The Greatest Race of All time!

Hello!

Day 29 of my 365 Day Photography Journey

Me Riding in Le Tour do France

Le Tour de France the greatest race of all time!

Yes you heard me correctly, The Greatest Race of All Time!

Since I'm not in France at the moment I can't get live pictures of the race so I'm forced to photograph my TV. I'm sorry but I really wanted to talk about Le Tour de France.

The race changes from year to year but always finishes in Paris, at the Arc de Triumphe since 1975, which was a block away from where we stayed in Paris. This year it has 20 stages over 22 days, covers over 3500 kilometers (almost 2200 miles), riders climb over 46 miles in altitude (246000 feet), reach speeds of over 50 mph, cover three countries, battle the rain, heat and traffic. Over 200 racers from all over the world compete at the start of the race, many of which will quit due to broken bones or fatigue. 30+ riders are out already by the end of stage 11. This race takes so much out of the riders, their immune systems fail and they become very vulnerable to illness. If a rider is lucky enough to avoid a limb breaking accident, that looks like dominoes falling over, they get to face the alps and spend 4 hours going up at grades of 10%+. Riders have to be careful they don't burn all the fuel in their tank or they won't be able to finish the race.

Le Tour de France was started because L'auto, which is a newspaper company that started over a polarizing war case, (in which a French man was accused, convicted and later exonerated of selling secrets to the Germans), in an attempt to shut down Le Vilo, another newspaper company because they had an opposing view to the case. Did you follow that? Long bicycle races were very popular at the turn of the century to the French, so newspapers made money when the races where on. L'auto decided to shut down Le Vilo buy hosting a grand race across France. The formula that worked was to pay anyone who averaged 20km/hr over the course of all the stages a typical wage that was received working in the factories, with a bonus to the winner of each stage of 6x an factory workers annual salary. After many beatings and a lot of cheating, it was decided the second Tour de France would be the last. Since the race took place during the day as well as at night, cheating was easy and some riders took cars and trains to the next locations. The winner, Maurice Garin, was disqualified for cheating after 5 months of debate. Even though the race was seriously flawed it was an incredible success. So changes came, along with rules, increased days, and distances. L'Auto put Le Vilo out of business in 1904, but the race went on breaking only for WWI and WWII.

Do I have any desire to ride in this race? NO! But I don't mind riding along for a little while. What I do is move the spinner to the TV, hit play on my DVR and voila, I'm racing in Le Tour de France. I think I actually bring fear to some of the riders.This guy in the red jersey kept looking back at me to make sure I wasn't going to make a move.

The ultimate prize is the yellow jersey, which means you've covered all the stages to date with the best time total combined. Finishing the last stage in the yellow jersey makes you the champion of the race. Along with the championship you get to deal with accusations of doping for the rest of your life.

The winner of the yellow jersey also get about 31,000 euro($40,300). That's 1550 euro a day. At that rate Tom Brady would make 24,900 euro ($32,000) a year, for 16 games.

As I tear it up on the road with the pros I still need water from my bottle, like the pros. Seriously though, this is a great way to exercise. Riding with the pros, beautiful country side and good commentary, based on the camera view I could be in second or last place, it's great. I'm going to save all the stages so if anyone wants to come over and ride with me, give me a call.

I love this race!

Make a Great Day and Get some miles on!!