A generation on from Lance raising the profile of professional cycling in the US and becoming one of the most widely recognised sports stars on the planet, (before being the worst flag bearer for the sport imaginable), six cyclists is all the US can muster in this year’s TdF?
Three Canadians competing this year, despite a much smaller population and a climate less favourable for developing pro cyclists.
Twelve Aussies in the race, including four from Perth (Hindley, O’Connor, Durbridge, Welsford), Let’s not get too wrapped up in Perth as a cycling utopia, a city of 2 million people fringed to the east by a few underwhelming hills which give way to the flat isolation of over 1500 miles of mostly desert, until you arrive in the next state capital.
A lot is cultural norms. Same reason we don’t see Europeans in the MLB.
Regarding Australia they have traditionally had a solid government funded track cycling program. I suspect that was a pathway for at least some of the riders. Also I think there is a bigger cycling culture there than some of us realise, e.g. “the chop” in Sydney.
As a European all I hear from USA cyclists is how dangerous the roads are and how drivers treat cyclists badly (e.g. coal rolling). For a kid in USA with some endurance talent, track or swimming seems like a more obvious choice. That’s before you even consider the cost of cycling.
Let’s not get too wrapped up in Perth as a cycling utopia, a city of 2 million people fringed to the east by a few underwhelming hills which give way to the flat isolation of over 1500 miles of mostly desert, until you arrive in the next state capital.
You should work for Tourism WA.
I am doing the Alp D’Huez Tri in a few weeks. I did lots of training on those underwhelming hills. Repeats of Hadrill and Campersic were my training. I am now on a mine site for 4 weeks trying to maintain my fitness on an old school exercise bike without a screen.
Sports tend to grow in a country, when a country has a successful athlete (or more) as inspiration. Success breeds success - look at triathlon in the UK since the Brownlee’s Olympic success.
When your top athletes turn out to be frauds, they are probably not so inspiring anymore and kids and their parents look to another sport. Just a theory.
I’d argue just the opposite, the US is better represented than it has been in 15 years (and depending on where you fall on the lance thing, maybe 30 years). An American is currently in polka dots, one is a previous stage winner, a couple others are legit threats to win a stage. Larry Warbasse, Joe Dombrowski, and Lawson Craddock are the 8th, 9th, and 10th best US riders right now and they’re solid domestiques for any WT team.
The French teams get 5 teams in the tour, so they’re overrepresented, the Aussies have 40 years of top flight olympic development and the Canadians are just Canadian, eh?
To add to the car centric US culture part might be when folks banned alcohol and sports betting on track cycling in the US around the same time. Killed it off.
That was over a century ago.
Otherwise our high speed limit suburban sprawl roads are not great for roadies.
Little League Baseball? Pee Wee Football? Grass Roots support.
Do a Wiki search on Vingegard and Pogacar, and read about the Youth Cycling Clubs they both rode for in their respective countries.
Here in the US the average person can’t even watch the TDF on TV - and even if it was scheduled, it would be preempted by golf.
I am interrupting this broadcast to point out that as we speak, there’s an American leading today’s stage, and another American in polka dots who’s bossed all the summits so far.
I am interrupting this broadcast to point out that as we speak, there’s an American leading today’s stage, and another American in polka dots who’s bossed all the summits so far.
Speaking of Lance and the TdF, I remember reading that Lance and the USPS team would ride 50 miles on their “rest” days. Is this really true and if so, what are the possible exer phys reasons for doing this??? I could see an easy 20-mi shake-out ride to work out the lactic acid but 50 seems a bit excessive to my non-cyclist mind. Of course, this practice is prob not too dissimilar to Phelps swimming 6000-7000 meters per day in warmups and cooldowns in the '08 Oly. This 6000-7000 m per day in your final taper is mind boggling to me and prob to most swimmers.
Other than infrastructure being built around cars… road cycling is being seen as a whipping sport with skinny men on spandex. Real men lift weights or ride motorcycles… Kids at school were being taught to play something with a ball. Most people don’t even know or understand what is drafting… they look at TdF as a boring individual just pedaling… and they often find it amazed how excited the European fans are during the climbs
Good question. I don’t know if that’s really true.
I’ve obviously done nothing like a TdF. And I have zero research to support this. But having done multi-day ultra stuff, it sort of seems like the body knows when it’s “done” and sort of shuts down - goes into a “recovery mode.” The day after a rest day in Grand Tours is anecdotally known to be a dangerous. Tejay van Garderen was known for having disastrous days after a rest day. Maybe the rest day work is just a way of letting the body know there’s still work to do.
Good question. I don’t know if that’s really true.
I’ve obviously done nothing like a TdF. And I have zero research to support this. But having done multi-day ultra stuff, it sort of seems like the body knows when it’s “done” and sort of shuts down - goes into a “recovery mode.” The day after a rest day in Grand Tours is anecdotally known to be a dangerous. Tejay van Garderen was known for having disastrous days after a rest day. Maybe the rest day work is just a way of letting the body know there’s still work to do.
Just a random theory.
Interesting, I didn’t know that the day after a rest day was known to be dangerous but since it is, I guess it makes sense to give body a semi-light workout. I’m just guessing an easy 50-miler would be “semi-light” for the top guys.
Ah yes the dreaded “rest day†spin out where both Lance and former teammates talked about how hard they were….IE no “rest†day.
The Tour every single year basically is going to be won by 2 maybe 3 people at most. Every other single “GC†guy is almost 100% guranteed to have 1 “bad†day that they lose 8 mins and suddenly they went from 2nd to racing for top 5. So basically they wanted to be “primed†for nearly every thing that could happen. Very few people need to train to that intensity. Sprint teams w No GC could laugh at what they did cus they’ll just be in back anyways just looking to beat the time cut off. And some of the other big time GC guys well, it always seemed like they were destined to have 1 bad day in the mountains irregardless of when it happened. But if you are 1 or the 2 who actually can win, it’s all hands on deck with everything for those 3 weeks- flat stage riding location to not get caught in cross wind, massages, recovery etc. tactics (USPS always sent a key rider in the break to be there for Lance on last final climb).
And back in Lance’s days, the tour had a pattern of 1 week of peloton hand holding sprint finish stages almost exclusively (with an TT or TTT as well$ and then the big mountains happened w/ rest days in those key moments. Most rest days involve some type of GC action type of stage after so it’s always good to be “primed†for it.
All Tour riders do that, no just the dopers like Armstrong.
The rationale is that their bodies are overtrained after ten days of hard racing, if they take the day off, their bodies go into recovery mode and have a hard time getting the engine going again the next day.
At the Giro this year, Thibaut Pinot did 58 miles on the second rest day. Damiano Caruso did 34. Thats pretty typical of a GC contender. Watch strava tomorrow for what they do in the Tour.
