Tour de France

bigal1500 said:

how does one qualify for that race?

First, you are good enough as an amateur to get signed by a pro team.

Then you dominate your crappy regional pro circuit enough to get noticed by a good pro team.

Then you ride really well in those hanful of races your good pro team team does against ProTour teams to get signed to a ProTour team.

Then you impress team management with your riding ablity, dedication to the team, and, in some cases, your French nationality, and thus get named to the team's nine-man Tour de France roster.

Better eat your Wheaties.

And then you prove yourself carrying water bottles for 1-2 tours (if you last that long) and begin to move up the pecking order, to where you are no longer expendable and used for reeling in brakes for your team captain, then dropped off the back and expected to make it to the end of the stage within cutoff time.

Oh to be a mediocre pro-tour cyclist.

cosmo_the_third said:

...and, in some cases, your French nationality...

Good one!😄😉

Seems to be a very objective way to "make a team"...I mean wouldn't it make more sense to have some type of time-trial where you seperate the "men from the boys". Like the olympics, wouldn't it make more sense to have a mini-tour de france qualifier? To me it just seems like if you're pretty mediocre but can beat a few people you could make the team by simply knowing people and not really by true ability.

bigal1500 said:

Seems to be a very objective way to "make a team"...I mean wouldn't it make more sense to have some type of time-trial where you seperate the "men from the boys". Like the olympics, wouldn't it make more sense to have a mini-tour de france qualifier? To me it just seems like if you're pretty mediocre but can beat a few people you could make the team by simply knowing people and not really by true ability.

Uh, no.

You have to distinguish yourself over a long period of time, and have a continuous record of victories at *every* level before you can even dream of getting a whiff of a pro tour team. The riders who make the tour surpass 'mediocre' by a long ways; they're truly genetic freaks, in fact.

Stick around here, read some threads, go to cyclingnews.com or velonews or something and browse it for a while to get a feel for the sport.

Actually the system works very well.

I raced in France one season as an amateur. Before I left somebody asked me if I was going to race in the TdF. When I told them no, they asked why not. I explained to them that just cause you can drive a car, it doesn't mean you can just show up and race in the Indy 500. Thats the simplist way you can expalin it to someone new to or doesn't know anything about bicycle racing.😉

it just seems like a very objective way to make a team. But as long as you don't make the team just because of who you know then I'd see it as a valid way.

Yeah, sometimes someone makes it on a team due favortism, nepotism or cause they bring in a sponsor or whatever. Anybody whos raced a while has probably seen this or have been a vistim of it but if that person can't deliver the goods, that will be their first and last shot.

LOL, are you good?? Cause you need to be verrrrrrrrrrrrrrrry goooood.........

The best way is to start in europe as a amateur and work youre way up the ranks. Hope a little doping doesn't afraid you😄 !

bigal1500 said:

how does one qualify for that race?

Put it this way. there are currently 21 Pro Tour teams allowed to race in the Tour each has a rooster of on average 25. That means only 525 riders IN THE WORLD have a chance of riding the Tour each year. While 189 out of them actually do.

Needless to say that the elite, and many other teams too, have a myraid of top amatuar, semi-pro feeder teams available to them, while regional, national and international scouts are ready to cherry pick the best young talent avaiable.

As already mentioned once scouted the youngester (who more than likely was a big star in his local cycling scene) starts at the very bottom of the ladder and works his way up over time with hard graft and effort. Even then the chances of making it to a Tour are slim

So next time you watch a couple of hapless domestiques, who you've never heard of, in a lone and ulimately fruitless breakaway in the French countryside remember that despite their seemingly lowly status they are some of the most highly trained, skilled and dedicated athletes in the world.

bigal1500 said:

Seems to be a very objective way to "make a team"...I mean wouldn't it make more sense to have some type of time-trial where you seperate the "men from the boys". Like the olympics, wouldn't it make more sense to have a mini-tour de france qualifier? To me it just seems like if you're pretty mediocre but can beat a few people you could make the team by simply knowing people and not really by true ability.

victories and podium places in cycling are so few and far between that the 9 man tour squad from a ~25 strong pro tour team will contain maybe 7 pure workers who could well be selected, in part, based on power:weight ratio data gleaned from regular fitness tests conducted by the team. in a some ways that is even more accurate than having a time trial!