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Anyone playing any of the Tour de France Fantasy Cycling contests? I have played the Versus Fantasy Cycling Challenge for three years now I believe.
The race is fun enough on its own, but the Fantasy Challenge makes it even more interesting.
You pick a team of 15 riders with a total of $500 for salaries – the better (more successful) the rider the higher the salary – just like real life. For each stage you pick your 9 man roster and accumulate points based on how each rider does.
Are you interested? For more information about how it works and to sign up visit Versus (NBC Sports) Tour de France Fantasy Cycling Challenge.
My team is “4loveofbikes†and I created a group by the same name. If you want to play you can join the 4loveofbikes group, join a different group or create your own. Everyone creates their own team.
I’m still filling my 15 slots, have to choose those guys wisely since once the practice round is over you can’t change the riders on your team. You can change your daily lineup though.
It’s fun, sign up!
If you were around this time last year you know I love the Tour de France. Last year I blogged on each stage of the Tour – daily posts for three weeks – over thirty posts on the 2010 Tour de France.
Although I still love the Tour – have since the early 90’s and will as long as I’m breathing – my schedule isn’t going to allow me to cover the 2011 Tour de France with the kind of detail I did last year’s Tour.
I still will blog about it, possibly even daily updates with highlights of the Stage, but not the “pedal by pedal†coverage I gave it in 2010.
For many fans this year’s Tour de France doesn’t have the drama that last year’s did. For one thing, a certain Texan isn’t riding and that alone takes some of the excitement out. A bigger factor though is the unresolved status of last year’s race. Although he was cleared by his own Spanish Federation of doping (Clenbuterol), the UCI (International Cycling Union) and the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) appealed. The Court of Arbitration for Sport won’t hear the appeal until August so Contador will race this year’s Tour in a cloud of suspicion – and with the possibility of losing last year’s Tour championship.
Regardless, he is still the heavy favorite to win this year. Even if he races without failing a single drug test he will likely bring more criticism and suspicion to a sport that already has more than it deserves – while all the other sports have less than they deserve.
That’s the part of the Tour that I could do without. I love the race, without a doubt it is my favorite sporting event – nothing else compares – and I am a fan of all the big U.S. sports – but I hate the way the sport of cycling is viewed in the U.S. Most Americans know little about bike racing and when they hear about the riders that dope (and alleged to have doped – Armstrong for one) their misunderstanding and lack of appreciation of professional bike racing grows.
And no doubt, the 2011 Tour de France will bring allegations of doping and failed drug tests. Count on it.Â
Also count on great racing – phenomenal displays of strength and skill – and exciting stage after exciting stage – for three weeks!Â
The Tour de France is the Super Bowl of professional cycling and it starts this Saturday, July 2. If you’re unfamiliar with how bike racing works, check out my Tour de France Primerfor the basics. Also, by going to the link in the first paragraph you can relive last year’s exciting Tour de France – I just did.
It’s never too late to be what you might have been or to learn how to ride a bike.
From the NY Times:
A Goal Met Before Age 50, and No Training Wheels!
By CHRISTINE HAUGHNEY
On a recent Sunday morning, Bruce Mauro let his girlfriend and two daughters assume he was heading out for his usual routine of playing the organ at church. Instead, he was taking care of some unfinished childhood business: he was learning to ride a bike.
It’s the first secret I ever kept from them, said Mr. Mauro, a music teacher and an organist who is turning 50 in September. Basically when you get to 50 and you can’t do something, there’s that negativity. Part of my not telling them was “What if I fail at this?”
Mr. Mauro, a bear-chested man dressed in sweat pants and an oversize bright yellow T-shirt, joined 15 other seemingly fearless New Yorkers who had also never learned to ride.
That morning, under overcast skies, the mildly sloping blacktop at Brooklyn Bridge Park felt heavy with apprehension as teachers from the nonprofit Bike New York doled out bicycles and helmets and explained the basics of balancing and then riding. The students tightly gripped their handlebars and silently tried to follow. The only sounds that could be heard were the “click, click, clicks†of spinning wheels, the chirps of encouragement from instructors and the sporadic joyful yelps when students started to make their first shaky journeys across the road.
This is actually more gratifying because they have so much baggage,†said one instructor, Kenneth J. Podziba, the president of Bike New York, which has taught about 2,100 adults in the last four years.â€
Read the rest of the story here.
