Talk:Tour de France/Archive 2

message: I think this section should be moved back from the 2005 page to this page.  The topic covered is typical physical statistics - 2005 just happens to be used as an example.  I don't think the intent is or should be to include a physical stats section in every year's specific tdf page.  This general info belongs on the general page.  Just because it happens to use specific info from the 2005 Tour as an example does not mean it does not belong on the general page. --Serge 22:03, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I  - amazingly - am not playing Tardis Tennis at the moment. 17:40, 14 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rider physical statistics 

message: A lot of content was deleted by an anonymous user without explanation by this edit:
:17:59, 14 July 2005 67.142.129.10
Is this content being moved?  Without a reasonable explanation for the deletion, I will replace it.  --Serge 01:25, 15 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: it looks to me like it was vandalism. uri budnik 05:21, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

text: I  - amazingly - am not playing Tardis Tennis at the moment. 17:10, 15 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Major deletion! 

message: I'm curious about the naming, especially the one used below the green jersey. I react to the phrase
"The best sprinter in Le Tour wears the green jersey."
I think the right way should be "the Tour", since the word _Le_ in French is equivalent to _the_ in English.
I'm Norwegian, but speak both English and French, but as such I do not consider me an expert on the subject. Does anybody have an opinion?
: i made the changes as suggested above. it does make more sense that way. uri budnik 07:48, 27 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Le/The tour de France

message: The maillot jaune invention is cred, but I don't see cred for who first wore it; I've seen Eugene Christoff 1919 mentioned. Can somebody clarify & include?  Trekphiler 19:22, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: You're ''jaune''! 

message: Gentle writers, I have edited the “Doping Scandals” section. It had become the longest part of the Tour de France article—longer than the sections on “History”, “Jerseys”, “Stages”, etc.
I shortened it from 1600 words to 1000, while keeping as much of the original content as possible. I took out some redundancies, technical inaccuracies and extraneous information and trimmed the ubiquitous rant on how everyone knows Lance Armstrong is a doper. (It can still be found in the Armstrong article.) 
Mostly, it was just too long.
Methinks it is nobler to edit than to revert.
BitQuirky 00:03, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Doping Scandals section

message: Can anyone help with this? It's a mess, despite the best of intentions.  (Hint: there won't be one this year).  I'd do it, but my bike is rusting.  -- BitQuirky 15:06, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Team Time Trial section 

message: The history section of this article could indeed be improved a lot. Actually, the current "history" section isn't really a history section, but rather an "overview" or "description" of what the Tour de France is. An extensive history section (which should be wikified) can be found on e.g. the Dutch wikipedia, or the Franch wikipedia for a chronological overview of some organisational changes or events. The German article is actually quite balanced...
I also think the "doping" and "deaths" sections are a bit too prominent in the article. They should come AFTER a description of the stages and the jerseys, after all: the Tour is about cycling (=stages and jerseys), not about doping or dying... --LimoWreck 22:58, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  History 

message: Winning a Tour de France stage is considered a great pro cycling achievement, more prestigious than winning most single day races, regardless of one's overall standing in the GC. This is not really true. People tend to think so, because of the big deal that is made of the Tour de France every year, but if you would look at the stage winners of 5 or 10 years ago, you will find that most have long been forgotten. This is not true for someone who wins a big single-day race, you can go back 30 years and you will still recognize most of the names. Piet 11:47, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Indeed... at the moment of winning, a stage victory has a great importance and value; but years later, only memorable stages (mountain stages, champs elysées,... prologues for some riders, ...) will be remembered. Also, for champions who won many stages during their career, the total of number is considered as a great achievement, not each individual victory. For less talented riders, that don't accumulate many victories, one tour stage victory may indeed be their biggest achievement on their record of achievements, it won't be an event that will be remembered years after however... --LimoWreck 13:08, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

text: I wonder how winning a Tour stage compared to winning a typical one day race (not something as prestiguous or Paris-Roubaix or L-B-L) makes a difference in a pro cyclist's bottom line value for next season...  For example, Thomas Dekker won  Tirreno-Adriatico this year.  Say he also wins a stage in this year's Tour.  Which would be more prestigious?  Which would help his contract for next year more?  I think the reason why Tour stages are particularly prestigious is because of the understood high caliber of the competition.  You're racing against the best of the best, and you won.  Not only that, but you get a lot more attention for your sponsor when you win a Tour stage than when you win a much less noticed/watched typical one-day race.   That's what makes winning Tour stages so prestigious.  What is "remembered" 20 years later by those of us who pay attention to such trivia is another matter altogether.  --Serge 17:36, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, the things are related. Smaller tours or one day races are important, however, their importance varies somewhat in different countries, for different nationalitities... esp. for the general public. Winning a minor Flemish classic will be remembered better in Belgium than winning a Spanish one week tour. Also commercially in Belgium this will have more value. However, for a Spanish rider of a spanish team, this victory will be looked at differently. However, the Tour is the one race that has massive media attention... for the public and the Dutch press, a tour stage victory of Dekker will be more prestigious; I suppose also the rider will think of it as more prestigious. However, to prove his physical possibilities and value, the Tirreno victory may and will be a better indicator indeed... --LimoWreck 20:21, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Importance of Tour Stage victory 

message: i always thought that it was 1 Km from the finish line. that that is partly the reason why they put the red pennant there; once you cross it you are safe. but in the july 3rd, 2006 stage of the tour, there was a crash approx 3 Km from the finish and the riders who whent down where not penalised as far as time. does anyone know the exact rule? this has started some back and forth editing of this fact in the article. uri budnik 05:19, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The old rule up until 2005 was 1km before the finish line. As of 2006 it has been extended to 3km. Bfg 08:41, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  how close to the finish line do you have to be to not be penalised in the GC in a crash? 

