Long Distance Competition/Ultracycling, Randonneuring and Endurance Cycling - Experiencing Tour de France withdrawl

Feeling a bit down, this evening, as I head to bed. In thinking about it I realized that for the past three weeks I've awakened each morning with the expectation of the Tour on my TiVo and, tomorrow morning... a blank disc. No Wiggins, no Froome, no Evans, no Sagan, no VanGardren, no Greipl, no Cavendish... no reason to get out of bed! It was my first Tour experience and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It's reassuring to discover that supermen inhabit the planet with us mere mortals. Oh well, next week there's always the olympics.

There's the Olympics in a week. (I've been deleting stuff off TiVo to make space.)

And right after that - there's the The USA Pro Cycling Challenge.

cycling.tv is likely to show the Eneco Tour, and then the Vuelta will be on Usports at the end of the month.

not sure what this has to do with long distance other than the fact that for the last two years the tour definitely cut into my training. This year I didn't really watch too many stages so no problem with my training

No more Voeckler and the tortured look on his face as he kept adding points to his competition for le maillot de pois!

No more Phil Liggett talking about the "boys" or making comments about the "angry peloton."

No more Paul Sherwin talking about his days in the peloton and correcting Phil's mistakes.

No more Bob Roll and those wacky Road ID commercials.

I already miss the Tour. :cry:

Sorry, I didn't watch any of it. I've been too busy doing stuff (like riding my bike) to watch other people do stuff (like riding their bikes). Maybe someday, I'll be too crippled up to actually do anything, and then I'll start watching other people do stuff instead.

But I do already have my 1,000 miles in for July. :)

Sorry, I didn't watch any of it. I've been too busy doing stuff (like riding my bike) to watch other people do stuff (like riding their bikes). Maybe someday, I'll be too crippled up to actually do anything, and then I'll start watching other people do stuff instead.

But I do already have my 1,000 miles in for July. :)

Aren't you special!

I watched one of the mountain stages and followed the results online. When I was a kid, we used to have to wait at least a week to read the stage descriptions, so watching it live still has some fascination for me. But when I was watching every stage it really cut into other activities which are more important to me. Like working

LA Vuelta coming up in August... with the return of Alberto Contador...

with the return of Alberto Contador...ah yes. The Return of THE CHEAT. Looking forward to it.

Sorry, I didn't watch any of it. I've been too busy doing stuff (like riding my bike) to watch other people do stuff (like riding their bikes). Maybe someday, I'll be too crippled up to actually do anything, and then I'll start watching other people do stuff instead.


Get a DVR, and watch the tour at night.

Then you can do both.

I've been watching the highlights in bed every night. The only thing I won't miss are the pathetic advertisements for erectile malfunction. Some stupid companies figure anyone who rides a bike needs medication and that's the best they could try to sell us.

I've been too busy doing stuff (like riding my bike) to watch other people do stuff (like riding their bikes). Maybe someday, I'll be too crippled up to actually do anything, and then I'll start watching other people do stuff instead.

+1

Though I did watch some short clips of some stages, by and large I don't see the point of watching other people exercise, even if they are very good at it. Watching people ride a bike instead of riding a bike myself is about as interesting as me watching somebody else eat ;)

Having said that, I was very happy with the British winning their first TdF ever. I hope that may get some people in the UK interested in cycling, especially if it looks like the sport is gradually getting cleaner than in recent years. We don't need unbelievable super heroes, we need to get more ordinary people on bikes.

One positive benefit of watching the Tour de France - even if you're not impressed with watching other people ride their bikes - is that it's excellent mental training. When I was teaching cross-country skiing, I would suggest to the students that they order a video of some World Cup XC event, and to watch the women racers. If they just watched the video for about 20 minutes each night for a few weeks, they'd soon get a good picture in their mind of what good skiing looked like. (I recommended watching the women instead of the men because the women don't have the incredible upper body strength of the WC men, so must use better technique to get the speed!) Then, when out on the snow, they could easily replay the image of good skiing in order to help in learning the proper technique.

I've always found that I ride smoother during the Tour. Yes, not all the pro's have excellent technique (don't try climbing like Voeckler at home, folks!), but you're looking at pretty much the best cyclists in the world as they cruise, time trial, climb, and sprint. I think we can always learn something.

Luis

Sorry, I didn't watch any of it. I've been too busy doing stuff (like riding my bike) to watch other people do stuff (like riding their bikes). Maybe someday, I'll be too crippled up to actually do anything, and then I'll start watching other people do stuff instead.

But I do already have my 1,000 miles in for July. :)

I agree 100%. I was too busy riding my bike. June 30-July 17 I rode 2197.84 miles. That's more miles than the whimps in France rode and I did it in less time. I even did it while climbing over 125,000 vertical feet. I guess I like to ride my bicycle too much. I don't waste my time watching other people do things I want to do. I just go out and do it myself. You can't get withdrawl syndrome unless you let yourself get withdrawl syndrome. Maybe you should have recorded the tour. Heck you could be watching the reply of it every night right now.

ah yes. The Return of THE CHEAT. Looking forward to it.

I think "THE CHEAT" is retired, but I guess they're still going after him.

as lhbernhardt mentioned some of them are pretty good bike riders:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5O7um296IaA&feature=player_detailpage

if you don't like sagan after this years tour you were not paying attention.

btw i managed to ride plenty and still see recaps of every stage. effective multi-tasking for the winzzzzzzz.

as lhbernhardt mentioned some of them are pretty good bike riders:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5O7um296IaA&feature=player_detailpage

if you don't like sagan after this years tour you were not paying attention.

btw i managed to ride plenty and still see recaps of every stage. effective multi-tasking for the winzzzzzzz.

haha yea. Some of these guys have time management challenges, I think.