Tour de France

The Tour de France (French for Tour of France), often referred to as La Grande Boucle, Le Tour or The Tour, is an epic long distance road bicycle racing competition for professionals held over three weeks in July in and around France. It has been held annually since 1903, interrupted only by World War I and World War II. The most recent Tour was the 2005 Tour de France.

Types of stages

Ordinary/Normal stage

In an ordinary stage, all riders start simultaneously and share the road. The real start (départ réel) usually is some 2 to 5 km away from the starting point, and is announced by Jean-Marie Leblanc in the officials' car waving a white flag.

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Riders are permitted to touch (but not push or nudge) and to shelter behind each other, in slipstream {{ref|1}}. The latter is called drafting and is an essential technique. The one who crosses the finish line first wins. In the first week of the Tour, this usually leads to spectacular mass sprints.

Related Topics:
Slipstream - Drafting

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While only finishers are awarded sprint points, all riders finishing in an identifiable group (with no significant gap to the rider in front, as determined by race officials) are deemed to have finished the stage in the same time as the lead rider of that group for overall classification purposes. This avoids what would otherwise be dangerous mass sprints. It is not unusual for the entire field to finish in a single group, taking some time to cross the line, but being credited with the same time as the stage winner.

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Time bonuses are awarded at some intermediate sprints and stage finishes to the first three riders who reach the specified point. These bonuses generally are a maximum of 20 seconds, and can allow a good sprinter to qualify for the Yellow Jersey early in the Tour.

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Riders who crash within the last kilometer of the stage are credited with the finishing time of the group that they were with when they crashed. This prevents riders from being penalised for accidents that do not accurately reflect their performance on the stage as a whole given that crashes in the final kilometre can be huge pileups that are hard to avoid for a rider farther back in the peloton. A crashed sprinter inside the final kilometre will not win the sprint, but avoids being penalised in the overall classification. The final kilometre is indicated in the race course by a red triangular pennant - known as the flamme rouge - raised above the road{{ref|2}}.

Related Topics:
Kilometer - Peloton

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Some ordinary stages take place in the mountains, almost always causing major shifts in the General Classification. On ordinary stages that do not have extended mountain climbs, most riders can manage to stay together in the peloton all the way to the finish; during mountain stages, however, it is not uncommon for some riders to lose 40 minutes to the winner of the stage. The so called mountain stages are often the deciding factor in determining the winner of the Tour de France. With the exception of the now traditional finish at the Champs-Elysées all famous stages, like Alpe d'Huez and Mont Ventoux, are mountain stages, and these often bring out the most spectators who line up the roads by the thousands to cheer and encourage the cyclists and support their favorites.

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Individual time trial

In an individual time trial each rider rides individually. The first stage of the tour is often a time trial, known as a prologue. Here, riders start in reverse order of race number, meaning the weakest rider on the lowest ranked team will be first off, with the final rider being the defending champion, wearing Number 1. The purpose of the prologue is to decide who gets to wear yellow on the opening day, and provide a large and prestigious spectacle for one lucky city.

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There are usually three or four time trials during the Tour. One of these may be a team time trial (see below). Traditionally the final time trial has been the penultimate stage, and effectively determines the winner before the final ordinary stage which is not ridden competitively. On a few occasions, the race organisers made the final stage into Paris a time trial. The most recent occasion on which this was done, in 1989, yielded the closest ever finish in Tour history, when Greg LeMond beat Laurent Fignon by eight seconds overall. Fignon wore the yellow jersey for the final stage, with a narrow lead of 50 seconds, and was beaten by LeMond's superior time trial performance. Although other riders had used aerodynamic aids in previous tours, LeMond's aero handlebars and helmet were considered a major factor in his victory.

Related Topics:
Team time trial - Greg LeMond - Laurent Fignon

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Team time trial

Often in the first week of the Tour there is a team time trial (TTT). Each member of the team who crosses the finish line ahead of or with the fifth (or last, if the team has less than five riders) member of the team is credited with the time of the fifth (last) team member to cross the finish line; this is the middle member of a nine-person team. Members who finish clearly behind the fifth member of their team receive their individual actual time for the stage.

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Traditionally, riders received the actual time recorded by the fifth member of their team in that stage. However, since the 2004 Tour, the only riders that necessarily receive actual time are those on the winning team; members on trailing teams (who finish ahead of or with the fifth member of their team) receive either the fifth member's actual time, or a computed time based on the winning team's time plus a penalty based on their team's placing in that stage, whichever is lower. The following table indicates the time penalty added to the winning team's time that a member finishing with his team will receive, according to his team's placing, if their actual time is greater than the winning team's time plus this penalty.

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For example, riders on a team that finished in 14th place, six minutes behind the winning team, would lose only two minutes and 20 seconds in the General Classification relative to the winners of the TTT. However, if they finished two minutes behind (still assuming 14th place), they would only lose the two minutes. If they finished in sixth place (still assuming two minutes behind the winning team), they would lose only one minute (per the table).

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Some people speculate that the motivation behind the TTT rule change was an attempt by the race organisers to "Lance-proof" the Tour, limiting how much time Lance Armstrong could gain in this stage. There is, however, no evidence that indicates this is true, and it is more reasonable to conclude that the new rules are simply designed to limit how much time any legitimate contender for the overall win could lose in the TTT stage due to being on a weak team (e.g. Jan Ullrich on Team Bianchi in the 2003).

Related Topics:
Lance Armstrong - Jan Ullrich - Team Bianchi - 2003

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