Professional Cycling For the Fans - Interesting site.

http://www.cvccbike.com/tour/eddy/xtra.htm

If Lance wins this year, not only will he have won 8 TDf's but he will be tied with the most podium finishes.

Some of the early TDF stages and overall length of the races were brutal!

http://www.cvccbike.com/tour/eddy/xtra.htm

If Lance wins this year, not only will he have won 8 TDf's but he will be tied with the most podium finishes.

Some of the early TDF stages and overall length of the races were brutal!

He doesn't have to win to do that. There are two other steps on that podium.

He doesn't have to win to do that. There are two other steps on that podium.
That is true.
Will the winner of the tour this year not even win a stage, and has that ever been happened before?

That is true.
Will the winner of the tour this year not even win a stage, and has that ever been happened before?

if you are looking for firsts lance would be the first 37-year-old to win the tour or wear the yellow jersey.

ed rader

Most wins - Lance Armstrong (7)
Most Mountain Jerseys - Richard Virenque (7)
Most Points Jersey - Erik Zabel (6)
Most Days in Leaders Jersey - Eddy Merckx (96)
All time Stage Wins - Eddy Merckx (34)
Most Tour Appearances - Joop Zoetemelk (16)
MOST TIMES ON FINAL PODIUM - Raymond Poulidor (8) :(

That is true.
Will the winner of the tour this year not even win a stage, and has that ever been happened before?

I believe LeMond did it.

Charles Pélissier not only won 8 stages in one year but took second 7 times!

Most wins - Lance Armstrong (7)
Most Mountain Jerseys - Richard Virenque (7)
Most Points Jersey - Erik Zabel (6)
Most Days in Leaders Jersey - Eddy Merckx (96)
All time Stage Wins - Eddy Merckx (34)
Most Tour Appearances - Joop Zoetemelk (16)
MOST TIMES ON FINAL PODIUM - Raymond Poulidor (8) :(

All these names dont matter because they never recovered form Cancer, nor were they American.

I believe LeMond did it.

We have a winner! Lemond in 1990.

All these names dont matter because they never recovered form Cancer, nor were they American.

You love him, don't you. Just admit it. I do...

Well as much as you guys don't like Howzit, he is right. Think about it. Ask anybody at work about the Tour de France or cycling and they will say something about Lance Armstrong. Mention the name Eddy Merckx and they don't have a clue who that is. And Merckx is the greatest ever cyclist.

Well as much as you guys don't like Howzit, he is right. Think about it. Ask anybody at work about the Tour de France or cycling and they will say something about Lance Armstrong. Mention the name Eddy Merckx and they don't have a clue who that is. And Merckx is the greatest ever cyclist.

Well what is the big deal with that? Is a person less of a person because they don't know the whole history of bicycling or the TDF?

I would bet there are a lot of subjects you don't know very deeply. Name me all the members of the Manhattan project?

Well as much as you guys don't like Howzit, he is right. Think about it. Ask anybody at work about the Tour de France or cycling and they will say something about Lance Armstrong. Mention the name Eddy Merckx and they don't have a clue who that is. And Merckx is the greatest ever cyclist.

And, this is true of not only the US but at least some parts of Europe as well. Not Belgium of course! But then, grandmas in Belgium know the stats of everyone in the peloton. The ones who don't know of Merckx, also don't understand why Cavendish isn't in the yellow jersey.

And, this is true of not only the US but at least some parts of Europe as well. Not Belgium of course! But then, grandmas in Belgium know the stats of everyone in the peloton. The ones who don't know of Merckx, also don't understand why Cavendish isn't in the yellow jersey.

Now dig deep and you can make a case that Major Taylor was even a better racer than Merckx, plus he was an African American who bested the top riders from Europe.

1886-1891 -- Taylor is raised and educated in the home of a wealthy white Indianapolis family that employs his father as coachman. The family gives him a bicycle.

1892 -- Taylor is hired to perform cycling stunts outside an Indianapolis bike shop. His costume is a soldier's uniform, which earns him the nickname "Major." He wins his first bike race that year.

Fall 1895 -- Taylor moves to Worcester, Mass., with his employer and racing manager Louis "Birdie" Munger, who plans to open a bike factory there.

August 1896 -- Taylor unofficially breaks two world track records, for paced and unpaced 1-mile rides, in Indianapolis. But his feat offends white sensibilities and he is banned from Indy's Capital City track.


December 1896 -- Taylor finishes eighth in his first professional race, a six-day endurance event at Madison Square Garden in New York.

1898 -- Taylor holds seven world records, including the 1-mile paced standing start (1:41.4).

Aug. 10, 1899 -- Taylor wins the world 1-mile championship in Montreal, defeating Boston rival Tom Butler. Taylor is the second black world champion athlete, after bantamweight boxer George Dixon's title fights in 1890-91.

Nov. 15, 1899 -- Taylor knocks the 1-mile record down to 1:19.
September 1900 -- Thwarted in previous seasons by racism, Taylor finally gets to complete the national championship series and becomes American sprint champion.

October 1900-January 1901 -- Taylor performs in a vaudeville act with Charles "Mile-a-Minute" Murphy, racing on rollers on theater stages across Massachusetts.

March -June 1901 -- Taylor competes in Europe, which he had long resisted because his Baptist beliefs precluded racing on Sundays. He beats every European champion.

1902-1904 -- Taylor races all over Europe, Australia, New Zealand and the United States, with brief rests in Worcester.

1907 -- Taylor makes a brief comeback after a two-year hiatus.

1910 -- Taylor retires from racing at age 32. Over the next two decades, unsuccessful business ventures and illness sap his fortune.

1930 -- Impoverished and estranged from his wife, Taylor drives to Chicago, stays at the YMCA and tries to sell copies of his self-published

1928 autobiography, "The Fastest Bicycle Rider in the World."

May 23, 1948 -- A group of former pro bike racers, with money donated by Schwinn Bicycle Co. owner Frank Schwinn, has Taylor's remains exhumed and reburied in a more prominent part of Mount Glenwood Cemetery in Illinois.

A list of American riders in the TDF over the years:
http://www.byjamesraia.com/articles/133/1/History-Of-American-Cyclists-In-The-Tour-de-France/Page1.html

The first American rider was in 1981, so you can see the field before that didn't have the international representation that it does today.