mountains.

Even though they might have no chance to win the race, sprinters are kept on the teams because they still will win many stages, and there is much prestige (and advertising value) in every individual stage win. Not to mention the sight of men fearlessly charging the finishing line with reckless abandon at speeds of 70 kph is one of the most exciting spectacles in sport.

Surprisingly. the winner of the TdF will give most of not all of his prize money to his teammates. A pro cycling team's star rider generally is far better paid than his teammates, and he has better opportunities to earn through product endorsements, so he traditionally gives away his prize money to reward his team for supporting him in his victory. But the other side of the coin is that junior riders sometimes are asked to sacrifice dearly for the sake of the team.

Many of the junior riders are known as "domestiques," from the French term for a household servant. It is their lot to serve the needs of the team's top tier riders in any way they can. If the team's leaders are short on water, they do not ride back to the team car to resupply, they send a domestique to fetch it for them. If a leader fails to pick up his food-containing musette bag as he rides through one of the races many "feed zones," he doesn't ride back for it himself, he sends a domestique. If a leader flats a tyre, rather than wait for the team car to bring him a new wheel, one of his domestiques will stop alongside him and surrender his good wheel for the leader's flatted one. Then the domestique waits for the team's mechanic's car.

This is not done simply to test the mettle of the younger riders (although this certainly is their opportunity to put it on display), but to allow the team's star riders to conserve their strength, better to be used at a critical juncture of the race. If pro cycling is a chess match, then the team's star rider is its king, and the the domestiques are his pawns. It is the pawn's purpose to be used up and discarded, but there are only a small number of them, so they must be expended judiciously because while the match cannot be won by a pawn, neither can it be won without them.

But sometimes what is required of a domestique goes far beyond sending him to fetch your supper. In 1985, the star rider for team La Vie Claire, Frenchman Bernard Hinault, crashed early in the third week of the tour, breaking his nose and sustaining other nagging injuries. At the time of the crash, one of Hinault's younger teammates, American Greg Lemond, was ranked second in GC about two minutes in arrears of teammate Hinault. And there were high mountains yet between them and Paris. By most accounts he could have attacked the injured Hinault and claimed the yellow jersey and the overall victory for himself. But Lemond capitulated with instructions from the team's Directeur Sportif and dutifully aided his team's star rider's efforts through the remaining stages and to the win in Paris.

Good luck with your work, I hope this helps.

 

[gauravbhatt]

@Zam_Olyas

Hindustan Times.

@StyrbjornSterki and @DirtyWorks,

Thanks guys. For the next graphic, I thought it would be best to focus on how the Tour is a team sport.

 

[StyrbjornSterki]

Teams were not part of the original plan for the Tour de France. The race was begun as a publicity stunt to promote the interests of the newspaper l'Auto, and race organisers sought to mitigate the distractions that other commercial interests might bring. The rules during the first races were crafted to keep the competition an individual affair, going so far as to forbid a rider receiving any outside assistance, no matter how slight. This is one of the reasons why the riders in those early B&W photos always are shown with a spare tyre worn slung across their backs like a knapsack. If they flatted during a stage, their only options were mending it themselves or abandoning the race.

Probably the most historic tale of a rider's resourcefulness and self-reliance to remain in the competition in this era involved Frenchman Eugène Christophe in the sixth stage of the 1913 tour. Christophe himself was unhurt when he was struck by a car and knocked to the ground but the collision snapped his bicycle's front fork. So he carried his bike some 13 km to the nearest settlement where he was told he could find a blacksmith's shop. There, borrowing the smith's forge and anvil and a bar of raw steel, Christophe, a skilled machinist, forged himself a new fork.

But he had erred in the measuring and his hand-made fork was too large to fit his bicycle's head tube. So he began again and made another.

The second of his hand-made forks was a proper fit but Christophe had fallen afoul of the rules by allowing a small boy to man the bellows on the blacksmith's hearth, so a race official assessed him a 10-minute penalty for the infraction. Such was their determination to prevent the TdF becoming a team sport.

