The Second Edition of Tour Fever is Out Now!

It's that time of year.  

You've got the fever.  

You want more. 

You need more. 

Tour Fever is here to answer those questions, slake that thirst, grow that pallet so that the taste you're enjoying turns into the feast the Tour de France rightfully is.  

When the first edition came out, GQ.com gushed,

"A superb companion to the world’s greatest race, Tour Fever breaks down the race’s history, terminology, and traditions in a smart yet easy-to-use guide that offers something to both the brand-new enthusiast and the experienced racer. If you’re planning to tune into the Tour’s final days—and c’mon, dude, you should!—it’s the perfect companion on the couch. I’m sharing mine with the guys in the office—not so they’ll stop mocking me, but to show them that sports in July is more exciting than Astros at Padres."

The second edition is even better.  More stories, more information, updated explanations of the rules, including the inscrutable Green  and Polka-Dot Jersey races, and the elusive Team GC race (it is a big deal).

I'm enjoying the new cover design by Dave Wilson, and the cover pic of Bernard Hinault, Guido Van Calster, and Eddy Planckaert sprinting in Zolder, Belgium during the 1981 Tour, taken by John Pierce of Photosport International.  Hinault is in Yellow--you rarely see favorites for the overall mixing it up in sprints these days.  Hinault went on to win, his third Tour victory. All three are wearing the now-forgotten hairnet helmets, which pretty much kept kept your scalp intact.  And you can see sponges, allegedly soaked with cologne to cope with the high heat of the race track, sticking up in the backs of Hinault and Van Calster's jersey.  The shot itself is also a rarity, a mid-sprint side-view closeup that's so hard to get right, few even try.  

The ebook version is currently available as an ebook on Kobo,  iTunes, and Lulu.  It will be available on other platforms shortly as well.

You can find it on Kobo here:
https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/tour-fever

And on iTunes here:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/tour-fever/id1258792282?mt=11

And on Lulu (great for Kindle users)
http://www.lulu.com/shop/jp-partland/tour-fever/ebook/product-23257451.html

Watch the Tour via a homemade Tour Tracker

Been pretty dead around here for some time.  The Tour is as interesting as ever, and the perennial controversies are booting up.

But the joy is in the experience.  To that end, I'm linking to a post I wrote some time ago from another blog I do.  It's about building your own way to view the Tour on your computer.  Because you should be better informed than the professional yammerers who natter on and on while the peddlers of charm are doing their thing.

Homemade Tour Tracker*



*always respect copyright laws.

A Tour for Foodies

The Australian Broadcast service does a great recipe every stage.

Tour de France 2010 Recipes

Pop Up TdF

Pop-up books were fun when I was a kid. Problem was, they were most fascinating when I was least able to handle them. At the age I wanted these books, I was quickly destroying the intricate models that were opening with each page. Still, this one is cool.

Pop Up Tour de France

Must-See Cervelo Advermentaries

Don't know why Cervelo decided to commission these. But whatever reason, they're pretty good. Unfortunately, they're usually two to three months behind, so the Tour story will probably debut in September or October.

Beyond The Peloton

TdF Sweepstakes: Performance Bike

Mail Order Giant Performance Bike has their own big sweepstakes.

Performance Celebrate The Tour

TdF Sweepstakes: Versus/Cadillac--go to the Tour in 2011

Sponsor madness. Enter to win a trip to the 2011 Tour de France.

The Cadillac Lead The Pack Sweepstakes

TdF Sweepstakes: Road ID

Road ID makes entering a little more difficult. You have to either donate money, buy stuff, or start following them on Twitter or Facebook. Still might be worth it if you like the prizes.

Road ID Giveaways

TdF Sweepstakes: Win a PowerMeter and Coaching

Training Peaks is going big time. They're offering up a SRM and coaching from Hunter Allen.

Training Peaks Tour de France Sweepstakes

TdF Sweepstakes: Aquaphor Challenge

While this one is fun, it takes quite a bit of work. First you need a GPS. Then you need to ride every stage of the race. Then, when your ride is done, upload your ride to Map My Ride. They'll convert your effort into what it would be if you rode the actual TdF Stage of the day. with that, they'll compute a leaderboard.

AquaPhor Tour de France Challenge

TdF Sweepstakes: Win a Specialized Bike

Specialized is giving away one every day.

In It to Win It

TdF Sweepstakes: Win a Trek

Trek has to get into it as well

Dream Bigger

good TdF commercial: Contador and Schleck

Specialized deserves kudos for using their two star riders for a hilarious commercial.

Alberto and Andy In It To Win It

TdF Helmet Sweepstakes from Giro

Win a free helmet from Giro.

The Lance Armstrong Sweepstakes

TdF Sweepstakes: Win stuff from Active.com

This one takes a little work. They give up a trivia question a day. It's multiple choice, so you can alway just guess.

Active.com Tour de France 2010 Trivia Sweepstakes

Quality Head Butt leads to a primer on the Rules of Sprinting

Let's thank head butt'r extraordinaire Mark Renshaw for prompting this excellent video analysis by Cyclocosm:

How The Race Was Won - Rules of the Group Sprint

Some online options for tracking the Tour

The Wall Street Journal found some options and offers them up in Tracking the Tour de France with Tech.

Annual Tour Whining Contest

Every year, there's a stage that causes the riders to complain that the racing is too dangerous. This year, it was Tuesday's Ardennes-classics-style stage to Spa and Wednesday's Roubaix-style stage to Arenberg. I think the racers are getting whiny over this. These courses aren't inherently dangerous, though it seemed that on stage two there must have been quite a bit of oil on the road, it's the riders not giving a centimeter and taking too many risks that's the problem.

The Tour is supposed to be won by the most complete racer. Some years that includes racing over cobblestones. It shouldn't be just about time trialists and climbers. I understand that many racers want predictable stages and boring races. They don't want to have to think too hard about racing until it's absolutely necessary. These racers want to let the sprinters and long breakaway riders have the flat stages and the climbers the mountain stages. But it's a more exciting, more complete race if the racing isn't so predictable, if the teams have to think hard about every stage. it would be great to see a rider who's not a great climber or time trialist win the race because he was savvy enough to take advantage of the stages where people weren't expecting the race to be made.

Tour Watching online

While we shouldn't be giving away this secret, as you'll eat up bandwidth, but if you want to get daily tour highlights without having to listen to sportscaster prattle or just need measured doses of said chatter, click on over to Steephill.tv. It's mostly a listing of links. But you can see the final kilometers of just about every stage this way, and can also see highlights from many different sports networks. I particularly enjoy listening in to the Flemish or Italian feeds.

personal stage racing over the Tour

Sorry for not posting anything thusfar. Was doing the stage race thing at Fitchburg for the first few days of the Tour.

My prediction was going to be "there will be blood," but stage two was not where I was expecting blood. I don't know what was the real cause of all the mayhem on two, but it wasn't the course's fault. They've done the roads during the Tour in the past without a problem and even Le Fleche Wallonne was conducted partially in the wet this year with fewer crashes.