Lance and The Tour de France

Can anybody explain to me how they score/time the tour? There must be some kind of idiosyncrasy to it because it's hard to believe that he's EXACTLY 8 seconds behind 3 or 4 stages in a row. Also Alberto Contador, who's in 2nd, has been EXACTLY 6 seconds behind for the same amount of stages. Anyone?

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Permalink Reply by Mike Schwab on July 24, 2009 at 3:20pm

The ratings on the Tour de France were going way down, it was off the schedule until Lance decided to ride again.

The individual time trials are recorded to the 0.01 second but only published to the nearest second. The team time trial is scored by the 5th riders time assigned to positions 1-5. On any stage, If a following bicycle has the front of their front tire past the rear of the rear tire, they are considered overlapping, and are given the same time as the first overlapping bicycle.

The yellow jersey adds up each stages times for each rider. The white jersey contenders are riders under 25 and use the yellow jersey times. The team time adds up the 3 fastest riders time from each team on each stage. The green jersey awards points to the first few riders at specified sprint lines and the finish line of each stage. The red polka dot jersey awards points to the first few riders at specified climbs during the stages.

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Permalink Reply by vxla on July 27, 2009 at 10:34am

Maybe there was so much talk about LA because he's the 7-time Tour winner returning? I'd imagine if Eddie Merckx decided to ride it, there'd be just as much talk about him.