Your 2007 Tour Preview

In honor of the upcoming big fight [potentially the last one like it ever] this coming Cinco de Mayo between the Golden Boy Oscar De La Hoya and Pretty Boy Floyd Mayweather (previously discussed here on this tube), I bring you the preview of another irrelevant, corrupt, scandal plagued sport's biggest event, the Tour de France. The only problem is, I don't really follow cycling at all. But I do love google. And here is what I turned up.

The race is starting in London this year, for the warm-up stage known as the prologue. It is referred to as the Grand Départ du Tour (here is a helpful guide for how to type letters with french accents), and it is the 6th non-Frenchie city to kick things off, after Amsterdam, Brussels, Berlin, Luxembourg, and Dublin.

Below is a map of the tour. If you speak/read French, you ought to check out this cool flash with all sorts of info about each leg of the race.

Logistically, everything you need to know is here:

The route

+ Running from Saturday July 7^th to Sunday July 29^th 2007, the 94^th Tour de France will be made up of a prologue and 20 stages and will cover a total distance of 3,550 kilometres.

These 20 stages have the following profiles

+ 11 flat stages
+ 6 mountain stages
+ 1 medium mountain stage
+ 2 individual time-trial stages

Distinctive aspects of the race

+ 3 mountain finishes
+ 2 rest days
+ 117 kilometres of individual time-trials (including the prologue)
+ 21 Category 1, Category 2 and highest level passes will be climbed

12 new stop-over towns

+ London
+ Canterbury
+ Waregem
+ Villers-Cotterêts
+ Joigny
+ Chablis
+ Semur-en-Auxois
+ Tignes
+ Tallard
+ Mazamet
+ Cognac
+ Marcoussis

But let's get to the only thing anyone in America actually knows about cycling. Well, other than Lance Armstrong. All cyclists (except the revered Lance), are cheats. They blood-dope, they take supplements, and are probably corrupt on numerous other levels that are naked to the lay eye and would take an actual cycling fan to know of. Of course it's always the team doctor's fault or the team manager's fault and players would never knowingly take anything (just like in baseball). But none of that matters, all we know is they are cheats. Jan Ullrich, Lance's once-great nemesis had to retire because no one would hire him because his cheating was so bad. Ivan Basso is also now out of a team, same reason. Shit, last year our very own Amish homeboy Floyd Landis drank some magic Jack Daniels the night before his fabled Stage 17 ride that turned him into Superman. All those guys, and others, will be missing from this year's tour. Who is supposed to win then? Good question. It doesn't really matter, as long as the guy is clean. If this tour has more scandal, that could just kill it as a credible professional sport. Sorta like boxing will finally be dead if Mayweather beats the pulp outta De La Hoya for 12 rounds, but the Golden Boy still ends up getting a split-decision victory (my current prediction). I just wish my parents weren't going to be in town this weekend so I could watch that fight somewhere.

Here are some Americans to cheer for in the 2007 tour:
George Hincapie (Discovery Channel) [Lance's most notable domestique]
Bobby Julich (CSC) [Aging team rider, once a badass]
David Zabriskie (CSC) [a time-trial specialist]
Christian Vandevelde (CSC) [who I like cuz he's a badass domestique]
Levi Leipheimer (Discovery) [all around badass]