Bicycle Racing in the Bush: Tour de Faso
 

Did anyone catch this African stage race on Versus? Dirt roads, cheesy bicycles (some of them), the competitors sleeping each night in tents in makeshift campgrounds (and they complain about the Tour de France hotels). Man, that's amazing. Who goes to that race? There seemed to be a mix of Euro semi-pros and African teams from places like Libya and Cameroon. Paul Sherwin was the announcer, but I sort of wondered if he just did a voice over on the videotape.

Don't ask me why, but I really like that crazy race.

I liked the race better when it was Vuelta de Upper Volta.

If it returns to Upper Volta the race will be Re-Volta-ing.

I liked it last year when Paul made the comment about a rider who had been dropped due to a breakdown "At least there are no big cats in this area to worry about".

I caught one stage. It was pretty interesting to watch them racing on those dirt roads and crap.

Some guys had worse bikes than me.

Not on my VS listing at all...:(

Some pro racer in one of the breakaways looked like he was riding on a lower line, 4-5 year old aluminum Trek. It was not the Giro boys. The gear level on the Nyack Ride is probably better than the @ Tour de Faso. That is hard core bicycle racing however. But flat. Very, very, very flat.

I caught it a few weeks ago. Fun to watch.

Those guys had lots of flats. Most of the non-Euros had little bike strategy but lots of enthusiasm. One guy tried to break away at the start of every leg.

It was either a Belgian or a Frenchman who won, right? Either way, IIRC he was quite emotional.

This thread is worthless without pics.

I enjoyed it as well, nice for the people of Africa to have some type of stepping stone into the ProTour.

Some of the crashes were pretty interesting, like the cyclist who crashed into the support car. That one just looked bad.

They don't have photography in friggin Africa. Get serious.

I caught it a month or more ago. where were u?

Tivo. It's like a video time warp.

I've watched it 2-3 times. Almost all the race is on unpaved roads. The African teams are riding 10 year old sh*t. Flats are routine.

Yeah, those old bikes were the bomb. That race is the anti-Schwag.

3 or 4 years ago it was some other announcer and it sucked really bad. I'm glad Paul Sherwin is announcing it. I wonder what would happen if the various African teams had access to the $ and training that Euro riders have. They seemed to be outclassed and outequipped by the few Euro teams that were there but it was definately different than watchine a Euro tour.

Half of one team did not evan make it to the start of the race. One of their team cars broke down so they put their best riders in the remaining car with a few bikes and thats what they raced with.

Team cars with roof racks were not in use, quick pop open the trunk and dig out a spare wheel. There there was the team wrench replacing the tube in a tire and pumping it up with a floor pump to get the rider back on the road.

No mavic support to be seen.

Alot of the race was on paved roads there was some dirt. Most notable of the dirt was the finishing circut on one of the stages.

I've seen articles and photos of this in the past - awesome race.

Found this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3bry...next=1&index=7

Thank you for the link!

Really hardcore (raw) and very nice to see.

V.

It would be considerably more entertaining if a guy off the back would get picked off by a pride of lions and eaten for the Versus TV cameras. Then instead of looking for TV choppers in the sky you could tell where the competitor was by the vultures.

Awesome! :thumb:

Seriously, we needa have somebody finance those African teams. Something good can come out of that.

Cite something specific. Because all I can think of is road running where a bunch of toothpick faceless African dudes with names I can't pronounce dominate the sport. Oh, that sounds like Big Fun right there.

Because that would surely be much worse than a bunch of toothpick faceless European dudes with names we can't pronounce dominating the sport, wouldn't it?


http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f3...hatsRacist.gif

I can relate to toothpick Euro dudes from Italy and Belgium. I can't relate to African guys named Juma Ikangaa from Upper friggin Volta. Sorry. That's not racism. Those African guys strike me as being from another planet. I can relate to B. Obama. Maybe Barack can ride the Tour de France.