[email protected] wrote:
> I'm glad that people enjoy the Tour. I do understand much of the basic
> strategy and also understand why things are so close.
>
> But occasionally we should be reminded of the obvious.
Carl, it's obvious that you don't appreciate many features
of the modern (roughly, postwar) Tour, and I suspect that
you have seen few bicycle races in person. That's fine.
But it doesn't qualify you to lecture other people about
what they need to appreciate the Tour. Actually, it tends
to disqualify you, rather as if a jazzbo who dislikes
rock were to lecture punkers on the aesthetics of their
medium (or vice versa).
> Determining the winner of the modern Tour would be impossible without
> radio devices on every chainstay, monitoring for the bonus sections,
> and spreadsheets to tote all the results up. Peloton tactics and a
> field of 150+ riders mean that no one can hope for much of a visible
> advantage on 9 stages out of 10.
The radio devices and spreadsheets are not needed to
determine the winner; after all, they did not exist in 1950,
yet the sprints, mountains and bonuses all existed then.
The technological frippery is necessary just to tot the results
up quickly so that we can get them instantly on the Web,
rather than having to wait to buy tomorrow's L'Equipe or
Gazzetta dello Sport - a convenience that I have noticed
you partake in.
Actually, the radio transponders are useless for picking
order in sprint finishes. For that the officials use a
photofinish camera - a very old technology in the film
"strip camera" version, although they're video-based now.
At local amateur bicycle road races, mass sprints are often
picked by eye and checked with a conventional video
camera. It's a lot easier to pick the winner when you're
used to it. Even Phil Liggett, who gets riders' names
wrong half the time, has a good record of calling the
winner of a sprint correctly while watching the live video
feed, because he has so much experience he knows
what to look for.
Many aficionados live for the mountain stages and regard
the sprints as less exciting - but they know that the sprints
themselves are a race within the race. A Tour of only
mountain stages and time trials would lack variety and
many elements of strategy. One cannot make a fine
dinner from either only vegetables or only ice-cream.
In 1949, Dino Buzzati and Ciro Verratti followed the
Giro d'Italia for the Corriere della Sera, for an audience
that would not see the race on TV and hear little of it
on the radio. The race was in almost every way different
from today's Tour, yet in an even greater number of
ways the same. On the last day Verratti's dispatch ended:
"The Giro seemed endless, and yet it is over. ... It was
a difficult Giro d'Italia: it gave us some days of boredom;
other days, it is undeniable, of profound dejection; but
there were also moments of unforgettable emotion;
and even we, who are hardened by professional routine,
experienced hours of elation, almost as great as that
of the fans on the Pordoi, Abetone and Ghisallo. Many
times we cried out for it to end, but now that it has ended,
we're sorry that it's over; now that it's gone, we miss it.
"How many kilometers in tomorrow's stage? There is
no stage tomorrow. A real shame!"
(from Dino Buzzati, "The Giro d'Italia: Coppi vs Bartali at
the 1949 Tour of Italy")