Time trials in Le Tour?

[Ablang]

As a 1st-time watcher of the Tour on TV (I don't have cable/satellite
so I only see the weekly summaries for one hour once a week), I don't
understand how the time trials work.

What is the purpose of the time trials? Why are they shorter than
regular races? Why are riders staggered in start times? How is the
starting order determined? How do their race times factor in to the
overall race total?

How many of the 21 stages are time trials, and which stages are they?

[k12250@aol.com]

On Jul 31, 9:42 pm, Ablang <ron...@gmail.com> wrote:
> As a 1st-time watcher of the Tour on TV (I don't have cable/satellite
> so I only see the weekly summaries for one hour once a week), I don't
> understand how the time trials work.
>
> What is the purpose of the time trials? Why are they shorter than
> regular races? Why are riders staggered in start times? How is the
> starting order determined? How do their race times factor in to the
> overall race total?
>
> How many of the 21 stages are time trials, and which stages are they?

Time trials are individual races against the clock. Each riders
elapsed times get added to their overall cumulative times. They are
an all out effort so they are not as long as typical stages. Riders
are not allowed to draft behind other riders, hence the staggered
starts. The riders leave in reverse order from their overall
standings in the GC (General Classification). Hope this helps.

[Paul O]

Ablang wrote, On 7/31/2008 10:42 PM:
> As a 1st-time watcher of the Tour on TV (I don't have cable/satellite
> so I only see the weekly summaries for one hour once a week), I don't
> understand how the time trials work.
>
> What is the purpose of the time trials? Why are they shorter than
> regular races? Why are riders staggered in start times? How is the
> starting order determined? How do their race times factor in to the
> overall race total?
>
> How many of the 21 stages are time trials, and which stages are they?
>
>
To add to what K2250 said, this year there were two time trail stages.
The first time trail was 30 km long and the winner, Stefan Schumacher,
completed it in 0h 35' 44". The second time trail, which Schumacher also
won, was 53 km long and his winning time was 1h 03' 50". These are
typical distances for tour time trial stages.

A typical Tour de France road race stage is 170 to 220 km long and takes
4 to 5 1/2 hours to complete. Stages with high mountains tend to be
shorter but still take 4 to 5 hours to complete. See:

http://www.letour.fr/us/homepage_courseTDF.html


http://www.versus.com/tdf/about.tpl




--

Paul D Oosterhout
I work for SAIC (but I don't speak for SAIC)

[Navigator]

On Thu, 31 Jul 2008 19:42:56 -0700 (PDT), Ablang <ron916@gmail.com>
wrote:

>As a 1st-time watcher of the Tour on TV (I don't have cable/satellite
>so I only see the weekly summaries for one hour once a week), I don't
>understand how the time trials work.
>
>What is the purpose of the time trials? Why are they shorter than
>regular races? Why are riders staggered in start times? How is the
>starting order determined? How do their race times factor in to the
>overall race total?
>
>How many of the 21 stages are time trials, and which stages are they?

If you are smart enough to post here, then you are smart enough to do
a google search. Find your own answers.

[k12250@aol.com]

On Aug 1, 9:50 am, k12...@aol.com wrote:
> On Jul 31, 9:42 pm, Ablang <ron...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > As a 1st-time watcher of the Tour on TV (I don't have cable/satellite
> > so I only see the weekly summaries for one hour once a week), I don't
> > understand how the time trials work.
>
> > What is the purpose of the time trials? Why are they shorter than
> > regular races? Why are riders staggered in start times? How is the
> > starting order determined? How do their race times factor in to the
> > overall race total?
>
> > How many of the 21 stages are time trials, and which stages are they?
>
> Time trials are individual races against the clock. Each riders
> elapsed times get added to their overall cumulative times. They are
> an all out effort so they are not as long as typical stages. Riders
> are not allowed to draft behind other riders, hence the staggered
> starts. The riders leave in reverse order from their overall
> standings in the GC (General Classification). Hope this helps.

There are generally ~3 time trials per tour. The prologue is always
the first stage and is a very short time trial. The length and
position of the subsequent time trials vary by year.

[Claude]

"Navigator" <none@nobody.net> wrote in message
news:qn9794lkf47u5qkbqmn96q2udpbmms2vet@4ax.com...
>
> If you are smart enough to post here, then you are smart enough to do
> a google search. Find your own answers.
>

What skin of your nose is it?! Using this forum enabled the OP to put a
very specific question, thus (a) getting a high quality answer, and (b)
saving time and energy. Most people are more than happy to respond to these
sorts of questions - in fact many people actually like to be helpful. You
might be better off avoiding human interaction altogether.

[It's Chris]

From: none@nobody.net (Navigator)

>If you are smart enough to post here,
>then you are smart enough to do a
>google search. Find your own answers.

How rude! No wonder you hide behide a nom de plume

- -
Compliments of:
"Your Friendly Neighborhood Wheelman"

If you want to E-mail me use:
ChrisZCorner "at" webtv "dot" net

My website:
http://geocities.com/czcorner

[Ted]

On Aug 1, 10:26 pm, dedendaddy4spamm...@webtv.net (It's Chris) wrote:
> From: n...@nobody.net (Navigator)
>
> >If you are smart enough to post here,
> >then you are smart enough to do a
> >google search. Find your own answers.
>
> How rude! No wonder you hide behide a nom de plume
>
> - -
> Compliments of:
> "Your Friendly Neighborhood Wheelman"
>
> If you want to E-mail me use:
> ChrisZCorner "at" webtv "dot" net
>
> My website:http://geocities.com/czcorner

Absolutely. I understand about time trials but enjoyed reading
this post anyway. This goes for many of the questions here.
Navigator is apparently a snob.

Did you know that Norman D. Plume was the first person to have a
pen name? He was from Maine, hence the pronunciation "Nom."

Ted.