Girl riding a bike. Did this as a warm up for 2013…not sure about the colours so I may tweak it a bit later. This year is gonna be full on.
UGHH! Too much night time sport! Tour de France followed by the Euro at 4am makes Skrimshanker HEAAAAAAPS sleepy! At Least my pick Peter Sagan won the stage in the Tour.
The start of the Tour de France, 1932 from a New Yorker gallery
BMC cycling team leader and Tour de France 2011 winner, Australia’s Cadel Evans, poses on June 28, 2012 in front of the Palais Provincial in Liege, during the presentation of the twenty-two cycling teams, two days before the start of the 99th edition of the 2012 Tour de France cycling race. (via Photo from Getty Images)
If your not already excited for the start of the Tour then well for a start why the hell not?! But if, and thats a big if you need something to get your excitement up then check out this 2012 Preview before the start tomorrow.
Tour De France 2012 Preview (by ScumbagwithChromebag)
How Drugs Have Changed the Tour
This year’s Tour de France opens Saturday morning, the first day of a grueling 2,172-mile, three-week event that for decades has been dogged by doping scandals — most recently against seven-time Tour champ Lance Armstrong.
Despite the continuing controversies, blood tests collected over the past decade shows that the peloton is actually getting cleaner. It’s the first scientific evidence that anti-doping efforts may be paying off. The sport of cycling, though, has had a long history of doping. It’s a practice that has been a part of cycling since early 20th-century riders downed cocktails of strychnine, cocaine and caffeine to power their pedals.
But riders are pedaling slower despite lighter bikes, more aerodynamic wheels and other technological improvements. Uphill climb times have been impacted by the use of drugs in the sport. In the 1990s and early 2000s, a time when the use of EPO was likely at its peak, the winning time up Alpe d’Huez was usually less than 40 minutes. Italian Marco Pantani’s record of 37:35 still stands, even though it was set in 1997. Second is Armstrong’s 37:36 in 2004. But the winning times have slowed. In 2011, for example, the winning time of Frenchman Pierre Rolland was 41:57, a mark that would have been good for 8th place in 2004 or 40th in 2001.
Image: Last year’s Tour de France winner, Australian Cadel Evans, 35. Credit: Getty Images
