A Tour to Die For

The Broom Wagon Brothers?

While the cold has not lifted from the pave of Paris-Roubaix and the peloton parading down the California coast has now been pushed to May, the cycling season does officially start this month. I don't mean that cake-walk sprinters race "downunder", I'm talk'n about a real race,... MANly cycling. A true race of truth. A race that, to paraphrase pro cyclist Kenny van Hummel, I'd eat my handlebars to finish. A race that harkens back to the days when Henri Degrange ruled the roads of France and they were mostly dirt and racers spread cocaine cream on their shaved legs to ward off the cold. Yes, this month riders pull out from the start of the 8th edition of the "Tour d'Afrique".

Easily the biggest cycling race on the planet just pedaled off from the start line in the shadows of the Great Pyramids. This year from the 16th January through 15th May, a total of 49 true 'convicts of the road" will depart from Cairo hoping to compete and complete the entire distance across wilds of the African continent. Another 19 will "weeny out" and only do sections of the race. Of course only those that do the complete tour are considered for the final classification.

So that got me thinking, Is there a Lanterne Rouge? Or do stragglers get pick off by the broom wagon brothers (photo above)? Just the prospect certainly inspires you to pound the pasta, gulp and extra GU and avoid bonking.

The total distance is 11,884 km, spread out over 120 days and 96 stages, dwarfing even the insanity of the original Grand Boucle which was a mere six stages over three weeks and a pedestrian 2,428 km. (Interestingly 60 riders took to that first start in France, about the same as participate each year in ToA.)
The ToA features 96 cycling "stages", averaging 123 km (77 miles) each, broken up by 22 rest days and 2 days of ferry boat travel for a total of 120 days in traversing Africa from north to south. Stages range from 80 km on rough terrain to more than 180 km on the best paved roads. All this before finally pedaling into the finish in Cape Town, South Africa mid-May.

The sections are:

• Pharaoh's Delight : from Cairo to Khartoum : 16 JAN TILL 04 FEB
• The Gorge : Khartoum to Addis Abeba : FEB 6 TILL 20
• Meltdown Madness : Addis Abeba to Nairobi : FEB 22 TILL MARCH 12
• Masai Steppe : Nairobi to Iringa : MAR 14 TILL 25TH
• Malawi Gin : Iringa to Lilongwe : MAR 27 TILL 05 APR
• Zambezi Zone : Lilongwe to Victoria Falls : APR 7 TILL 15TH
• Elephant Highway : Victoria Falls to Windhoek : APR 18 TILL 28
• Diamond Coast : Windhoek to Cape Town : APR 30 TILL MAY 15

You can follow this mad cap adventure on the ToA blog and learn more at Tour d'Afrique

TdF2010 Prologue - next weekend in Leadville??

The annual soap opera "As the Tour Turns" hadn't even finished its final circuit of the Champs, Cav was in fact still alseep behind Renshaw and Hincapie, when Bob Roll uttered, "I can't wait for 2010". And based on the diarrhea of speculation pouring out of the cyclomedia, so it appears neither can the majority of us. First, there are a few formalities that need to be delivered - a half dozen GP races and the like around Europe, reborn Tour of Soggy-clover (alias Ireland - thank god for the neutral beer zones!), stateside Tour of Mizzou, finally real racing at the Worlds in Mendrisio (cracker of a course) and my favorite Giro di Lombardia, the race of the falling leaves. But for anyone who is paying attention, the Tour's 2010 Prologue really starts next weekend with the Leadville 100 in Colorado not next July in Rotterdam.

If you haven't been watching this soap opera long you need to know that Leadville is not the archetype prologue for the Grand Boucle. Yes, since 1903 the Tour has gifted its opener to other nations nearly 20 times in all, most recently the Grand Depart 2009 was stunningly beautiful along the streets and cliffs of Monaco. So let's get back to Leadville, umm? Colorado? Isn't this August?

Cast your mind back one year, and where was Lance Armstrong? We're talk'n the old LA, before he was Twittering his every other thought. Yip, Leadville. He was there to ride the dusty Leadville 100 (as in miles) and see if he couldn't scare reigning five time champ Dave Wiens into submission. As VeloNews reported it he wasn't out to just make a showing:

"Armstrong accelerated on the Columbine climb — which tops out at over 12,000 feet elevation at the halfway point of the out-and-back race — and broke up a group of ten that had formed in the first half of the race. Wiens matched Armstrong's pace and in a few short miles the two had a five-minute gap over third place, which grew to more than 20 minutes at the 80-mile mark and more than a half hour at the finish."

It wasn't until the final 10 miles Wiens pulled away from Armstrong winning the race for the sixth time, in record time. Going into to this dirty little century LA is reportedly back to win, and destroy the 6 hour barrier.

So, Contador, Schlecks, Wiggins, and the rest, be watching. Watch very carefully. Don't look for advice from Cancellara, he won't be there, this isn't your typical Prologue, there will be only one TdF rider there, and he isn't your typical former Tour winner. Leadville isn't Rotterdam I agree, but in the thin air of Colorado this weekend an old guy is coming back to make a statement: I don't lose a race one year and forget about it the next. My guess is LA was thinking about tomorrow the last ten miles of last year's race. Just like he started thinking about TdF2010 in the last couple miles up Andorre Arcalis.

I find it hard to imagine he will crack the 6 hour barrier, but Lance has stunned us in Prologues before, and the message starting in 1999 - beware what the Prologue portends. But no one should be surprised to see him win in Leadville. Last year a victorious Wiens said, "The guy that I raced today was not the guy who won the Tours," August 15th the guy who races Tours is back, and he's looking to start the 2010 stage wins in Leadville.