This year's 101st edition of the Tour de France, the largest and most prestigious cycling race in the world, started this morning at 11:10 am British time in Leeds, England.It will end at approximately 7 pm on July 27 with a sprint finish on the famed Avenue des Champs-Élysées in Paris, France after covering 3,664 kilometers (2,275 miles) of wind-swept roads, mountain passes, and rough cobblestones sections in England, France, Belgium, and Spain.
"Le Tour' is the cycling equivalent of the NFL championships and soccer's World Cup, with thousands of frenzied cycling spectators lining the roads for each day's stage and millions more in 190 countries watching (and re-watching) the action on television or via streaming video over the Internet.
Over two million spectators are expected to line the roads in England during the first two stages in that country.
This year's tour will consist of 21 individual race stages plus 2 rest days, with 9 flat stages, 5 hilly stages, 6 mountain stages that climb as high as 2,360 meters above sea level, 5 mountain-top finishes and 1 individual time-trial stage.
The length of each individual stage will range from 85 miles to over 147 miles, with the 33 mile individual time trial scheduled for the next-to-last day of the tour on July 26. The racers will be on the road for over five hours on the longer stages, consuming up to 8,000 calories of solid food, energy gels, and liquids each day.
Racers will have two rest days during the overall event (July 15 and July 21), although most riders will opt to do an 'easy' 2 hour or longer ride during each rest day to ensure that their bodies stay awake and primed for the next day when racing resumes.
Today's opening stage from Leeds to Harrogate in England covered 118 miles. Although not considered a mountainous route, it did include some 'lumps' along the course with the equivalent being a ride from Abilene to San Angelo via Bronte, Robert Lee, Water Valley and then along a long flat stretch on highway 87 to a high-speed sprint finish in downtown San Angelo.
The average speed for the overall Tour de France winner over the entire 2,275 miles of the 2014 race will be around 25 miles per hour with competitors hitting speeds well over 50 miles per hour on the long descents from high mountain passes.
This race is - without a doubt - the most grueling cycling event in the world.
Twenty-two teams with nine racers per team started the race this morning, with each team having a designated team leader, sprint specialists, and worker bee 'domestiques' who are tasked with supporting the team leader and sprinters.
The Tour de France is actually multiple competitions within one race. The overall 'Yellow Jersey' or General Classification winner will be the cyclist who completes the 2,275 miles in the lowest elapsed time.
There will be concurrent competitions during the race for the Green Jersey (most sprint points), Polka Dot Jersey (best climber), and the White Jersey for the best young rider age 25 or under.
Racers will also be competing for daily honors such as winning an individual stage, being the most aggressive rider during a stage, and being part of the best overall team during the event.
Pre-race favorites for this year's tour include the 2013 winner Chris Froome from England and Alberto Contador of Spain who won the event in 2009.
The United States also has some fast cyclists in the race who could challenge for the win, including Colorado's Tejay van Garderen who won the Best Young rider in 2012, California's Andrew Talansky, a 25-year-old who recently beat all of the tour favorites to win the Criterium du Dauphine last month, and Oregon's Chris Horner, a 42 year-old racer who surprised the world by winning the 2013 Tour of Spain.
Overall, there are nine US riders listed on the start list for this year's tour.
Texas has a special connection to the Tour de France because of Austin's now-retired Lance Armstrong.
Although his record seven Tour de France wins were stripped from him because of his admitted use of performance-enhancing drugs (during an era when almost all professional cyclists doped), many people still consider him to have been the most dominate tour racer in history.
Between now and the tour's end on July 27, we'll see heroic performances from many of the racers, horrific crashes that injure riders, and day-after-day thrilling competition where seconds may be the difference between winning and losing after racing almost 2,300 miles.
Enjoy the race.
Upcoming Events
July 10: Road bike time trial, http://angelobike.org/road-time-trials/
July 12: Lake Nasworthy Triathlon, roadlizards.org
July 24: Mountain bike time trial, http://angelobike.org/events/mtb-time-trial-4/
July 26, Goodfellow Triathlon, roadlizards.org
Aug 2: Southland Shuffle, roadlizards.org
Aug 10: San Angelo Olympic and sprint distance triathlon, Spring Creek Park
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