FAO Adster, re TdF

Apologies if you know this. But key point to know to understand the Tour is that of the 21 stages of the race, there's only a minority- maybe 8 or so - where the main contenders will make (or lose) time on each other. So those stages determine the yellow jersey - the most prestigious prize.

In all the other stages, the yellow jersey contenders should all finish in the main bunch of riders, and so get the same time.

The handful of key yellow jersey stages are two types: first, the mountain stages. That's where the contenders are better than everyone else - and will ride away from all the other riders. They will duel it out amongst themselves, and can sometimes take minutes off each other.

The other key stages for the yellow jersey are the time trials, where each rider rides alone, against the clock. But there isn't much of that this year.

The other stages aren't really about the yellow jersey (unless something surprising happens - e.g. a contender and his team launches a sneaky attack, or one of them crashes). But they have their own drama. Winning a stage of the Tour is a huge thing for a rider and his team. So plenty of the (200) riders go there just dreaming of that.

There's loads of team tactics in all this - mainly stemming from the fact that riding behind another rider saves you loads of energy. So if you can, you ant to engineer it so someone else - either a team-mate, a rival you're in a temporary alliance with, or a rival you're exploiting- is taking the wind in front of you. But key point to understand is that the yellow jersey will be determined in that minority of key stages.

Posted By: Tricky Hawes, Jun 29, 08:36:01