Tour de France

Originally posted by socal9er42:

Originally posted by 190836:
Anyone following the tour?

Guess I must be one of the only ones.

However, the race is secondary for me. I watch it for the scenery. I still want to tour Europe someday with The Alps being the focal point. Advanced planning you know....

The TV Producers are wise to spend so much time showing the gorgeous Countryside (at least a large portion of it). I've always wondered if the French Tourism Industry provides subsidies for some of the costs of those helicopters.

Of course it helps French tourism. It shows off large portions of their country and some of the most beautiful places. The tour is fun to watch. American viewers generally are just not in tune with cycling. If you know the riders and teams and who is good at what discipline it is much more interesting. Plus if you follow it for several years in a row it makes more sense. Because you understand all the "race within a race" stuff. If you just turn it on it just looks like it's 180 + guys cycling around. But it's much more complex than that. There are individual categories and all kinds of strategies going on.

Plus yes you have the beauty of the countryside, old castles, old churches, old bridges and chateaus. They break away a little bit and show that stuff sometimes. Which indeed makes it more fun and interesting IMO.

The race is hurt by the fact of no real contender Americans at the moment. They have fallen from a once dominant position. That hurts it with U.S. viewers. They don't know who to cheer for and don't know the other riders.

Personally I really like the race and the coverage but it could use some more competitive Americans. When they do get that viewership will go up. For now it's just the people who are interested in cycling who follow it. It's huge in Europe and big in some parts of South American too. It's just not super big here. Kind of like soccer. But if you take the time to learn it and understand it and understand the different categories, the great riders, the overall competitors, the individual category competitors, and of course seeing beautiful Europe it is pretty cool.

So who cheated....I mean won this year?

Originally posted by jcs:

So who cheated....I mean won this year?

Most successful athletes are on PEDs, even most of the 49er squad, just saying.

I'm really into cycling. Haven't found a sport that burns more calories without wrecking your body.

Watch the Giro d'Italia. The winner literally stop to take a s**t (was sick), lost the leadership, but gained it back and won the whole thing on the last stage.

Originally posted by SFTifoso:

Originally posted by jcs:
So who cheated....I mean won this year?

Most successful athletes are on PEDs, even most of the 49er squad, just saying.

I'm really into cycling. Haven't found a sport that burns more calories without wrecking your body.

Watch the Giro d'Italia. The winner literally stop to take a s**t (was sick), lost the leadership, but gained it back and won the whole thing on the last stage.

Its not just PED's some of these guys are sneaking motors into their bikes among other things...

Originally posted by jcs:

Originally posted by SFTifoso:

Originally posted by jcs:

So who cheated....I mean won this year?

Most successful athletes are on PEDs, even most of the 49er squad, just saying.

I'm really into cycling. Haven't found a sport that burns more calories without wrecking your body.

Watch the Giro d'Italia. The winner literally stop to take a s**t (was sick), lost the leadership, but gained it back and won the whole thing on the last stage.

Its not just PED's some of these guys are sneaking motors into their bikes among other things...

I don't think the top pro levels would be that stupid, but so far a 16 year old girl got caught, and received a 7 year ban. And more recently a 40 something man got caught, but he finished 3rd in the race...

What the pros exploit is the TUE (therapeutic use exemption) rules. They use drugs like asthma inhalers, steroid anti-inflammatory drugs, and other pain killers.

They might still blood dope, i don't think the science can still detect that. Blood doping is where they draw out a bag of your own blood like a month before the race. Store it. And before a key stage, they put it back into your body so you get a red blood cell boost. More red blood cells, more oxygen that can reach the muscles.

It's that time of the year. 2018 tour just kicked off and Froome is already down by over a minute.