How does someone get prepared to compete in "Le Tour de France" 3335 km?

Answer 1

Unless your in one of the twenty one pro teams that are invited to enter you don't get to ride in Le Tour.

If your prepared to work toward riding Le tour as some sort of goal. Here are some tips that will improve your chances.

Ride lots, Most pros ride 500 + miles a week.

Study sports Medicine, It will help you understand how to get the most out of your body

Race. You will have to race and perform well to get a pro team interested in you. By the way, road racing is probably not the best way to get noticed. Try a bit of velodrome, Time trials or mountain bike. Particularly timed events. There is not so much technical or tactical requirements in these forms. Good riders stand out more. Note the winners of the green and the polka dotted jersey (last year) both started as mountain bike riders. You win need to do the occasional road race also.

Study tactics Road racing is a very tactical form of racing it is often not the best rider that wins but the smartest. Some one once said that "A good athlete needs to be smart enough to understand the intricacies of the sport but dumb enough to think it is important."

Study your opposition know and exploit their strengths and weaknesses.

Learn to read road profiles. Plan your ride before you start know when to put the effort in. Adapt your pre race training to maximise your chances on that course. (combine this with your knowledge of your opposition.)

Be friendly If your a road rider and you upset other road riders they won't help when you need them.

Be media savvy Don't do or say anything stupid in front of a reporter or camera.

Find a good coach and nutritionist. The chances of attaining good results will be greatly improved with good diet and someone watching out/over you.

Good luck and I'll be watching out for a Pedro R

Answer 2

The tour is only for the top 200 riders in the world. You can't just train and do it. You need to be a professional rider on a professional team. Most riders race a full schedule in advance of the tour to get fitness. Some of the tour specialists will spend time in the mountains and work on time trialing. Lance was famous for not racing much before the tour. He preferred to do specific training built around the stages of the race.

Answer 3

Depends what their role on the team and objectives for the race are likely to be. Armstrong wanted to win, by winning the time trials and the mountain stages. So he spent just about all his training time working on time trialing and long mountainous rides. As preparation, he'd race shorter races that had similar profiles to the Tour.

Not every rider gets that luxury, in fact most of them are paid to support the "stars" and they race wherever they are told to race. The better teams will send their Tour candidates to Tour prep races, and maybe even give them time off to train specifically for the Tour.

Scott

Answer 4

The guys that compete in "Le Tour" train for hours and hours. Races, riding with their team, off season training. Lots of dedication. You gotta really love riding to be a professional cyclist.
Lance would train everyday 6-10 hours and that was just everyday riding. For the Tour, it was a totally different training schedule which Chris Carmichael prepared for them.

Answer 5

They start racing at a young age - mid teens.
They have a extraordinary amount of natural talent.
They have an elite physiology, their oxyen uptake and power output are in the top .0000000001% of human beings.
They have an extraordinary ability to work harder at racing than everyone else around them.
They have a extraordinary amount of support from their family and friends.
They have a sense of fearlessness that makes them look forward to 100KpH descents on twisty alpine and pyrenian roads with 100 meter drop offs.
They enjoy a fantastic amount of luck that prevents them from suffering career ending injuries and crashes

They put racing above everything else in their lives. Bicycle Racing consumes every aspect of their lives. Everything they do is structured to make them a better racer. Family, Money, and love all mean nothing compared to racing.

The men who train for the tour are Racers first, above all else. Not because they are told to be, but because they want to be, because they need to be.

Still there are thousands of professional cyclists who meet all the above standards but will never race in the tour. Life sucks, then you die.

Answer 6

do your research... that is by no means a topic to ask on yahoo. cycling is an extraordinary sport and it takes science along with long hours of dedication to become great. and even then ... most cyclist will never see "le tour de france" as a competitor.

Answer 7

For training resources look to USCF training camps or UMCA sites.
http://www.ultracycling.com/training/century.html
http://seattlerandonneur.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=22&Itemid=25
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randonneuring
This will give a broad spectrum of ultramarathom length riding and training styles as each has their own objective.