Why is the tdf getting shorter?

Callistus Valerius said:

The iron-men of the 20's and 30's are long gone.

After 80 years, I would expect most of them to be dead too😉

The difference between now and then is that today's racers are
averaging 40+km/h compared to the 30km/h of the past era. That's quite
a difference in output. I don't think very many people would be
interested in watching a group of bikers pudding along at speeds most
healthy people can easily attain themselves.

Callistus Valerius said:

The tour de france is getting shorter all the time, consider this:

2006 Floyd Landis 89h 39m 30s 3639K
2004 Lance Armstrong 83h 36m 02s 3391K
2002 Lance Armstrong 82h 05m 12s 3278K
1989 Greg LeMond 87h 38m 35s 3250K
1988 Pedro Delgado 84h 27m 53s 3300K
. . . and then there were men
1931 Antonin Magne 177h 10m 3s 5095
1930 Andre Leducq 172h 12m 10s 4818
1929 Maurice De Waele 186h 39m 16s 5286
1928 Nicolas Frantz 192h 48m 58s 5377
1927 Nicolas Frantz 198h 16m 42s 5348
1926 Lucien Buysse Belgium 238h 44m 25s 5475
1925 Ottavio Bottecchia Italy 219h 10m 13s 5430
1924 Ottavio Bottecchia Italy 226h 18m 21s 5427
1923 Henri Pelissier France 222h 15m 30s 5386
1922 Firmin Lambot Belgium 222h 8m 6s 5378
1921 Leon Scieur Belgium 221h 50m 0s 5484
1920 Philippe Thys Belgium 228h 36m 0s 5503
1919 Firmin Lambot Belgium 231h 7m 15s 5560
* * * No Tour de France - World War I * * *
1914 Philippe Thys Belgium 200h 28m 49s 5414
1913 Philippe Thys Belgium 197h 54m 0s 5387
1912 Odile Defraye Belgium 184h 50m 0s 5229
1911 Gustave Garrigou France 195h 35m 25s 5544
---------
1911-1931 over 5000 K, around 200 hours
After that it dropped to 4200 K around 120 hours.
Now the modern era it's around 3300 K around 85 hours

So as equipment has evolved, and technology has improved, it seem the race
organizers have less confidence in the riders, as they make the race shorter
and shorter to meet the lower standards of the modern rider. The iron-men
of the 20's and 30's are long gone.

The TdF is not the only race in a Pro's season.

Lou
--
Posted by news://news.nb.nu (http://www.nb.nu)

tiborg said:

Quoted message said:

The iron-men of the 20's and 30's are long gone.

After 80 years, I would expect most of them to be dead too😉

The difference between now and then is that today's racers are
averaging 40+km/h compared to the 30km/h of the past era. That's quite
a difference in output.

Although I would bet that they draft more tightly and share the workload at
the front more effectively than they did 80 years ago, too.

Quoted message said:

I don't think very many people would be
interested in watching a group of bikers pudding along at speeds most
healthy people can easily attain themselves.

Well, in the early days I suppose the fact that the riders had to maintain
that moderate pace for 14-15 hours at a time was impressive. These days
the endurance aspect of the race is spread over many more days, so they
can work harder at any given time if necessary.

Entropy?

R

tiborg said:

Callistus Valerius said:

The iron-men of the 20's and 30's are long gone.

After 80 years, I would expect most of them to be dead too😉

The difference between now and then is that today's racers are
averaging 40+km/h compared to the 30km/h of the past era. That's quite
a difference in output. I don't think very many people would be
interested in watching a group of bikers pudding along at speeds most
healthy people can easily attain themselves.

http://www.raceacrossamerica.com/

P.S. It's a natural consequence of television coverage. Pre-TV, interest was sparked by newspaper stories, which can better represent tangible feats of endurance than subtle yet substantial differences in speed and power.

Callistus Valerius said:

2006 Floyd Landis 89h 39m 30s 3639K

[snip]

Quoted message said:

1911 Gustave Garrigou France 195h 35m 25s 5544

Pretty weak troll if you ask me.

in 1911 the average speed was ~28.4km/h and in 2006 it was ~41km/h
Anyone that rides a bike must know the difference between these two
speeds. Any Fred can do 28km/h

Even the RAAMers can do that <g>

Do the math... Shorter tours mean higher speeds and generally better
television.

Iron men my ass ....... sheesh.

Bill

Callistus Valerius said:

So as equipment has evolved, and technology has improved, it seem the race
organizers have less confidence in the riders, as they make the race shorter
and shorter to meet the lower standards of the modern rider.

