Bonjour all you pro cycling fans out there. This blog has been created only for the month of July 2013 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the greatest sporting event in the world, The Tour de France. I don't expect I'll be contributing to it much past the end of the Tour on 21 July 2013. And if all goes well, I'll be starting a new blog for the 2014 edition of "Le Grande Boucle" which will start in jolly ol' England.
I'm guessing most of those reading this blog are the people in the betting pool I created, and invited to view the blog. But if you are the general public and you happen upon this blog, welcome.
Why start this blog? Last year, I was sending out a daily email to my friends who shared the love of the sport of cycling with me. This year, I didn't want to clog up their inbox with my jabber so I thought a neutral site that they can visit would be the better way to go. I also wanted to get another author to contribute his thoughts. A man who's opinion on the sport of cycling I value deeply. So hopefully in this blog, myself and Toby can have some interesting insights in not only the Tour de France, it's riders and teams, but cycling in general.
Every year I have a betting pool with my cycling friends to pick winners for the Tour. It all started in the early 1990's when I was working at The Bike Shop in Hawai'i. The bet wasn't much, a 6 pack of what ever was the preferred drink of choice to the winner. I can't say it was beer originally because I was under age when we started this. But with the reign of Miguel Indurain from 1990 until 1994, picking the winner was really just the luck of the draw as to who got to pick first. The same could be said for the Armstrong years. Although looking back now, with Armstrong's wins being removed and "no winner" being declared from 1999 to 2005... I think I want my beer back.
So I recently changed the rules for the betting pool. Now you have to pick the 3rd place finisher. Which is a little harder because the field opens up from about 3rd place down usually. There's always going to be a handful of potential winners of the Tour, this year everyone is predicting a battle between Froome and Contador. And if predictions hold true, one will finish first and the other second.
But who finishes third?
Due to my job, I've been a little bit out of the news concerning the run in of races to the Tour this year, so I wasn't able, as I had in years past, to track the form or different riders who are potential tour winners, but really, have the best shot at 3rd.
Perhaps my one of my next blogs will be my thoughts on those riders. Once I catch up on the news.
For those of you participating in this years pool and are here and not reading the email this link was attached to, the next blog will be "The Rules". That way we have those on the interwebs someplace easy for us to view.
I will also post the riders list here once the official one is out. And if I'm smart and figure out this blog thing, maybe I can make it a column where we can cross out the riders as they abandon.
Happy riding.
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