Well it took me the best part of 14 hours to make the journey from the Alps to the Pyrenees. If you look at a map of France it looks like a fairly simple journey from Le Bourg D'Oisans in the South East corner across to Lourdes in the South West corner. Unfortunately the speedy bullet trains don't operate this route, so I caught a 1 train to Paris, survived the underground Metro and then another train to Lourdes.

The bullet trains are exactly that. The speed these trains generate is quite something to feel and see. Its only when you see the train running alongside a freeway where the cars you are passing look like they are dawdling. Anyhow I got in around 9 pm and it was still 30 degrees and there crowds of people everywhere. I decided that shower, eat and bed were my best options.

This morning the weather did a complete back flip, and it was cold, drizzling and only 12 degrees ( my tan was going to suffer today big time). I decided to avoid the Tourist stuff today and just get on the bike work the legs. I kitted up with all my wet weather gear and did a 60 KM loop north to a town called Tarbes. No hills to speak of and just a good opportunity to blow the cobwebs out.

So as I have limited photos today and will reserve another day for the Lourdes immersion experience I thought I would give you the Idiots Guide to the TDF. When the Tour starts in 3 days time, then you will become the "local expert" in your office/home/ pub etc. Feel free to quote from this article........people will only be impressed with your learned and informed mind.

Okey Dokey let's get this thing started shall we? The Tour started back in 1903 by Henri Desgrange who wanted to promote his newspaper, and he thought that by sponsoring a bike race around France would be a good way to do it. This year will be the 98th edition, with some years lost to both the World Wars.

The original event proved a hit, and soon other countries wanted in and started sending their cycling best across to tackle the Grande Boucle (The Big Circle) as it was known. To create further interest to the event, other contests within the race were added to the race such as the best Sprinter (green jersey), best Climber (white jersey with red polka dots) and the White jersey (not because the French like white flags!!) but for the best rider under 25 years of age. There is also a Teams Category for best team with the lowest cumulative time for their 3 fastest guys on each stage. The winner of course wears the yellow jersey (malliot jaune) for having the quickest time around the 3,430 KM course. The leading time category is also commonly referred to GC (general classification).

So this year there are 22 teams with 9 riders on each team. They race over 21 stages with a couple of rest days thrown in after stages 9 and 20. Two of the stages are Time Trials (known as the race of truth). There is a Team time trial on stage 2 and an individual stage on stage 20 which normally settles a few places in the top 10 just before the finish.

For the majority of teams they will not have a rider capable of winning any of the above categories. In reality only 4 - 5 people are really in contention for the respective jerseys, so it begs the question why are they there?

To get invited to ride the Tour is a massive honor, and the various sponsors of these teams want to get maximum exposure of their jersey when it is being beamed into millions of households around the world. So what the team managers (Director Sportif) do is select certain stages for 1 or 2 of their guys to get into a breakaway first, and hopefully if they are good enough hang on and win the stage. The cameras are on these guys for a long time, so the sponsors are getting good value for their Euros. Some of these teams cost about 8 - 12 million Euros (12 - 17 Aussie) a year to sponsor a team of about 25 contracted riders.

So within each team you have TimeTrial specialists, sprinters, GC and climbers. If you are neither of those, then you are generally known as a "Domestique". Loosely translated it means that you will do all the dirty work for your team leader to give him every chance of winning the category he is trying to win. It might mean carrying 12 water bottles (bidons) up to team mates at the front of the race, handing your bike over to your leader if he has a mechanical (eg, flat tire) or just riding in front of your leader for 2 hours so that he can benefit from staying out of the wind and conserving much needed energy for the end of the race. They say that this can as much as 30% easier for the guy behind.

So this year my predictions are the following. Alberto Contador (drug appeal pending) to win again from Andy Schleck. I think Cadel Evans will finish around 5 to 7th............I hope higher as he has good form, but he is 34 and his last 2 tours have been not good due to injury.

Green jersey will be Mark Cavendish, Teams will be Trek Leopard, a Froggy like Charteau will win the Climbing gong and I have no idea on the white jersey.

The excitement is building here, I trust you all have your couches ready and prepared for the 3 weeks starting this Saturday when Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwin entertain us each night.

That's it for tonight for as I am off to have my first ever "Cassolet" a local French delicacy (a stew with beans and other goodies) I shall report on that tomorrow.

Regards,

Cycling Foodie

Posted from

Lourdes, France