Motors and Racers of The Tour

I know it's been touched on before, but I'm just so darn impressed with the whole Tour de France spectacle.

The racers are, of course, extremely talented, gutsy, brave and at times insane. Cornering at speed on about 2 square inches of rubber takes all of that. But the moto riders - TV bikes, officials, law enforcement - are a pretty great group, too. A nod to the helo pilots is also in order. All of which combine to bring us couch potatoes amazing coverage of The Tour.

Interesting also to us motorcyclists is the mix of machinery. Kawasaki seems to have the "official" motorcycle thing locked up and I'm sure the product placement is good for sales of the big GTR ("Concours" in the USA). BMW is well represented by the RT boxer twin camera bikes, and I've spotted a K1600 and an old K-brick in the crowd, too. Some law enforcement seems to be on Yamaha FJRs, and a couple of maxi-scooters showed up, brand unknown to me. Not a Honda or Triumph to be seen, although I'd think the Pan Euro (ST1300) would be a great camera bike.

Anyway, there are into the final days with a couple of tough mountain stages yet to come before the ride around Paris. Even if you don't care a fig about bicycle racing, the Tour coverage is fascinating and the m-c watching fun.

pete
'11 RT

"Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken." - Oscar Wilde

also this time of year on my local biking trails Tour wannabes show up in spandexed costumes wheezing all over the place. It's cool except for the safety factor as they appear to be searching for the peloton with little reard for the multiple use parks. Yikes. Some have yellow jerseys, go figure. I wonder if I need bicycle liability insurance?

Not being a bicyclist I miss some of the strategy unless commentators tell me.- unlike motorized competition where I could school a lot of the commentators who weren't themselves racers. And if I were riding one of the camera or chase bikes I'd be very likely to screw up the competition from my lack of understanding.
Even with the long history of extensive doping, packing and corruption the effort required is still interesting- being about how much you can get out of the puny physical efforts of a human body plus team tactics when fighting mostly air resistance and topography.. Having to go back out for the next day for two weeks, especially after a day when you load your muscles with as much lactic acid as they can stand for hours on end has to be a real ordeal..I'd be thrilled if I had a fraction of the aerobic capability of those guys..

Cycling even for the amateur gives great practice to the inner ear that compliments your other riding skills/balance. Started cycling in about '01, when walking or running wasn't an option, knees. it may have saved me from the "big one". I ride a full suspension mountain bike around town, and a rodie Alan with ultegra. trying to get down to 180 my target weight. Enhances the riding experience. Spending money on a good bicycle may be at least as good an investment as a motorcycle.

The "tour" is only one of many bicycle races in the world of cycling but the one that gets the media attention. A son(raced on road bikes himself) went to the world cycling championships in Italy one year & there were said to be 800,000+ spectators there about the course actually watching.