Member Contribution: Tour de France for Beginners
Hello Everyone. I received a wonderful contribution from one of our members (& newest sponsor), Steve Patchin of Patchin Pictures, that details out the Tour de France for beginners. I’ve asked Steve if I could share this with all of you and he was more than happy to let me pass it along. For anyone who doesn’t quite understand the Tour, this is a good way to start learning about it. Thanks to Steve for putting this together for all of us.
Excerpt from…
It’s Not Only About the Yellow Jersey
(A Beginner’s Guide to Understanding and Appreciating the Tour)
By Steve Patchin
While I was watching the Tour de France, my eleven-year-old daughter started asking questions about the race. During an early stage, some of the riders were in a break away (in the front), and I told her the real contenders were farther back and weren’t concerned with these particular stage leaders at the moment. “How can that be?” she asked. “Don’t they want to win?”
As I started to explain that some individual stage wins weren’t necessarily important to the teams who were more concerned with an overall Tour victory, I found that I first had to explain other details of individual and team goals and strategy. Then, I made the whole explanation worse by saying, “In fact, a rider can win the entire Tour de France without winning a single stage.” That did it! Now my daughter was completely lost. I couldn’t blame her.
Tags: beginners guide, tour de france, understanding the tour de france cycling race
July 17th, 2009 at 1:29 pm
Thanks Steve,
Great explanation of the Tour specifics!
July 17th, 2009 at 3:58 pm
This is so cool!
thank you Steve!!!