Tour De France: The Countdown Begins

[ChillDoubt]

Yes ladies and gents, it's that time of year again where the men with the shaved legs put themselves through 3 weeks of sheer hell, one of the greatest tests of sporting endurance known to man.

The 100th edition of the Tour begins on 29th of June in Corsca, which rather surprisingly has never before seen the peloton visit its shores.

My main reason for posting is that for the second year running a GB rider is the favourite. Hopefully, ably assisted by his team mates Chris Froome (2nd last year) can emulate the achievements of Sir Bradley Wiggins and wear the maillot jaune on the Champs Elysees onthe 21st of July, a night time finish with a spectacular firework display to follow.

Best wishes also to Froome's British team mates (Kennuagh, Stannard and Welshman Thomas) and other GB riders Mark Cavendish and David Millar.

Vive Le Tour!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-P8WcPjMMv8

[sunny-dave]

Can't wait - got my T-shirts ordered from the official store

http://boutique.letour.fr/stores/letour/products/product_browse.aspx?category|category_root|41726=le%20tour%20fashion&category|cat_41726|42787=mens

and a nice set of books from TBP

https://www.thebookpeople.co.uk/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/qs_product_tbp?productId=393576&storeId=10001&catalogId=10051&langId=100&searchTerm=cycling

Should be an excellent three weeks - I like this years route a lot.

[sunny-dave]

http://www.letour.com/le-tour/2013/us/overall-route.html

[ChillDoubt]

I'll be going to the Vaison La Romaine to Gap stage on the 2nd week of my hols SD, hoping to pick up a load of freebies from the Tour caravan as it's the 100th.

It will (as invariably it usually is) be decided in the mountains where on Stage 18 they'll have to tackle Alpe d'Huez TWICE in one day! It's going to be brutal but Froome can do it.

[sunny-dave]

Yes - 18th July is fully cleared chez SD.

First day of the Lords Test (for which I have tickets for days 4 & 5, if it goes that far) and Alpe d'Huez too - may need a beer or to to calm the nerves :)

[Dee-M-See]

You mean Mark Cavendish and his fellow Manx Team mate Peter Kennaugh

[ChillDoubt]

Yes Dee, both are Manxmen and have rode under the Manx flag in competitions but as Cav and Kennaugh have also competed in Team GB colours I class them as Brits.

[ELVIS68]

Have they cleaned the sport up yet?

I know Wiggo was quite vocal about it last year, quite right too

[Dee-M-See]

I would like to see Cavendish win the green jersey and Chris Froome the yellow for overall winner

[ChillDoubt]

Almost Elvis. There are still one or two idiots form the 'old and bold' section of the peloton who were caught doping during the Giro but the sport IS getting there with the stance of Team Sky, who have a no drugs whatsoever policy, to the point that even back room staff who doped in the Lance Armstrong era left the team set-up.
It's gotta start somewhere and the Sky team are leading the way.

To digress a little, it used to be prevalent at the Vuelta, but that was because the Spanish had a more relaxed attitude to doping.
The French are totally the opposite, they hate their worldwide event being besmirched by drugs and EPO and come down heavily on offenders, as David Millar would testify:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Millar#2004:_Doping

He goes into far greater detail in his book. Ironically, he is now one of the biggest voices against doping and has bent over backwards to help clean up the sport, to his credit.

[ChillDoubt]

Agreed Dee. Cav will have some stiff competition from Sagan though.
Either way, it promises to be a great tour.