Tour de France 2009

Leader 1: Now you're Bjarne Riis

Wired.com | Leader 1 is the Tour de France in Your Living Room

Over at Wired's Geek Dad weblog, Jonathan Liu, reviews Leader 1, a game published in 2001 that simulates bike racing on a reconfigurable “Game of Life”-style track. The road segments can be rearranged to set up different race courses, including a track finish in a velodrome, with the color beside the road denoting the slope of the that part of the course.

The game puts you in control of up to 3 riders, and you have to use the energy levels of your team to put one of your riders across the line first.

Liu's verdict: “If you’re a cycling fan and you want to play a truly incredible board game about bikes, you should check out Leader 1.”

Also:

Ghenos Games | Leader 1, also showing a pink Giro d'Italia variant

CyclingBoardGames.net | LEADER 1

BoardGameGeek | Leader 1 - Including details on the “Leader 2” variant, with new rules to make the game more realistic. There's also a Leader 3 variant with doping controls. I kid you not.

Hinault gets his GT on

Bobke Strut | Get Your Grand Tour On

This one requires a little bit of setup. One of my favorite web comics is My New Filing Technique is Unstoppable, and its brother series, Get Your War On, which work within the confines of clip art that comes with Microsoft Office.

In honor of le Blaireau's award-winning protester shove, and the brief appearance of a Frenchman in yellow, I thought I would link to Bobke Strut's homage, Get Your Grand Tour On, which likewise restricts itself to Office clipart, with support from two headshots.

Google brings Street View to entire Tour route

Google Maps - Tour de France 2008

Google is taking Street View on the road.

The 3D panorama view for Google Maps is already available in dozens of US cities, allowing you to fly through stitched-together photos of San Francisco's Lombard Street, Broadway, or Ocean Drive in South Beach, Miami.

Now, Google is taking the tech outside the United States for the first time, offering Street View for not just the cosmopolitan parts of this year's Tour, but the entire route, from start to finish. Combined with a Google Maps .kml file of the route, you can fly through the entire route, viewing photos of any spot on the course at any time.

There's also an official introduction video on YouTube.

Also:

Google Earth Blog

Google Sightseeing | Tour de Street View

Featured weblog: Podium In Sight

Lyne Lamoureux is probably a familiar name to folks who follow cycling on the web. She frequently wrote articles for ThePaceline.com, and has gotten bylines on RoadBikeReview.com, VeloNews, and The Daily Peloton. I've rubbed shoulders with her in the post-race mosh pit set up for race photographers, and she's got a healthy collection of racing photo galleries.

This season, Lyne has launched a new weblog, podium in sight, where she provides interviews, race analysis, and photography, but with an NRC/US calendar focus.

In the last week, she's had race coverage and some great photographs from the downhill practice sessions at Sea Otter, analysis of the overall and the 2 stages so far at the Tour de Georgia, and an interview with Toyota-United's Henk Vogels (at right), one of the pro peloton's most experienced and well-traveled riders, on the Art of the Sprint.

Definitely a site to bookmark; RSS/Atom feed available.

Bonnie DeSimone weblogging the Tour

A Feast On Wheels

I'm not sure how I found it (maybe through Trust But Verify, the official weblog of the Floyd Landis case™), but sports journalist Bonnie DeSimone is blogging her way around France.

Where she finds time, I'll never know, as she's covering the Tour for ESPN.com, the Boston Globe, and The Oregonian, as well.

Look for her stories starting this weekend as the Tour hits the Alps.

Also:

ESPN.com | Bonnie DeSimone RSS feed: Subscribe to DeSimone's stories for ESPN.com (her cycling coverage should start this weekend)

A Feast on Wheels | Atom feed: Subscribe to DeSimone's personal weblog

Tour 2006 mashup video on YouTube

YouTube | Tour de France 2006

YouTube user "monoloque" has posted a mashup video featuring OLN video from the Tour, historic Tour video, still images from the race and news coverage, and music by Kraftwerk into a 6.5-minute video about the 2006 Tour.

I think it's fair to say he's got an opinion on the Landis case. Whether you believe Landis or not, this is a nice collection.

“The Flying Scotsman” premieres in Edinburgh

The Flying Scotsman | Edinburgh International Film Festival

In 1972, the greatest bike racer of all time, Eddy Merckx, improved the record for the most distance covered in an hour on a bicycle to 49.431 kilometers, or almost 30.72 miles, on a velodrome in Mexico City. His hour record stood until 1984, when Francisco Moser, using an early set of aero wheels, pushed the record over 50 kilometers, to 51.151 kms, or about 31.78 miles.

