First Up: the FLKTDFFG

I'll be using this blog as a way to post the updates from my Tour de France Fantasy Game, something that for one month a year I spend way too much time on. Enjoy!

Mike


Friends:

You've purchased your copy of the Velo News Guide to the Tour...

You've set your TiVo to record every OLN Cyclysm Sunday since Paris-Tours...

To get a personal feel for steepness and terrain, you've scouted nearby climbs known for their similarity to the Tourmalet, the Galibier and Alpe d'Huez (well, perhaps not you Minnesotans and Floridians)...

You've downloaded the podcast "Cycling Insight" and listen on the way to work...*

You've written probability models, accounting for the particularities of this year's course (for it is a peculiar one)...


WELL, STOP IT!

THIS WHOLE THING IS GETTING WAAAAAY OUT OF HAND.

All you people taking this Tour de France thing far too seriously...It doesn't start for another three weeks, for Lance's sake!

So get your priorities straight:
(1) Let me know if you're in.
(2) Send your money ($10) to 2600 Camino Lenada/Oakland, CA 94611 -- or Paypal ($11 -- that's right; we're introducing a service charge) to mackfee@hotmail.com.
(3) Send this to anyone who's notably absent from the addressee list, or whom you think should get it (first priority goes to last year's participants).
(4) Spend the next few weeks watching soccer/football while I take 24/7 to get my act together, having lost last year's everything to a hard drive crash.

And in case you are having doubts about participating this year, having perhaps lost either interest with Armstrong's retirement, or focus with the advent of this whole "World Cup" thing, allow me to get you up to speed regarding the favorites for the overall win (or the "GC" -- remember?):

• Ivan Basso is changing his name to He-man Bad-ass-o, having crushed -- crushed -- the competition in the Giro d'Italia, and generally looking indomitable all season long.
• Jan Ullrich returned from his annual OktoberthroughDecemberfest a kilo or two lighter than usual, even after having grown at least 100 extra grams of hair on his freckled melon. His strong showing in the Giro's long time trial bodes well for this TT-heavy Tour.
• Floyd Landis cleaned up all spring long, starting with the Tour of California, where he beat out Levi Leipheimer even in the climbing-heavy stages. Of course...
• Levi Leipheimer ain't Ivan Basso, and the Tour of California ain't the Tour de France.
• Alexandre Vinokourov has either been savvily quiet or underperforming, perhaps owing to a drug scandal on his Liberty Seguros team.
• George Hincapie snapped a shoulder ligament after snapping a handlebar on the cobbles of Paris-Roubaix, tragically, but seems on track for a return to form by July 1. (Pssst: a rider whose body Phil Liggett once referred to as "a massive carcass" can't win the Tour de France, no matter how few mountaintop finishes the route includes.)
• All those other guys have a better shot than in any of the last seven years.

And that's about all you need to know -- for now. I do look forward to hearing from all of you, and hopefully a few others; how does a field of 40 sound?

Until July 1, then; I'll see you in Strasbourg for the Prologue!
Mike


*Warning: For cycling geeks only! If you are indeed looking for a leg up, but would like to be thoroughly entertained while getting it, I highly recommend pulling off the podcast "Cycling Insight," which you can find on iTunes. Billed as "hard hitting and controversial commentary" on the world of professional cycling, it's actually two Australian former cyclists who unleash their very dry and fairly sophomoric wit on cycling and cyclists, all while listening to heavy metal and consuming beer and chocolate. Not for the faint of heart, or for those who don't find humor in references to Sean Kelly's seat tube angle, but for those of us who do, it's well worth a download.