The Tour de France has been underway for over a week, and we're at stage 10 now. Over the past days, many incidents have happened within the peloton. These are professional riders, and they ride their bicycles day in day out for a living. The Tour de France to many of them would be the highlight of the year.

I shall explain a bit more about the international cycling scene. The season basically starts somewhere end December / January and ends near September. It ends when winter starts in Europe. During off-season, another sport called cyclo-cross takes place. Cycling is a very much European dominated sport, although we now see many talented riders from America, Kazakhstan and Russia. There are 2 kinds of races: Stage races and one day races. The stage races can be as few as like 5 days / stages or as many as 21 days / stages. Those 21 day ones are the 3 Grand Tours, basically the Giro d'Italia, Tour de France and Vuelta Espana (Tour of Italy, France and Spain) respectively. The one day races are usually called Classics, perhaps because they have a long history, many of which are 100s or years old. Most of these important races take place in Europe, with a few exceptions in the America. As warm up for the start of the season, many professionals like to come to Asia, probably to race the Tour de Langkawi in Malaysia, and Tour Down Under in Australia. There are also World Championships and Olympic games too.

Professional riders ride for trade teams (they are paid contracts like soccer players) and those teams of the highest level are part of the Pro Tour teams. These teams get invites to participate in the above mentioned races. Besides the Pro Tour teams, other lower level teams (continental pro teams) may possibly get wild card invites based on their good performances in races. So now, some riders plan their seasons to peak around the Classics. Some plan their seasons for the Grand Tours. Some riders ride purely as domestiques, while others ride to win races. At the end of the day, it is achieving a result for the team that is important for the sponsors.

Hmmm, is this talk getting boring? Maybe. I shall talk about what happens within a cycling team during a race next time.

Back to reality... National Canoeing Championships this weekend. We must all keep healthy. Be it 3, 4 or 5 events.... Come what may... I guess it shall be a fun weekend. I think my body has been telling me to taper slightly for it, as I've remained largely immobile this past 2 weeks. Haven't done any form of real 70.3 training. Only been paddling eating and sleeping.