Tour de France Week 1 – vital statistics, knowns and unknowns
Riders who had heard of Kraftwerk before the Düsseldorf Grand Départ 2 (neither of them being German)
Members of the Phinney family who bet on Taylor to be the first King of the Mountains 23
Chateaux David Millar has recounted the histories of so far 2769
Interesting facts he was able to come up with about Liege 0.5
Riders who made engine noises the whole time they were riding around the Spa Francorchamps motor racing circuit 194
Number of times Guillaume van Keirsbulck pleaded with his directeur sportif to be allowed to retreat to the bunch after it was clear no one was going to join him in the break 273
Green bottles that accidentally fell off the wall in van Keirsbulck’s mind during his 191 solo kilometres on Stage 4 109,287
Years taken off Marc Madiot’s life by Arnaud Demare’s sprint victory 6
French cycling fans who conveniently happened to miss Arnaud Demare’s own infringement in the Vittel sprint finish 8,653,725
Column copy furiously scrapped by journalists at 5.12pm on Tuesday 38,000 inches
Best odds you could have got on Peter Sagan being reinstated in the Tour by the Court for Arbitration in Sport on Thursday 100,000,000-1
Distance he’d have had to have ridden on his own if they had 160.5km
Matches BMC said they burned by riding all day at the front on Stage 5 2
Matches everyone else thought BMC burned by riding all day at the front on Stage 5 8
Bidons Geraint Thomas made Chris Froome collect from the team car over the four days he spent in yellow even though he wasn’t thirsty 23
Riders who look more ungainly on the bike than Chris Froome 1
Tour de France Directors immensely relieved that Stage 6 actually stuck to the bloody script 1
Of the facts commentators had in their notes about Frederik Backaert, the percentage that related to him being a farmer 100%
Experts in photo-finish technology before the Stage 7 finale between Marcel Kittel and Edvald Boasson Hagen 11
Experts in photo-finish technology after the Stage 8 finale between Marcel Kittel and Edvald Boasson Hagen 2,846,622
Time it took Lilian Calmejane to change down to his lowest gear when he started to cramp up in the closing kilometres 0.0003 seconds
Amount of time Robert Gesink believed he could win the stage after hearing over the radio that Calmejane had cramped up 0.0003 seconds
Words Chris Froome had with Fabio Aru after the Italian champion attacked when the yellow jersey picked up a mechanical 47
Number of letters in every single one of those words 4
Games of scissors, paper, stone it took to decide who would tell Warren Barguil that he hadn’t, in fact, won the Stage (best of) 5
FDJ riders booked to go on a stag do next weekend 5
French sunflowers still to be photographed (and they’re not happy about it) 18
Additional speed riders are, on average, able to gain by pedalling with their undercarriage resting on the top tube 1kph
Breeds of domestic animals yet to be cruelly exploited for televisual and photographic purposes 3
2CVs driven through a field alongside the race which will never start again 62
Total time cyclists riding alongside the race have been able to keep up for 187 seconds
Percentage of journalists who have at some point referred to “Froomey”, “G” and “Cav” 48%
Percentage of journalists who have posted an irate, passive-aggressive tweet about journalists referring to “Froomey”, “G” and “Cav” 52%
The greatest show on earth: shop Rouleur photographer Paulo Ciaberta’s art prints here
The post Tour de France Week 1 – vital statistics, knowns and unknowns appeared first on The world's finest cycling magazine.
