March 4, 1999

LIBRARY / BICYCLE RACING

Behind the Tour de France, and Beyond

By IAN AUSTEN
Until Greg LeMond showed that an American could win the Tour de France, following professional cycle racing from the United States was a desperate business. Race results from the tour and other races like the Giro D'Italia and the Tour of Flanders typically came weeks, if not months, late through the pages of outrageously overpriced European magazines like the old Miroir du Cyclisme.



Overview

• Behind the Tour de France, and Beyond

This Week's Reviews

• 'Rivendell Reader'

• 'Velo News Interactive'

• 'Union Cycliste Internationale'

• 'The Total Cycling Encyclopedia'

• 'Official Tour de France'

• 'The Tour Saga'


LeMond's extraordinary success -- he won the Tour de France three times, first in 1986 -- unquestionably increased cycling coverage, both in print and on television. But despite that, timely reporting remained largely concentrated on just the Tour de France. Now the Web has changed all that.

Through a variety of sources, American fans are now being informed as quickly and almost as well as their European counterparts. All that is lacking now is live, full-motion video; Web experiments last year by France 3, one of the two broadcasters of the Tour de France in its homeland, suggest that some form of that may not be far off.

That may put fans ahead of the cycling press. The dirty secret of covering the Tour de France, which I have done, is that the journalists rarely see the racers in action. Instead, they crowd into French cars for hours of white-knuckle driving through huge crowds ahead of the racers to catch the finish of the race on television. Be grateful: no Web site recreates that.

           




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