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.

artsy shots of bikes

We need to see more of this. Thanks to Slate for curating. There's a Cartier-Bresson image I'd love to have added to the collection.

JP Pens story on Cyclingnews

Here's a story about the future of American bike racing. Craig Lewis might be unknown to most, but he's young, 23, and could well be the rider of his generation to make it at a Grand Tour.

It's written by me and appears on cyclingnews.

Wiggins to release his last 10 years of drug tests?

In an effort to prove he's a clean cyclist, TdF fourth-place finisher Bradley Wiggins might release to the public the last 10 years of his drug test results. Seems a bit nutty, and if I were a pro cyclist I might not like the implication that anyone who doesn't do the same is a doper, but then I know the reputation of cyclists despite all the problems in the rest of sport.

release them wiggo! show us.

Four days racing on a broken collarbone

That would be George Hincapie. He skipped having it x-rayed after his stage 17 crash, lest the doctors tell him he couldn't go on. Seems like myth, but the guy not only finished the Tour, but drilled it for his teammate Mark Cavendish with 1k to go on the Champs-Elysees. He brought Columbia to the front and Cavendish did his patented winning jump to win the stage.

I don't know if that's professionalism. It is dedication and does seem a bit deranged. Must have hurt like crazy, but then again, after 17 days at the Tour, maybe hurting like crazy doesn't seem so hard.

Was Hematide the key to the Tour in 2009

SF Weekly wonders. In Tour de France Brought to You By ... A Palo Alto Biotech Startup? the have AFLD (France Anti-Doping Lab) head Pierre Bondry wondering if this not-yet-available dialysis drug has already jumped into competition.

We're letting you down easy

After three weeks of Tour Fever, going a day without can be hard. That's why we're taking you down easy, posting fresh stories, keeping the Tour buzz going, albeit at a more relaxed pitch.

We like what ESPN Writer Jim Cagle wrote in his Tour de France Redux piece: "Like the NCAA tournament, the Tour de France is a three-week virtually nonstop extravaganza that fans of the sport wish would never end. The cyclists, on the other hand, probably have a somewhat different take after, say, 15 stages, 1,500 miles and seven tubes of chamois cream...

"So there will be no more watching the peloton ride past fields of lavender, or the leaders climbing ridiculous roads through the Alps and Pyrenees, or the aerial views of ancient chateaus that make you reach for the Rick Steves travel guide so you can dream about a vacation to the Tour that you absolutely, without doubt, "I mean it this time" will take next July. Of course, you won't take that trip next year and will wind up watching the Tour on TV again, feeling sad when it ends and reflecting on the highlights. As I do now …"

Paranoia part of Tour Pressure

Cadel Evans thinks something was amiss in that two of his countrymen didn't get to ride the Tour...on other teams. Allan Davis of Quick Step was a replacement for Tom Boonen, who got the nod at the last minute, and Simon Gerrans.

Cadel Evans' tale of woe in Tour de France

Wine Merchant gives Tour Trip to Employees

Seems nice, but I don't understand how the guy "can't afford to boost salaries, but a Tribeca wine merchant is giving his workers a chance to tackle something bigger than the economy: The Tour de France."

It's going to cost him $75,000. I'm sure that couldn' t go to salaries.

"The workers have trained for weeks on the George Washington Bridge and at Bear Mountain State Park. They've logged 125 miles a week and have lost a collective 300 pounds."

Yes, the GWB is a brutal training ground for cyclists.

Here's the story.