message: I don't believe that Doping at the Tour de France should be merged into this article because this article is already longer than preferrable. The section should be shortened and the Doping at the Tour de France article should contain the relevant information.--Joe Jklin (T C) 06:12, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I totally agree. Doping is a relevant topic for this article if it is limited to a short, concise subsection, but the doping issue itself is too complex and contains way too much information to include here. It definitely deserves/requires its own article, much as, say, an in-depth treatment of the Clinton impeachment deserves to be separate from the article "President of the United States."--Supersexyspacemonkey 14:59, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge  

message: Apparently the Timeline cannot be regenerated at this time; see Template_talk:Timeline Tour de France Winners for the technical story. I've added a caption to that effect which I hope is not too obtrusive although it may be a problem on smaller monitors. The Timeline has been reverted to an earlier unmunged version, which I deem better than nothing, as having the munged version is pointless. Another alternative would be to replace it temporarily with a transcluded list, or possibly just a caption saying "Tour winners through 2005" with the reason moved into the HTML comment I added for future editors.--Dhartung | Talk 07:09, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Aha, some technical issues indeed. I had the same problem when updating women roland garros winners... no-one could answer me in the village pump however... --LimoWreck 12:21, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Timeline 

message: "Chris Horner and Laurent Lefevre shared the lowest resting heart rate, 35 beats per minute."
I thought Ekimov's resting heart rate was 32 bpm this year. Can anyone verify this? If so, I'd like to make the change in the article.
: Considering that one's resting heart rate changes over time, I think it should be toned down to "some of the lowest resting heart rates".  It seems that there are many riders with resting heart rates around that regime.  If it's very anomalous (by TdF standards), it is worth mentioning.  I think that 32 bpm is not that anomalous.  According to a new source, Laurent Lefevre 30 Today...  14:01:36.  The rider with the lowest resting heart rate in the Tour peloton (32bpm), Laurent Lefevre of the Bouygues Telecom team celebrates his 30th birthday today. .  Miguel Indurain's resting heart rate was widely quoted since it was reportedly in the 25bpm regime.  Now that is anomalous by any standard!  Julius.kusuma 23:36, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Resting heart rate? 

message: I think this is a mistake and it should be 10 kilocalories, which is 10,000 calories.
If a kilocalorie is 1,000 calories, then 10,000 kilocalories = 10,000,000 calories per day! The average person needs roughly 2,000 calories. I can imagine a professional cyclist needs 5 times that amount, not 50,000 times that amount. 10 kilocalories matches the 17 Big Macs mentioned.
207.203.80.14 21:52, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: correct, the NY Times articles states 10,000 cal. I corrected it --LimoWreck 21:56, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The point is that what is commonly called a calorie is really a kilocalorie in the scientific sense. See the Wikipedia article on calorie. Since it is not used here in a scientific context, I guess either calorie or kilocalorie is ok. 195.128.250.106 22:07, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

text:  However the scientific abbreviation cal should only be used for the 'proper' calorie. So I removed it from the article.195.128.250.106 22:11, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: From what I have seen in nutritional literature, there is a distinction between a food calorie (Cal) and the unit usually used in the science of chemistry or physics (cal).  Note the upper-case and lower-case difference.  One food calorie is 1,000 physics/chemistry calories.  The article refers to 10 kCal, or 10 thousand food calories (Cal), or equivalently 10 million physics/chemistry calories (cal). Julius.kusuma 23:32, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  10,000 kilocalories? 

message: The Physical Rigor section is directly copied from the new york times article (most of the down on the first page).  Perhaps somebody could find the Dutch study which it references and rewrite that section with original data.  St.isaac 01:27, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Wasn't plagiarism as it was cited. Now rewritten. :) Dlohcierekim 12:48, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Plagiarism in Physical Rigor section

message: This article doesn't mention gambling at all.  In light of doping violations and/or unfair disqualifications for doping, it would be very interesting to learn how much is bet on this race, where the bets are taken, how many large bets are being made, and so on.  I couldn't find such figures in a cursory search online --- are there fans here who can enlighten us? Mike Serfas 18:25, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Interesting? Why? Gambling on cycling isn't "that" populair, that it's a distinguishing point between cycling and other sports. There seems much more gambling in soccer, horse racing, and american sports. Moreover, this article merely describes one single cycling race, the Tour... Why add a section in this particular article? It's like you would add a gambling section in an article about a specific car race or football match? --LimoWreck 12:12, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Gambling 

