Vive Le Tour

Le Tour will always begin and end in France. But henceforth, it will culturally be more American than French. It’s common knowledge that Lance Armstrong won the last seven Tours de France. But that’s only the beginning. When one includes Greg Lemond in the late 80’s, Americans have won 10 of the last 20 tours. And in this last tour, Americans wore the yellow jersey, recognizing the race’s overall leader, on 20 of the tour’s 21 stages.
And, while cycling remains a fairly minor sport in this country, the Americans who do compete on the European circuit succeed disproportionately to their numbers. In this year’s tour, only eight of the 189 riders who started were American. But four of them were their team’s top rider. Aside from the Lance Armstrong-led Discovery Channel team, three other teams in the tour were captained by Americans – Phonak led by Floyd Landis, Gerolsteiner led by Levi Leipheimer, and Saunier Duval-Prodir by Chris Horner. If he were not serving a suspension, Tyler Hamilton would have been some team’s number one rider. Aside from Horner, one thing all these Americans have in common is that they once were teammates of Lance Armstrong.
Additionally, a number of the tour’s other top riders, even if they are of European or South American origins, learned the American way by serving an apprenticeship under Armstrong on the former United States Postal Service. Some now are team leaders themselves.
Americans excel at the tour the new-fashioned way – they outwork their opponents. Other teams spend more money than Discovery. But nobody else spends effort more wisely. Other teams work hard, but historically work most at what they already do best. The American way is to concentrate upon and improve upon weaknesses. Lance Armstrong and his acolytes have raised the level of the tour by changing the way it is done. It’s not coincidental that 2005 was the fastest tour ever, breaking the record set just two years ago. In all the tour’s history, the average speed has exceeded 40 kilometers per hour just five times. And all five were won by Lance Armstrong.
Americans have also put their stamp on the equipment. In 1989, Greg Lemond entered the penultimate stage, an individual time trial, well behind Frenchman Laurent Fignon. He rolled out of the start box wearing an aerodynamic helmet and riding a bike with steer horn handlebars. These were familiar to the world of American triathlon, but this represented the first appearance of either in the tour. Fignon, along with all the other riders that day, eschewed the enhanced equipment. Fignon rolled out helmetless, preferring to show off his long, blonde hair, and labored over his traditional drop handlebars. He lost the tour by a mere 8 seconds. Better bars or an aerodynamic helmet would almost certainly have carried Fignon to a tour victory that day. Today, all riders take advantage of the innovations Lemond introduced that day, in spite of European efforts to impose stagnation upon bicycle construction and design.
The tour has always been culturally Luddite. For generations, European cycling resisted equipment evolution. It was years after their invention before rear derailleurs were allowed on tour bikes. To this very day, the French-dominated International Cycling Union (UCI) continues to impose restrictions upon bicycle design. Nevertheless, American and Italian engineers have managed to work around the restrictions and have improved the equipment by incorporating the latest high tech composites and exotic alloys. Most of the fastest designs ever created gather cobwebs as they have been outlawed by the UCI. Even so, today many bikes employ carbon composites and super spherical ceramic bearings. Supposedly, the time trial bikes ridden by the CSC team cost $25,000 apiece.
Rumor has it that some very exotic ceramic frames are under development. One wonders what roadblocks the UCI will concoct to keep those off the roads.
The fast pace of innovation in the American cycling industry has attracted quite a number of this country’s aerospace engineers to apply their educations to bicycle design.
It’s unlikely that an American will be wearing the yellow jersey when the peloton rolls onto the Champs-Elysées in 2006. But the rider will be someone who was deeply influenced in his training methods by Armstrong and his coach, Chris Carmichael. And, the bike he sits on will be based upon American engineering.
Vivé Le Tour de America.