July 25, 2011

The 2011 Tour de France by numbers

This year’s Tour has thrown up a whole feast of stats and facts. Some records were broken and others were equalled in what was an amazing three weeks of racing.

I’ve spent the last few days putting up a large amount of these stats on twitter. But if you’re not on the twitter or you missed a few I’ve compiled all the facts that have entered my head in the last week or so, right here. There’s also a few here that I haven’t mentioned at all yet.

Througout the Tour, the site’s traffic increased quite a bit so hello to any new readers. I’m kind of overwhelmed by the tweets and emails I’ve been getting thanking me for the constant stream of cycling trivia during the Tour. It’s great to know I’m not the only nerd who appreciates and gets excited about these sporting tidbits. So, on to the stats….

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July 15, 2011

A hat-trick of domestique success

Christophe

In the early years of the Tour de France at the beginning of the 20th century, riders were forbidden from receiving help of any kind. The most famous and extreme example of this came in 1913 when Eugène Christophe was penalised three minutes for allowing a boy to work the bellows as he attempted to fix his own broken forks at a local forge.

On a more day to day basis, receiving no help meant that taking advantage of another rider’s slipstream was also forbidden. This rule was an attempt by the Tour organisers to ensure that truly the strongest rider ended up winning the Tour and not the rider who had received the most help.

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February 20, 2010

Cavendish finally underway

It has a been a full month now since the cycling season officially began in Australia at the Tour Down Under. The rider who won the most professional races in 2009 was sprinter Mark Cavendish. This time last year he had already won two stages of the Tour of Qatar and two stages of the Tour of California. These races along with Tirreno-Adriatico were used in preparation for his first attempt at winning Milan San Remo. After 298 kilometres of racing he succeeded in spectacular fashion, beating Heinrich Haussler by a few millimetres.

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