But all his resourcefulness came to naught as Christophe lost three hours 50 minutes on the day, and with it, the Tour de France.

Despite the proscriptions, the advantages of strategically cooperating with other racers were all too evident, and race officials could not watch the entire field all the time, so informal teams soon became the order of the day. All 14 stages of the 1909 tour were won by riders sponsored by Peugeot, even though they dared not call themselves "a team." This development was not lost on TdF ringmaster Henri Desgrange (AKA: HDG), who as early as 1911 was quite critical of the practice, with a particular disdain for the tactical use of "domestiques."

HDG was quite the Luddite, invariably resisting the introduction any new developments in cycling equipment, such as the freewheel and the derailleur. Still hoping he could ward off the inevitable rise of the teams, in 1925 he established a two-tiered licensing system for the race. The first tier was to allow all riders so licensed to exchange only limited assistance. The second tier was only for riders of an established team, with much more lenient rules regarding the exchange of assistance, but only amongst the members of the same team.

HDG came to believe the tiered licensing scheme did not go far enough in arresting the growing influence of commercial interests (then called "trade teams") so in 1930 he re-tooled the entry requirements to feature 8-man national teams from France, Belgium, Germany, Italy and Spain. He rounded out the field with an additional 60 riders to ride under a regional affiliation, known as touristes-routiers.

The TdF was halted for WWII and very nearly did not restart. HDG had died shortly before the war and his successor, Jacques Goddet, opted to keep publishing l'Auto, during the German occupation of France, something which only were allowed if he cooperated with the Nazis. After the war, both Goddet and the newspaper's reputation were sullied so Goddet opened a new newspaper, l'Équipe, to serve as the race's sponsor.

National teams persisted in the TdF, in a variety of different incarnations, until 1968. The teams have been a purely commercial entity from 1969 until now.

Under the current rules, the majority of the teams are selected from the top tier of the UCI's world standings. A few more are selected based on superior past performance, irrespective of results from the current season. And the last few slots are reserved for sentimental favourites.

A typical team today has an administrative staff of about 15 to support the nine racer's efforts. Two are managers (directeurs sportif / DSs), four are mechanics, four are soigneurs, one to two are public relations specialists, and the final member is the team's cook.

The DSs are responsible for overall operation of the team, to include race strategy and personnel issues. They have 2-way radio communication with the team's riders, which enables them to relay tactical and safety-related information to the riders during the prosecution of the race. They use a laptop computer and GPS and monitor television and radio broadcasts to remain apprised of the location of all the key riders and the tactical situation on the road.

The mechanics prep the bicycles before each stage and wash and repair them every night (and adjust or modify them, if needed). They follow the race in a team car with spare bicycles for every rider on the team carried on the car's roof rack, as well as a selection of spare wheels. They can repair and adjust a rider's bicycle while the race is in progress, sometimes even to a moving bicycle. A mechanic is expected to be able to swap a fresh wheel for his racer's flatted wheel in about 20 seconds.

Although it is not legal for a rider to "take a tow" from a team car, race referees tend obligingly to look the other way if a rider briefly holds onto the mechanic's car while a mechanic, leaning out the car's window, makes an adjustment to his bicycle. The driver, naturally, will speed up under such circumstances, to make the most of the opportunity to catch his rider back up to the peloton.

Another time-honoured 'cheat' involving a team car is "the sticky waterbottle". On occasion, when a rider who has fallen behind is handed the water bottle from the team car (a perfectly allowable manoeuver), the man in the car will not let it go. But neither will the racer, and if the driver is paying attention, he will speed up. So the rider is towed back to the peloton because everyone's hands seem stuck to the water bottle. But this is a tactic the race officials are less inclined to overlook.

The soigneur is a super-assistant. They serve as everything from go-fer to masseur/masseuse, helping the riders in any way they can to make ready for the race. After a stage, what the riders want to do most is ...nothing. To relax and rest up for the following day's efforts. So the soigneur massages the rider and does everything in his/her ability to allow the rider to remain as motionless as possible until time comes to arise on the following morning.