No. What happened was that the early Tours were brutal endurance tests,
often with riders finishing an excruciating 300+ km stage alone, or in
small groups, minutes or hours apart. I doubt that there would be much
interest in such an event now. It would be amusing, though, to return
to the practice of requiring riders to make their own field repairs,
including changing flats.

--

David L. Johnson

Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on
no account be allowed to do the job.
-- Douglas Adams

David L. Johnson wrote:
:: there would be much interest in such an event now. It would be
:: amusing, though, to return to the practice of requiring riders to
:: make their own field repairs, including changing flats.

Amusing? Why? You like seeing people suffer needlessly?

On Jul 6, 10:46 am, "David L. Johnson" <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

No. What happened was that the early Tours were brutal endurance tests,
often with riders finishing an excruciating 300+ km stage alone, or in
small groups, minutes or hours apart. I doubt that there would be much
interest in such an event now. It would be amusing, though, to return
to the practice of requiring riders to make their own field repairs,
including changing flats.

Does that include setting bones and carbon fiber repairs?

"Oh my! Schleck is in trouble! He's run out of prepreg carbon fiber
and has miscalculated his two-part ratio! I'm afraid that's the last
we'll be seeing of poor Frank for this year's tour. There's simply no
way for that to cure given the temperature and humidity conditions out
on the parcourse today. He'll miss the cutoff for sure."

R

Roger Zoul said:

David L. Johnson wrote:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

there would be much interest in such an event now. It would be
amusing, though, to return to the practice of requiring riders to
make their own field repairs, including changing flats.

Quoted message said:

Amusing? Why? You like seeing people suffer needlessly?

Trick question? <eg>

In article <[email hidden]>,

Callistus Valerius said:

The tour de france is getting shorter all the time, consider this:

2006 Floyd Landis 89h 39m 30s 3639K
2004 Lance Armstrong 83h 36m 02s 3391K
2002 Lance Armstrong 82h 05m 12s 3278K
1989 Greg LeMond 87h 38m 35s 3250K
1988 Pedro Delgado 84h 27m 53s 3300K

Actually, that's getting longer not shorter.

Quoted message said:

So as equipment has evolved, and technology has improved, it seem the
race organizers have less confidence in the riders, as they make the
race shorter and shorter to meet the lower standards of the modern
rider. The iron-men of the 20's and 30's are long gone.

The race has to fit into TV schedules. That would be the biggest
driver, because that's what allows cycling to make billions of Euros a
year.

"William R. Mattil" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Callistus Valerius said:

2006 Floyd Landis 89h 39m 30s 3639K

[snip]

Quoted message said:

1911 Gustave Garrigou France 195h 35m 25s 5544

Pretty weak troll if you ask me.

in 1911 the average speed was ~28.4km/h and in 2006 it was ~41km/h
Anyone that rides a bike must know the difference between these two
speeds. Any Fred can do 28km/h

Even the RAAMers can do that <g>

300 to 400 km a day on unasphalted roads and dirt roads in the mountains, on
40 pound bicycles with no gear, making your own repairs and with nobody to
hand you food or drinks? Any Fred can do that at 28km/h? I'm not so sure...

Benjo

"benjo maso" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

300 to 400 km a day on unasphalted roads and dirt roads in the mountains,

on

Quoted message said:

40 pound bicycles with no gear, making your own repairs and with nobody to
hand you food or drinks? Any Fred can do that at 28km/h? I'm not so

sure...

Quoted message said:

Benjo

You forgot to add also, freezing cold, snow, sleet, huge washouts, and
streams washing across the road, all works as brakes on the riders speed,
except Bartali of course. :-)

In Transit

Callistus Valerius said:

So as equipment has evolved, and technology has improved, it seem the race
organizers have less confidence in the riders, as they make the race shorter
and shorter to meet the lower standards of the modern rider. The iron-men
of the 20's and 30's are long gone.

Fockstick,

It's not the equipment. Those iron-men back in the day were doped up
the wazoo. Now that the sport is cleaned up and people are riding
clean they don't want to go overboard and push people back into the
[censored] the way events like RAAM do.

Bob Schwartz

"InTransit" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

"benjo maso" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

300 to 400 km a day on unasphalted roads and dirt roads in the mountains,

on

Quoted message said:

40 pound bicycles with no gear, making your own repairs and with nobody
to
hand you food or drinks? Any Fred can do that at 28km/h? I'm not so

sure...

