FROM THE RIDER'S EYE
The finish cameras told the story at the end of Stage 11 in the Tour; a reality shot of two riders hunched over their bikes as they passed the double white lines of the finish too close for the eye alone to see. Robert Hunter of South Africa won by half a wheel length, about one foot ahead of his only challenger. Hunter won the 113 mile stage by about 12 inches.
But Utah's Dave Zabriskie is out. He finished one half hour behind Hunter, outside the allowed time limit, and so was disqualified.
Close finishes between the few leaders of the pack have marked this year's race. But another story is the peleton, and the inter-team cooperation that basically allows the pack to control the race. That's why Alexandre Vinokourov has come back from his bad crash in the first week of the Tour. He had been 12th overall before he crashed in Stage 6, landing hard on both knees. As blood ran down his legs, he got up to start again, now in 81st place. Many thought he would soon quit the race.
But from then on, Vinokourov got the help he needed, not only from his Astana teammates, but also from the cooperating Discovery Channel and Barloworld teams. Those riders would move quickly to get ahead of an attacking rider and block him. They played their bikes as obstacles, forcing the rest of the pack (or peleton) to stay behind, giving their man Vinokourov, 33, a clear field to ride. From the agony of crashing defeat, the Kazakh champion moved up through the ranks. He won the time trial. He has now won two stages. Though he is still half an hour behind yellow jersey leader Rasmussen, the buzz is building that he may take this year's Tour.
Kazakhstan, by the way, is located just above China and is a former part of the Soviet Union.
Meanwhile, Rasmussen's troubles are mounting. It's the D word.
The race leader missed four drug tests so far this year. Under International Cycling Union rules, a rider is considered to have tested positive if he misses three tests by one group, such as the USOC or IOC. But because two organizations requested two tests each, Rasmussen is still technically in the clear.
Tuesday, July 24, is a rest day. There will be a press conference, and one of the big questions will be whether Rasmussen, 33, has cheated. He's been tested nearly every day. Last week, Denmark officially dropped him from the national team because he didn't keep anti-doping officials informed of his whereabouts while he was training in Mexico.
As the world watches this three week drama play out, few think of the Tour from the racer's point of view. Here's what it's like: In these mountain stages, you are riding the equivilent of five Big Cottonwood Canyons; unrelenting up and up with only a few short relatively flat stretches. Your legs pump out one pedal stroke a second on the way up, even faster on a descent.
Spectators thickly line the sides of the road, shouting and screaming, running out to wave signs near your face or less than a foot away from you, keeping you from moving over on the road to get a better line. Other fans---are they fans or exhibitionists?---run along for a hundred feet or so as you pedal. In the back of your mind there is always a tinge of worry---will one of the spectators reach out and touch you, purposely distract you; will a fan of another racer grab you and pull you back as has happened before? The raucous screaming and cheering is only a few minutes for the fans, but a constant sound for you. Team cars and motorcycles with press cameras ride along, sometimes leaving an opening only a few feet wide; while spectators jump out onto the course, waving flags and signs, windmilling their arms and jumping aside only at the very last moment. You ride through a tunnel of loud noise and wild motion, trying not to lose concentration.
Those fans arrive at the course weeks before the race, parking their vans and RV's back in the meadows to keep the road clear. The latecomers must snake up the mountains slowly, bumper to bumper, looking for a place to park. From the air, these temporary campsites of vans, cars and trailers look like a small white city. For some, this trek is their vacation. They camp on the roadside, going on day hikes and talking to the others lined up. Long before the stage, there is a 'course hold,' they must say where they are until it's all over. The fans wait days and days in the mountains so you they can watch maybe 15 minutes of a race, then spend the rest of the year bragging about it.