Gearing up for the Tour

photo from cycling4all.com

I’m anticipating the 2006 Tour de France so much that I actually think about it while the World Cup is on. After 7 years of the Tour de Lance, I’m ready for something new. It was great watching such a superior athlete with a great personal story, but Lance’s dominance got to be a bit boring and perhaps bad for the Tour. A year ago he predicted that the 2006 Tour would be very different tactically, and I think he is right. Year after year he won because he was strongest in both time trials and climbing. He also had a team that could control the peloton. Everyone knew it, so there was a psychological edge too. This year there is a void—only one former winner will be participating.

The closest thing to the Lance—USPostal/Discovery dominance is Ivan Basso and his CSC team. Basso is the best climber among the contenders, but while he is an elite time trialist, he is not the best. The CSC team is great, and they along with Discovery Channel are the only teams with the personnel to control the peloton in the mountains. So, yeah, there is an heir apparent, but really the yellow jersey is up for grabs. Rather than hoping Lance catches the flu, every contender has real reasons to believe he can win. Later in the week we’ll review the contenders and the teams. For now, let’s examine the course.

Breaking the trend of the last couple years, there is no team time trial. I’m not upset. I think the TTT ought to be common, but not mandatory in the course. Besides, the Tour organizers have bent over backwards to minimize its effect. Without it, a slight advantage is removed from the contenders on great teams.

The big issue of time trials is that in addition to the prologue, there are two very long individual time trials. Stage 7 is 52 km and Stage 19 is 56 km. It’s as though Jan Ullrich’s mom designed the course. The contenders will be separated by several minutes on these long time trials.

At first glance it looks like the Tour is a bit weak on mountains. There are only 5 days with big climbs, and on the first (Stage 10) the last climb is over 40 km from the finish, so we probably will not see a big shake up that day. That leaves only 4 days in the mountains to separate the contenders, but all 4 days are brutal. Stage 11 in the Pyrenees is 208 km and has 5 climbs, starting with the 18.4 km Tourmalet at 7.7% incline. By the time that stage ends, the standings will be a mess. Three days in the Alps are no less strenuous: Stage 15 is Alpe d’Huez; Stage 16 has over 80 km of incline; Stage 17 is another 5-mountain route spread over 199 km. No, this Tour isn’t soft on climbs, it’s just that they are compacted into fewer days than normal. Two days after the last climb the riders get to decide the race on the final time trial.

It seems as though the Tour organizers wanted to favor the extremes. Long time trials favor the time trial specialist. Compacting several rough climbs per day favors a pure climber. Winning the Tour is all about exploiting your advantage and minimizing your weakness. On this course, whether your weakness is climbing or time trialing, it will be exposed, big time.