To be honest, I also really only pay attention to the Tour

and then only when it gets interesting in the mountains. But there can be some good pile-ups in the first week though if there's a strong cross wind. But, essentially, the first week is for the sprinters who haven't got a hope in hell of winning the thing. The top 30 or so just stay out of trouble and reserve effort for the time-trials and the coming mountains. Even so, in that first 7-10 days they're still doing a couple of hundred km a day; not ideal preparation for an assault on Mont Ventoux ...

Have you read Kimmage's book? Or Moore's? The latter is very funny; but also has some great anecdotes about riders past. My favourite is of the cyclist in the 20s(?), who broke his front fork on a descent (hairy enough in itself). Back then there were no spare bikes and no-one was allowed to assist anyway. So he carried his bike (not, of course, the lightweight ones of today) down the mountain to a blacksmiths and effected a repair himself, while watched by two officials to make sure the blacksmith didn't help. Those were the days!

Posted By: BerlinCanary on March 5th 2007 at 13:10:20

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