Quoted message said:

Benjo

You forgot to add also, freezing cold, snow, sleet, huge washouts, and
streams washing across the road, all works as brakes on the riders speed,
except Bartali of course. :-)

Of course. But it happened one time that a bunch of kids swore to have seen
how Bartali was pushed by two angels. The cheater!

Benjo

RicodJour said:

On Jul 6, 10:46 am, "David L. Johnson" <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

No. What happened was that the early Tours were brutal endurance tests,
often with riders finishing an excruciating 300+ km stage alone, or in
small groups, minutes or hours apart. I doubt that there would be much
interest in such an event now. It would be amusing, though, to return
to the practice of requiring riders to make their own field repairs,
including changing flats.

Does that include setting bones and carbon fiber repairs?

It would be good seeing the riders use equipment that was actually designed to last. It would obsolete the silly weight rule.

At the least, require the riders to use the same equipment in every stage, time trials included. The bike-du-jour syndrome is a bit like Adventure Racing: maximize the number of toys.

Dan

Dan Connelly said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

No. What happened was that the early Tours were brutal endurance
tests, often with riders finishing an excruciating 300+ km stage
alone, or in small groups, minutes or hours apart. I doubt that
there would be much interest in such an event now. It would be
amusing, though, to return to the practice of requiring riders to
make their own field repairs, including changing flats.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Does that include setting bones and carbon fiber repairs?

Quoted message said:

It would be good seeing the riders use equipment that was actually
designed to last. It would obsolete the silly weight rule.

Quoted message said:

At the least, require the riders to use the same equipment in every
stage, time trials included. The bike-du-jour syndrome is a bit
like Adventure Racing: maximize the number of toys.

I prefer to have each team qualify a bicycle to be used for all its
members and no other bicycle can be substituted for special events
(TT, hill climb, etc). This is what you propose, I presume. The
bicycle that emerges from such a rule might look substantially
different from what we see today.

The reason this doesn't occur is that bicycle manufacturers sponsor
the event and use it to market their special equipment. It might be
different if sponsors from the bicycle industry be banned, leaving it
to food, drink, phone companies, computers, and the like.

The length of the race is probably also a result of multi-media
attention span. I'm sure this has been commercially researched.

Jobst Brandt

benjo maso said:

"William R. Mattil" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Callistus Valerius said:

2006 Floyd Landis 89h 39m 30s 3639K

[snip]

Quoted message said:

1911 Gustave Garrigou France 195h 35m 25s 5544

Pretty weak troll if you ask me.

in 1911 the average speed was ~28.4km/h and in 2006 it was ~41km/h
Anyone that rides a bike must know the difference between these two
speeds. Any Fred can do 28km/h

Even the RAAMers can do that <g>

300 to 400 km a day on unasphalted roads and dirt roads in the mountains, on
40 pound bicycles with no gear, making your own repairs and with nobody to
hand you food or drinks? Any Fred can do that at 28km/h? I'm not so sure...

If Pantani had been on a 40lb bike instead of a 16 lb bike up L'Alpe, and he weighed 126 lb, and his equipment was 3 lb, then his 36-min L'Alpe would have been a 42-min L'Alpe.

He still would have beaten me by 6 minutes, and that if I was totally fresh, I crudely estimate.

That said, I don't think Tour bikes in the climbing era were ever 40 lb. Maybe 30lb.

Dan

benjo maso said:

"William R. Mattil" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Callistus Valerius said:

2006 Floyd Landis 89h 39m 30s 3639K

[snip]

Quoted message said:

1911 Gustave Garrigou France 195h 35m 25s 5544

Pretty weak troll if you ask me.

in 1911 the average speed was ~28.4km/h and in 2006 it was ~41km/h
Anyone that rides a bike must know the difference between these two
speeds. Any Fred can do 28km/h

Even the RAAMers can do that <g>

300 to 400 km a day on unasphalted roads and dirt roads in the mountains, on
40 pound bicycles with no gear, making your own repairs and with nobody to
hand you food or drinks? Any Fred can do that at 28km/h? I'm not so sure...

If Pantani had been on a 40lb bike instead of a 16 lb bike up L'Alpe, and he weighed 126 lb, and his equipment was 3 lb, then his 36-min L'Alpe would have been a 42-min L'Alpe.

He still would have beaten me by 6 minutes, and that if I was totally fresh, I crudely estimate.

That said, I don't think Tour bikes in the climbing era were ever 40 lb. Maybe 30lb.

Dan