Tour De France...

Liam Gallagher

hey... this is my first post. im not an experienced rider. but ive been watching the tour for the last 2 years and find it excellent.
however, i still cannot find the rules anywhere, particularaly regarding how they sort out who wears what jersey.
why, if lance armstrong keeps finishing in the middle of the peleton does he wear the yellow and win overall? whats the significance of the teams? why is it important to win the stage? (robbie wins two stages and is no where to be seen in the overall standings). are certain cyclers designated as sprinters and others as climbers etc..?
if anybody can answer my question then i would be grateful to u or similarly write me an email
cheers!

jitmo

Well, hello and welcome. Alot of questions here so i'll try to help a bit. The jerseys (yellow-overall best time, green-most points, polka-dot-best climber, white-best youngster) are all calculated differently. It is possible to win the tour and never win a stage, thus acquiring the yellow jersey. If you recall during the prologue, the riders are sent at 1 minute intervals. So, as in the case with LA/JU, when LA passed JU he had gained 1 minute in time. On the road this is hard to make up. So even if JU would beat LA on every single stage by a couple of seconds, it would not amount to a lot of time (except for that the winners of stages get an additional time bonus). Green is given by simply placing a couple of lines, if you will, out on the track at various places. The first rider crossing this "line" gets something like six points. Second rider gets 4, and third gets 2 (or similar). Remember this is just conjured up points, not TIME. Polka dot is similar except "lines" are drawn on top of mountains or hills. These points are seperate from the green points. White is for riders who will be no older than 25 at years end, (who ranks highest in time classification). There is alot of minor details as well, but hope this helps. Keep watching, you will see many things. I've only been a watcher since '99, but still learn new things as rules change periodically. Au revoir!

Liam Gallagher

hey thanks for your reply man. thanks alot actually. so your saying that armstrong and ulrich would start at slightly differnt times? and that armstrong, although does not win a stage, does get a better time than the guy who comes first? (assuming the guy who wins the stage starts first)?
...if u know what i mean?
it just seems that as i watch it, lance just sits in the midle of the pack with no intention on winning. and yet his name is on top of the leader board...

Marx SS

Road cycling has been around for a long time & in that time they’ve been able to accumulate lot of rules.

Little rules that make a big difference in the viewing are things like:
If you finish within a minute (or so) of the winner then you get the same time. (that’s why Lance doesn’t need to be first across the line, just as long as he follows about a 1min behind the stage (day) winner it’s cool for cats.
Stacking in the last km still means you finished.
(But I’m no expert really).

These two rules seem dumb in the flat stages we have had so far, but when you get into the mountains [proper] the field will get strung badly as riders break down & the results will play out.

Only Time Trial days (whether individual or team tine trial) results is to the second.

Best thing about the TDF is that it’s on at a time of year that really sucks to be out riding in Australia (cold, wet [and muddy if you MTB]), so I don’t feel too bad cooped up infront of the tele for so long.

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'03 Specialised Stumpjumper 27spd hardtail MTB.
'90 Apollo MTB commuter rigid ss 44/18.
'02 Kinesis Crosslight cyclocross/roadie 27spd.

nitrous

This should help a bit...

http://www.letour.com/2005/TDF/LIVE.../r1_enjeux.html

peterlip

Just picked up a copy of the "Official Guide Le Tour 2005". Costs $11.75, but contains a run down of all the jerseys, every team entered and every stage. It's obviously printed a few weeks (or months) ago, because they list each teams roster (15-25 riders), but don't say which ones are actually competing (www.letour.fr answers those questions).

artemidorus

Only in the time trial events, which occur on a small number of days. On other days, the cyclists start as a group or "peleton".

artemidorus

This isn't quite true. All members of a given bunch get the same time. If the winner is alone, or part of a small group, and you finish 10 seconds behind him, alone or part of a separate group, then your time is 10 seconds slower.

artemidorus

It is only important to win a stage for sprint riders aiming for the green jersey, as the finish line is one of those important lines mentioned above for sprint points. (Although it is prestigious for anyone, and may be the only chance of a moment's fame for riders like Bernucci).

Robbie can't climb hills (relatively speaking ); he was 20min behind tonight at the finish. A 20min drop behind the leaders is pretty hard to recover from. If you can't keep up with the peleton over the hills, then you can't even win any sprint points. There are many more hills to come.

peterlip

The other point to make, is that the sprint points change depending on the stage. In the early stages, and the other flat stages later, you get 35 points if you cross the line first. Last nights stage was only worth 25 points because of the hills involved. I think the official mountain stages get even less points.
Why this works for the McEwens of this world, is that they can hide in the peleton on the flat stages, so they're close at the end. Then sprint to get maximum points.
Over the mountains, your traditional sprinter has too much weight (muscle that is, no fatties here), so have practically no chance of keeping up. However, for the points competition (green jersey) they're not missing out on as many points, so it doesn't matter. For the general classification (yellow jersey), they have no chance because they tend to lose 10-30 minutes on the mountain stage. The only thing they need to worry about, is that they finish within 10-20% (insert another complicated formula here!) of the stage winner's time so that they don't get eliminated from the rest of the race.

Similar thing with the mountain climbers (pokadot jersey). Different grade mountains give you different amount of points, generally the harder the climb, the more points you get. The mountain climbers tend to be the guys with matchstick upper bodies. There's no benefit carrying weight up a hill, unless it's in your legs for those guys.

Marx SS

Apologies for the previous faff about the rules.

Looking through these posts, it seems that there are far too many rules for this multi-day tour event.
And this isn't even taking into account all the etiquette in the peleton that goes on.

__________________
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'03 Specialised Stumpjumper 27spd hardtail MTB.
'90 Apollo MTB commuter rigid ss 44/18.
'02 Kinesis Crosslight cyclocross/roadie 27spd.

Turtle74

Thanks for the info guys. I'm watching my first TDF and have been having a hard time with the rules as well.

Kathy