About a month and a half later as normal it finally is happening today. The Tour the France is finally starting! The biggest annual cycling event will finally happening. A lot is different compared to normal, but for the mountain cycling lovers this tour will be a grand one. Check out the route!
Touretappe.nl
With about 5 days of mountain cycling this will a cool schedule actually. The Alps and the Pyrenees are always the coolest spots to check out what is going on. Because of this large amount of elevation, a lot of the mass sprint guys decided to not even participate at all. A totally different style of race I would say.
Honestly I am not a fan of mass sprints in general. The whole idea of cycling 200 kms and then having all of these cyclers so close together to each other. It's not that healthy actually. And dangerous not to forget. Remember quite recently the gigantic crash of Fabio Jakobsen after getting an elbow push by Dylan Groenewegen which ended with Jakobsen flying into the finish pole with luckily not ending up with any braindamage? Sprinting is no joke, and I am not a big fan of it.
Covid and cycling
Pexels
So the situation is different compared to other years naturally. The whole pre season with all the classics were cancelled this year, which is often a good moment to see how everybodies shape is. How good did everybody get through the winter, and who put in the best work, and who was chilling and laying back and hoping that their doping wil fix their status ;)
No classics this year. Also a big thing is how these teams are travelling and functioning. So the idea is that every team functions as a bubble, having no contact with anybody else.This bubble with be around 50 people, but as Covid is picking up again fast in France, I am curious how this will develop.
This is because of the disciplinary actions which are taken with it. So at the end of the day all the cyclists are checked and the team as well. This is mostly done with a questionary which gives every complaint they have a certain score. These scores are added up and above a cetrain level there will be tested.
This is interesting because during the weeks of the race these cyclists get more exhausted as well, and will get complaints for sure which could totally be non-covid related.
But back to testing. If one member of the team is tested positive these member has to go (naturally) but if two test positive the whole team has to go. Boom...those are big decisions with big consequences.
And if you see how these cylists are spitting around and whatever...yeah...let's see what will happen.
Favorites
Honestly....I would not dare to say who is the favorite of this tour. So many big names are not starting and the start of the race is super brutal with immediately mountain races and additional rain in there.
Actually it is fun to see how teams will work this out. Normally these teams are so super balanced with sprinters, helpers and mountain guys. But now the balance is going and survival of the fittest is kicking in.
Let's see how these next couple weeks will evolve. I will be spending some time in front of the big screen for sure. Hopefully France will be covid free enough to finish the race in three weeks.