After my earlier post that equated the excitement of Bicycle racing to the excitement, or lack there of, of NASCAR. I have been intently following the Tour De France.
Now I don't have the time to watch all 3-4 hours of coverage every day on versus, nor am I ready to drop $29.95 on their Tour tracker. but I have been DVRing each stage since they are on while I am at work and a 4 hour telecast can be greatly shortened by fast forwarding through commercials!
This is the first tour that I have followed this closely.
It's interesting because I have ridden long distance before, well 55 miles is long distance to me, and I can understand a little bit about what the riders are going through while on their bikes. Now, granted, I'm not usually riding along at 30 MPH but I'm still riding at the limits that I have.
The biggest issue I have so far is with figuring out who the overall leader is. I think that I understand how the Green and Polka Dot Jerseys are awarded. But I have no idea how the yellow jersey gets decided.
I know, I know, the yellow jersey is awarded to the guy who has the fastest overall time. I just find it hard to believe how a guy can have say, a 60 second lead over the second place racer and then for 3 days they all finish with the exact same times that they had the day before. Then, all of the sudden, one day some guy will come out of nowhere and take over the overall lead by like 3 minutes!
Confusion aside, it's been fun. Even though it appears that Lance Armstrong doesn't have any chance to win the overall race but he can still win a stage or two. He can even help his teammate Levi Leipheimer overcome a 2 minute and 14 second deficit to win the whole race!
I have also been entering every single contest related to the Tour De France I can! I'm gonna win a freaking new bike if it kills me! Although my fantasy cycling team doesn't seem to be the way I'm going to win it.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment