2016 Tour de France

[ScottCM]

As popular as the Tour will always be, if you want to see real racing watch the classics and the Giro before watching the Tour in July.

 

I doubt Tommy D will go for the Tour next year, probably more suited to the Giro with its 3 TT, and obviously with all the major GC favourites at the Tour it could give him a realistic chance at a 1st Grand tour Title.

['Dale]

Gonna be interesting

All the GCs are pretty important even though yellow in Paris is still the crown jewel

 

Teams like Giant and OGE need to restructure / restrategize a bit as they have genuine GC talents now with Chaves and Dumelang

And keep Degenkolb and Gerro'/Matthews focused on those Classics

['Dale]

 

23 km uphill at 8% average gradient

That'll warm me up ????

[Mntboy]

That'll warm me up ????

And wear me down. I'll be a quivering wreck at the end of that and in general I enjoy climbing!

[fanievb]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lu5w-ZzhuJ0

[JGR]

Ahhh that feeling when the TDF comes through your country ...... 

['Dale]

So I haven't watched any cycling events, like ever, and thinking of following this as my first. Any advice on what to read to understand how it all works?

 

A superb blog is The Inner Ring

www.inrng.com or something like that

[EmptyB]

That'll warm me up

 

That'll make me sh*t my pants....

[BeegMig]

Ahhh that feeling when the TDF comes through your country ...... 

Won't ever happen but I'm sure with allot of planing it can start in SA have a early rest day and fly into France.

[Wez-O]

So I haven't watched any cycling events, like ever, and thinking of following this as my first. Any advice on what to read to understand how it all works?

Wow, I'm not sure where to start...

You need to understand that cycling is a team sport and basically whether the guys are racing for the overall win of stage victories, their teammates are burying themselves for the cause.

 

Then its also to understand the different types of riders:

Climbers: Lightweights who like hills.

Time trailists: Powerful guys who are fast against the clock on an individual rider stage.

Sprinters: Powerful/muscular riders who are fast over 100m (The Bolts of cycling).

Puncheurs: somewhere in between a Sprinter and climber... A Sagan of sorts.

GC (general classification) riders: The guys racing to win overall and are generally good climbers and time trailists.

[nochain]

Wow, I'm not sure where to start...

You need to understand that cycling is a team sport and basically whether the guys are racing for the overall win of stage victories, their teammates are burying themselves for the cause.

 

Then its also to understand the different types of riders:

Climbers: Lightweights who like hills.

Time trailists: Powerful guys who are fast against the clock on an individual rider stage.

Sprinters: Powerful/muscular riders who are fast over 100m (The Bolts of cycling).

Puncheurs: somewhere in between a Sprinter and climber... A Sagan of sorts.

GC (general classification) riders: The guys racing to win overall and are generally good climbers and time trailists.

Brucem76 its the greatest sport in the world to watch once you understand the things mentioned here by Wez-O and many more. It's so complex it takes people years to understand all the things going on in a race.

Something as simple as it's not always the strongest rider that win the race just does not make sense until you understand the battle that goes on in the peloton.It's all about energy saving and timing of moves. Lots of mind games going on also...

You won't be sorry that's for sure...try and find someone that understand the sport a bit and watch a couple of races with them or just come visit the international cycling section here for all the info and comments. You will learn fast!

The first time you see a bunch break up because of a side wind and see the show of force that happen when the strong boys rip it apart you will be in love and never look back!!

['Dale]

Bonus seconds...

Always exciting hey

 

And double points for KOM jersey at certain points 

 

Gonna be good.

[JGR]

Won't ever happen but I'm sure with allot of planing it can start in SA have a early rest day and fly into France.

I live in Switzerland ... so next year I will be going 

[Frosty]

Had a good chat with the BikeHub team at the Africa Cycle Fair, including the Fantasy Tour for 2016... it will be held again, hopefully using the Giro as a dry-run.

[Duane_Bosch]

I live in Switzerland ... so next year I will be going 

Pretty sure I'm going to be in Morzine on July 23 to watch them coming past.

[Bonus]

From Cycling News:

 

" . . Froome will have an even greater task on his hands when he once again goes into the 2016 edition of the Tour as defending champion. Although the route, which features far more time trialling, is better suited to him competitively than this year, he insists it will be a challenge to battle against complacency.

 

“What’s more tricky is trying to stay motivated and even trying to improve when things have gone well for you. It’s quite easy to fall into the trap of becoming complacent. You say, ‘I’ve won the Tour de France, I’ll just go in next year and try and do the same again’. But it doesn’t work like that.

 

“I’m going to have to try and be better next year, I’ve got to look at everything – every factor, my nutrition, my training, everything – to be ready for the Tour de France, and try and do it better than I have in the past.

 

“It’s that constant evaluation. I don’t think you’re ever at the point where you’ve got the winning formula. The sport is evolving, you’re coming up against stronger rivals every year. We’ve won the Tour de France three times now at Team Sky so we’ve got a good basic formula for getting ready for the Tour de France, but its something we constantly need to challenge, we need to constantly become better at everything we do.”