Professional cycling in general has no shortage of traditions and unwritten "gentleman's" rules, and the TdF is no exception. One of those traditions is that one does not attack while a potential GC contender is experiencing a mechanical problem or puncture. Or when he is taking a nature break.

It is not possible that 200 (+/-) men could gather for six hours of vigorous exercise, drinking all the while to maintain their hydration, without someone -- and more likely many someones -- having to go to the 'loo. And the pro cyclists have developed their own response to this need.

Sometimes a rider will dismount his bicycle to relieve himself, but this is the exception rather than the rule. More typically, he will unburden himself while remaining in motion. The team DSs sometimes will coordinate among themselves to schedule a sort of "group break" during what they believe should be a quiet phase of the race, which the racers are obliged to make the best of. A favourable stretch of road will be slightly downhill, so the riders can stop pedaling until the operation is complete. Otherwise, the maneouver requires the assistance of an obliging teammate who will push you by the back of your saddle, providing the propulsion for the both of you, whilst you make your peace. This scheduled group break also is of advantage to the television networks as it forewarns them to aim their cameras elsewhere until the riders' bodily business is done. Which is why it can be difficult for the casual cycling fan to figure out how this happens, or even if it happens, because the TV cameras habitually are averting their gaze elsewhere, such as giving the viewers a glimpse of the lovely French countryside.

The one notable exception to this gentleman's rule was in the 1957 Giro d'Italia, Italy's counterpart to the Tour de France and the second of pro cycling's three Grand Tours (the third being Spain's Vuelta a España). Louison Bobet attacked in earnest while chief rival Charly Gaul was stopped for a nature break, and Bobet went on to win the stage. Bobet later claimed Gaul, with whom he was not at all friendly, had made a vulgar gesture towards him while he was partially disrobed. The incident is one of the legends of the sport, known colloquially as le chéri-pipi, because the insulting gesture -- if indeed there as one -- cost Gaul dear.

 

[StyrbjornSterki]

In the case of the TdF, some of these traditions pertain only to the last day of the tour. Except for years in which the final stage is a time trial, it is a mass start stage that begins somewhere a modest distance away (typically 60-100 km) and ends in Paris. Since the Maillot Jaune has only ever changed hands once on the final stage (discounting years when the final stage was a time trial), when it is a mass start stage, it has evolved into a largely ceremonial event.

For starters, the team members of the rider wearing the yellow jersey are treated to a ceremonial glass of champagne as they set off. And there commonly is much conversation and jocularity among the peloton as they ride at a rather leisurely pace toward Paris.

Upon reaching the City of Lights, tradition demands that the Maillot Jaune be the first rider to enter the city. It is only then the race may begin in earnest. After entering the city, there will be several laps (normally eight) around a loop through the city -- which includes a circuit up the famed Champs-Elysées, around l'Arc de Triomphe, and back down the Champs -- laid out specifically to give the citizens of Paris opportunity to feel part of the race and cheer on their favourite racers.

 

[StyrbjornSterki]

Another interesting pro cycling tradition concern's the race's unlikeliest hero, the lanterne rouge.

Lanterne rouge is the term the French traditionally have applied to the lowest-placed rider in the race, an allusion to the red lantern hung from the rear of the last car in a railroad train. It is not, as one might think, a term of derision, but an honourable distinction. The French culture has a soft spot for those who persevere in the face of suffering, and the lanterne rouge is seen as a man who has nothing to gain for himself, yet he endures the torments of the tour entirely for the benefit of his teammates. Very often, the last rider in the race is not last because he is slowest, but because the fates have not been kind to him, or because he is spent, already having given the best of himself in his efforts for his teammates. The fans cheer him on, not exhorting him to victory, but simply to completing the race. His struggle to reach Paris is seen as heroic as the combat for the yellow jersey because his is a selfless effort.