I Pity the Bikes

Hah! Fooled you! You probably thought I was going to write more about soccer, and maybe I will, but first I need to write about the other big sporting event going on now, bicycle racing.

I created a new page for my website, one that shows the results of the Tour de France in a more conventional scoring format. On that page I indicate some of the things about the Tour's scoring that annoy me, and I also mention how I get around them. I wouldn't be me if I didn't find things to complain about.

Russ's World Famous, Formula 1 Scoring Tour de France page.

Like I say there, I was going to make a column showing which bikes are in the lead, but for a racing-type event I'm astonished by the utter lack of talk of which bikes are used. Motorsports talk a great deal about cars, engines, body designs, but none of that is mentioned in the TV coverage here in the US. It looks as if each team rides one bike, and no two teams ride the same ones, but the bikes are never mentioned.

Nor are the gears (universally Campagnola, I think) or any other elements of the bikes. In fact, the emphasis is so limited to the riders that the bikes don't matter at all. In other endurance-type rallies (and I'm thinking of the Dakkar now), if your vehicle dies so do your hopes of finishing.

But in the Tour de France, the bikes are a replaceable commodity, and I think that's a shame.