From PWALTERS@delphi.com Tue Jun 27 13:44:33 1995 Return-Path: Received: from mx4.u.washington.edu by lists.u.washington.edu (5.65+UW95.05/UW-NDC Revision: 2.33 ) id AA04420; Tue, 27 Jun 95 13:44:33 -0700 Received: from bos1h.delphi.com by mx4.u.washington.edu (5.65+UW95.05/UW-NDC Revision: 2.31 ) id AA19915; Tue, 27 Jun 95 13:44:30 -0700 Received: from delphi.com by delphi.com (PMDF V4.3-9 #10880) id <01HS7HEAIW4W99FK6B@delphi.com>; Tue, 27 Jun 1995 16:44:28 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 1995 16:44:28 -0400 (EDT) From: "Patrick D. Walters" Subject: FYI - It reallys suckd to be a pro - Wah To: uwracing@u.washington.edu Message-Id: <01HS7HEAIW4Y99FK6B@delphi.com> X-Vms-To: INTERNET"uwracing@u.washington.edu" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT 4 27-JUN-1995 01:27 Cycling-Riders insist it's better by bike By Mike Price LONDON, June 27 (Reuter) - Four times winner Miguel Indurain seems unstoppable in the Tour de France -- on two wheels at least. But two years ago a train ride almost signalled the end of his victory roll. Just before the Paris finish, the Spanish rider caught a cold on an air-conditioned train and a doctor was needed to keep him riding. "He had a 40-degree (Celsius) fever and first thoughts were that his race was over," said American team mate Andy Hampsten. Indurain's illness was curbed sufficiently for him to claim his third Tour triumph, but the train transfer, a hated fact of racing life, was blamed again for giving riders problems. The dreaded transfers will be endured again in this year's three-week haul, which starts in the Britanny port of Saint Brieuc on Saturday. "Transfers are dangerous in health terms and an enormous nuisance," said Hampsten who has suffered them through eight Tours de France and seven Giros d'Italia. To suit the requirements of organisers and commercial interests, and with 3,500 kms to race, the distance between one supporting town and the next is occasionally bridged by transferring the riders by rail or air. After nine days of racing in this year's Tour the 180 riders fly from Liege to Geneva. They then face a 1.5 hours drive to their hotels on the eve of the first Alpine stage. Their support cars and most of the Tour's 1,500 vehicles will cover nearly 700 kms to join them. Nearly two weeks later they take the TGV train for a 400-km trip that brings them close to Paris for the final day. Last year they rode the Channel tunnel train to Folkestone for two days' racing in England, then sailed back to Normandy. The Tour is planning a start in Ireland and the equally ambitious Giro races for three days in Greece next year to commemorate jointly the centenary of the modern Olympics and the Giro sponsors, La Gazzetta dello Sport. Not all transfers go well for the organisers. Tour co-director Jacques Goddet spent time in a British police cell when he arrived without a passport on the first transfer from France to England in 1974. The organisers were attempting to fulfil the desires of the vegetable growers of Brittany who had paid a big fee for the privilege of having the Tour start in Brittany, and then travel to England, all to push the sale of artichokes and promote a new Channel ferry service. Urs Zimmermann had "personal reasons" for not wanting to fly with the rest of the riders on a 1991 transfer from Brittany to the Pyrenees. Instead, he went by car from Nantes to Pau and was thrown out of the race for not using the authorised transport. Hampsten, at that time Zimmerman's team mate, said: "I don't know whether they figured that he was cheating somehow by sitting in a car for hours and hours. "Being jammed into a plane full of bike riders is not a pleasant experience after we have fought for positions five to six hours a day on the road." The riders protested over Zimmermann's treatment at the start in Pau and he was reinstated -- but only after his American team boss, Jim Ochowicz, took the blame and was expelled from the Tour. Four years after the first sortie into England the riders had had enough of transfers. With 500 metres to go in the 148-km leg from Tarbes they dismounted and walked to the finish in Valence d'Agen. It was their protest against early starts, late finishes, and that year five transfers, a word that entered the Tour vocabulary in 1960 when the race took its first train ride from Bordeaux to the foot of the Pyrenees. This year the demands of television scheduling mean late finishes. Stephen Hodge, lieutenant to Tour contender Richard Virenque of France, said: "The stages are very late because of TV. We will be eating late and going to bed with a full stomach which makes it difficult to recuperate properly from a day's racing. "Transfers are a pain-in-the-bum. In the Giro we had a train trip of 600 kms and arrived at 11 p.m. in our hotels. Our team cars had already been there for 2.5 hours." Hampsten said: "Transfers have a negative effect on the racing. Riders are more tired after a transfer and are griping. You can see it in the rhythm of the race, like a little protest. "I don't know if the organisers look at transfers as a necessary evil, or business. I try to stay positive and think that I am not having to ride that particular stretch. "I like trains because you can move around but on the French TGV the food is something else. Once we had steak which was burnt on the outside and still frozen and red on the inside." Danish rider Rolf Sorensen claimed that this year's Giro transfers, including trips to and from hotels, totalled 2,000 kms. "That's too much. Racing is hard enough as it is." ^REUTER .