There the record slumbered for nearly 10 years, until a controversial Scotsman stepped forward to push the limits of human performance. Graeme Obree was a strong track and time trial rider, and looked around for ways to streamline the rider position on the bike. Using a position variously called the “egg” or “crouch” position, with the rider's torso nearly horizontal and his arms tucked tight to his chest, Obree thought he could set a new hour mark, and in July 1993, he rode 52.27 kilometers in an hour in Norway.

Obree's efforts ignited an interest in the hour record unmatched since the 1930's. Between July 1993 and September of 1996, the record was extended 5 times. Outdistanced by Britain's Chris Boardman less than a week after setting the record, Obree came back and did 52.71 kilometers in his improved "Superman" position, with the rider's arms stretched out to cut the wind on a plane with his body.

Obree's autobiography, The Flying Scotsman, was well-reviewed, but a film version has had tremendous trouble getting made. Last night, it it finally premiered in Edinburgh.
Early reviews are a little rough.

Naturally, there's a doping angle to the story, as, when he turned pro, Obree says he was sacked by the Le Groupement squad almost immediately for refusing to dope.

With the hour record so hotly contested, Boardman, Miguel Indurain, and Tony Rominger engaged Obree, with Rominger's 55.291 standing for almost 2 years before Boardman, in the Superman position on a custom Eddy Merckx, did an amazing 56.375 kilometers in Manchester, UK, on September 7, 1996.

The UCI wasn't happy to see the record ratcheted up by what it considered to be improved equipment -- the aero frames, wheels, and positions -- rather than stronger riders. So in 2000, they ruled that Boardman's record, and those of Obree, Indurain, and Rominger, were no longer Hour Records, but the “Best Human Effort,” and that Eddy Merckx had ridden the last “pure” hour, and therefore reinstated Merckx's 49.431 as the “Athlete's Hour Record.”

Boardman, confused about the rules, scheduled a session at the Manchester velodrome believing he would automatically set a new hour record by riding a standard frame without aero wheels to any distance, but was informed he had to beat Merckx's distance, which he did, by just 10 meters, at 49.441 kilometers, in October 2000. His record was only beaten last July, by Ondrej Sosenka in Moscow, at 49.700 kilometers.

Obree also took the 1993 and 1995 world title in the pursuit.

(via MetaFilter).

Bob Roll interview with Utah NPR

KCPW | Star Cycling Commentator Sounds-Off

Julie Rose interviews former pro and OLN commentator Bob Roll, in Utah for the just-completed Tour of Utah, won by HealthNet's Scott Moninger.

Roll talks about OLN's ratings, doping and testing in cycling, and the Floyd Landis case.

Roll says “there's not enough testosterone in the world to triple your testosterone levels in a 24-hour period...I believe Floyd in that.”

He also calls cycling “the cleanest professional sport in the world.”

Note that there are two "listen" widgets on the page -- the first is just a preview; the second is the full 20 minutes of (a pretty subdued, actually) Bobke.

Classic Tours slideshow now in English

Magnum Photos | Tour de France

I linked this awesome slideshow back before the Tour started, but the version I found was in Danish. Here's the version in English, still narrated by Danish filmmaker and Tour commentator Jørgen Leth.

It's photos from the Magnum photo library of Tours from the '30s through about 1990.

A nice respite from the doping news.

More Floyd Landis facts

I'm getting a lot of Google referers for Floyd Landis bios, so I wanted to point out my 3 favorites. Two of these are by Daniel Coyle, but one is “BHA” (Before Hip Announcement) and one is AHA. The BHA story includes a couple of great photos, including the Robert Maxwell shot at right.

NYTimes.com | What He's Been Pedaling

This is the most recent, and is AHA.

Bicycling.com | American Cycling Grows Up (Sort Of)

Landis interviewed by sometimes-roomy Dave Zabriskie of CSC.

Outside Online | The New American in Paris

BHA, with great photos.

Also, Landis was named the “Person of the Week” on ABC's World News Tonight last night. Can't find the video, but that link's a synopsis.

Here's an inteview with Landis yesterday, also from Bicycling.com.

And here are his PowerTap numbers from the Stage 17 breakaway.