Bigger, better?
Quote from the arranger of the proposed cycling race "Tour of America", modeled after Tour de France:
"The idea is to go big. In some sense, it may be overboard. It may be swinging for the fences. But then again, hey, this is America. That's what we do. We want big. We want powerful. We want wonderful. We want grueling."
Well, what do you say? East coast to west coast in 26 stages, 4700 miles / 7520 km in total (more than twice the distance of Tour de France), starting in september just as the "Vuelta a España". I like the spirit but seriously, no big teams will participate in this craziness after participating in any of the big tours earlier in the season. So who will? Cycling isn't that popular in the states as far as I know, so attracting sponsors for a lot of american teams will be hard. And I imagine that american viewers want "stars".
I think this is the ostrich of the cycling sport. It may be the biggest bird, but it won't fly...
But by september 6th 2008 we will know.
Now I'm just waiting for the russians to respond with Tour of Russia, from the Baltic sea to Bering Strait. On unicycles. :)
/O.K.
(Listening to while posting: Frank London - Scientist at work)
2 comments:
I think you are right - who really wants to bike across America? How many millions to you get if you win? Sometimes the biggest is not the 'bestest' - how about some moderation here? Instead, try to get some more Americans up on regular bicycle to bike off some of the over-sized dinner portions that are served here in the US.
A fair amount of cycle tourists do that every year, and then there is RAAM, race across america, too. RAAM has been called "more a sleep deprivation test than a race" on the other hand.
The suggested total amount of price money was $11 million, but that is divided between many categories.
But don't you think there's some truth to "hey, this is America. That's what we do."?
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