message: Why no mention of prize money?
:Because you can't simply state "the winner get xx euro". Why? When? Who? Prize money increases every year; and the scheme for awarding prizes are more complex. It máy indeed be interesting to give a short overview of how things are, however, they should be phrased a bit more thoughtful ly. --LimoWreck 14:20, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Probably at the same time you were adding this, I added a small section ===Prize money=== in the history section. You do hear a little about it in the media, although it's just a bit of trivia when it's mentioned. Prize money in the Tour doesn't have the same importance as in other sports, e.g. golf or tennis. Riders don't compete for the prize money anymore. They did however until a few decades ago, before professional cycling was paid really well and riders really could use all the money the won through racing. Nowadays, riders are just paid by the teams they're contracted to. When they finished last or first, they get paid anyway. Off course, winning a race will probably get them bonuses by their teams (probably there are clauses like this in their contract), and even more important: their market values rises; which makes it possible for them to have higher demands the next time they're negioting a contrect, or to make some money besides racing itself (e.g. being used in advertising). The prize money riders make individually during the races is mostly "given away" to the team, and then just divided among the participating racers. It's not that each rider fights for his own money; as he doesn't really need it. It's e.g. typical for the yellow yersey winner nowadays to just split up the prize money between his teammates. This is very different compared to really individual sports like tennis or golf; where total prize money during a career is really an informal way of determining how succesful a player is... Feel free to elaborite these ideas further in the smaller section i added however ;-) --LimoWreck 14:58, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  prize money 

message: how many prologues were in the 2005 Tour de France race?
:None. The first stage was about twice the length of a normal prologue, and therefore counted as a full stage. See 2005 Tour de France. Eugène van der Pijll 22:04, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Prologues 

message: Note: This article has a very small number of in-line citations for an article of its size and currently would not pass criteria 2b.
Members of the Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles are in the process of doing a re-review of current Good Article listings to ensure compliance with the standards of the Good Article Criteria. (Discussion of the changes and re-review can be found here). A significant change to the GA criteria is the mandatory use of some sort of in-line citation (In accordance to WP:CITE) to be used in order for an article to pass the verification and reference criteria. It is recommended that the article's editors take a look at the inclusion of in-line citations as well as how the article stacks up against the rest of the Good Article criteria. GA reviewers will give you at least a week's time from the date of this notice to work on the in-line citations before doing a full re-review and deciding if the article still merits being considered a Good Article or would need to be de-listed. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact us on the Good Article project talk page or you may contact me personally. On behalf of the Good Articles Project, I want to thank you for all the time and effort that you have put into working on this article and improving the overall quality of the Wikipedia project. Agne 21:26, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  GA Re-Review and In-line citations 

message: Can somebody translate "La Grande Boucle"? (My French isn't so grande.) Also, isn't giro "lap", not "tour"? Trekphiler 09:39 & 09:42, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Say what? 

message: In reviewing the article in accordance with the Good Article Criteria, I have decided to de-list the article from the GA list based on concerns that are noted below. I encourage the editors of the article to work on improving the article in this area and to resubmit for GA consideration once they have been addressed.
1. It is well written.- Pass
* Outside of some minor copy edit needs, the article is well written with compelling prose and no glaring violation of WP:MOS.
* The "quote" in the Physical Rigor section does not appear to be a direct quote as the edit notes seem to imply. Can this be looked at?
2. It is factually accurate and verifiable. - Needs Improvement
* Unfortunately there are entire sections without any in-line citations, making it difficult to verify the information according to WP:V. I will list the sections here and for brevity sake  one or two key items from each of those sections that are in particular need of a cite. However, I would encourage the editors to do a thorough vetting of the entire article, in accordance to WP:CITE to see what other items might need a citation.
*The sections without references...History; Famous stages; Classification jerseys (and subsections); Stages (and subsections); Culture; and Customs.
3. It is broad in its coverage. - Pass
* The article covers all major aspects of the Tour de France and does an excellent job of giving the reader a solid understanding of the Tour, it's history and the cultural nuances.
* Reading about the maillot blanc and fighting spirit award was very interesting. Are there examples of any cyclists with wiki-articles that could be included as notable winners of those awards?
4. It follows the neutral point of view policy - Pass
* The articles gives due coverage to the doping scandal in a way that is very NPOV in tone. Good job.
5. It is stable- Pass
* Outside of a minor vandal problem and needed updating during news event, the article is generally stable.
6. It contains images, where possible, to illustrate the topic. - Pass
* The article does an excellent job of illustrating the subject with a variety of informative and well placed photos.
Overall this article is a fascinating read and I want to commend the editors for their hard work and dedication to this article. I wholeheartedly encourage the editors to resubmit for GA after the inclusion of the needed referencing and even go further and push the article towards FA status (where the in-lines will also help in FAC). This article has the clear potential to be an outstanding FA. If you have any questions feel free to contact me. Agne 10:04, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  GA Re-review