Local enthusiasts prepare for big cycling weekend

Friday, July 5, 2002 | 10:08 a.m.

Details of the second annual U.S. Post Office Ride to honor U.S. Postal Service bicycle team leader Lance Armstrong, attempting his fourth Tour de France victory.

Beware bicyclists going Postal this weekend.

Saturday marks the start of the 2,051-mile Tour de France bicycle race -- the Super Bowl of the cycling world. For three weeks each July, the race around France holds the attention of cyclists across the Las Vegas Valley and around the globe.

Most U.S. fans are poised to cheer what they hope will be a fourth consecutive win for 30-year-old Texan Lance Armstrong and his U.S. Postal Service team.

On Saturday at 7 a.m., Richard Craig, owner of Las Vegas' Pro Cyclery shop, will lead a field of local bicyclists on a recreational ride from Summerlin to the U.S. Post Office on Sunset Road to commemorate the start of the 23-day Tour.

The luckiest fans get to watch "La Grande Boucle" (French for "The Grand Loop") from rural French roadsides and villages along the route, which begins in Luxembourg and loops through the Pyrenees and French Alps mountain ranges before barreling down Paris' Champs-Elysees on July 28. They will number in the thousands, with an estimated 5,000 following each stage while forming a rolling city of Tour hysteria.

In the U.S., fans must follow the race via the Internet or, if they have satellite television, on the Outdoor Life Network. National sports networks typically give daily race results and some highlights, but none cover the Tour as they would a major sport.

Bob Kerscher, a Pro Cyclery mechanic and one of its bicycle team members, receives DirectTV and Outdoor Life Network. That makes him a pretty popular guy in July.

"They'll break into my house and crawl through the doggy door to see the tour," Kerscher said of his teammates.

He's not exaggerating. Last year one particularly skinny riding pal crawled through the dog door because Kerscher wasn't home and the teammate didn't know another way inside.

Las Vegas cyclist Ken Stein followed last year's race on the Internet, where updates are posted about every 15 or 20 minutes depending on the website.

"But you're looking at it backwards," he said. "The first day is at the bottom, because they add the new results at the top. So if you want to read it in order, you have to scroll to the bottom."

Most local sports books turn a cold shoulder to the Tour because following a three-week bicycle race is like learning to play craps blindfolded. It can be difficult to keep track of the stage victories and all the internal victories and point accumulations.

Each stage, or daily heat, of the race has a winner. But that rider might not be the one who holds the overall lead. And a rider might win a mid-stage time trial -- in which cyclists race against a clock rather than each other over a set distance -- but still lose the stage.

Even the Imperial Palace sports book, where exotic bets and odd propositions are king, stays away from the Tour.

"We tried it a few years back. But it's so tough to follow and get results," said Jay Kornegay, Imperial Palace's sports book manager.

But you can bet on the Tour at the Palms. Jeff Sherman, race and sports supervisor, came up with what he considers an easy way to do it: Armstrong against everybody else.

Sherman started Armstrong at minus-220, but he had dropped to minus-175 by Monday. That means players who bet $175 on Armstrong to win the whole Tour will reap $100. Those who bet $100 on the field win $145 if anyone other than Armstrong wins. (But don't go around telling your bicycling friends you bet against Armstrong. It ain't American.)

Wagering closes when the Palms sports book closes at 10 p.m. today.

"We've been getting a lot of good response," Sherman said. "With that type of odds -- against the field -- it's easy to understand."

Beating the odds is what made Armstrong famous. He is to bicycling what Michael Jordan is to basketball, and not just because of the bike. Armstrong won his first Tour in 1999 after a debilitating bout of testicular cancer that invaded his brain and nearly killed him.

"People don't necessarily care about the cycling part. It's the story that's drawn them to it," said Craig of Pro Cyclery. A huge framed poster of Armstrong sweating it out in the 1999 Tour hangs dead-center in Peloton Sports bicycle shop's showroom on N. Buffalo Drive in Las Vegas. The caption reads, "Impossibility defeated."

That kind of in-your-face triumph over a disease that scares most people to death has lured many to the consumer side of the Tour.

For $5,999, a rider can even buy the same Trek 5900 USPS TeamSuperlight climbing bicycle the U.S. team uses.

"(Sales) have gotten better since Lance came around," said Deya Hawk, co-owner of Peloton, which sells the Trek bicycles and other team-logo items. "There was a lot of interest when (Greg) LeMond was doing well, too."

LeMond, formerly of the Reno area, won the Tour in 1986, 1989 and 1990. He was the only non-European to win the race until Armstrong in 1999. LeMond retired from racing in 1994.

The Tour de France is a grueling sporting event. Riders can burn up to 9,000 calories a day, with the average around 6,000.

The ride is divided into 20 stages, or daily races, plus Saturday's prologue. The length of stages range from the 4.5-mile prologue to a 141.5-mile day in the mountains July 23. Riders have rest days July 16 and July 22, between mountain stages.

The winner is the rider with the lowest accumulated time for the entire event.

One way to keep track of who is ahead is by watching for specially colored jerseys at the start of each stage. Most riders will be clad in their team colors. But one guy will be wearing the coveted yellow jersey, denoting the current overall leader. The Tour winner will be the guy wearing the yellow jersey when the peloton -- or pack of racers -- pedals into Paris.

A solid green jersey, the sprinter's jersey, is awarded to the rider who is the first to pass certain spots on the course of each stage and cross the finish line of that stage.

The fastest rider younger than 25 wears the solid white newcomer's jersey. And the rider who gains the most points in designated spots on the climbing sections in the mountains is awarded a white jersey with red polka dots.

These jerseys can change owners with each stage. The guy wearing the yellow jersey early might not be wearing it after the 198-rider group emerges from the mountains.

If a rider wins more than one jersey at a time, he wears the one that ranks highest. Yellow is the most important, followed by green, polka-dot and white.

Though these honors go to individual riders, the Tour is a team sport. There are nine members per team, and eight generally rally to support the one leader for their team goals. Instead of coming out with the overall winner, a team might opt for winning a certain stage or number of stages or want to come out with the green jersey for winning the most sprints.

Add to these an entourage of coaches, managers, mechanics, massage therapists and cooks. It's like moving the Super Bowl every day for three weeks.

Keeping track of all of this is like watching mini-races within a race. Remember, this is a scoring system developed by men who enjoy conversing about "gear ratios" and "hub flanges." Don't ask. It only gets worse, and a lot of it is in French or Italian.

Daily results on posted on several websites. The Tour's main site is letour.fr (click on the icon to get an English-language version). Others that post results include velonews.com and bicycling.com, the websites for Velo News and Bicycling magazines.

Las Vegas cyclists likely will be burning up the Internet keeping track of it all. Craig says he organized last year's first commemorative ride at the request of local U.S. Postal Service officials.

About 60 riders showed up for that one. This year Craig has advertised the event in bicycle club newsletters and on club websites, and he expects more than 100 riders.

But the ride might need another leader next year. Craig says he and his wife Deb plan to be in France for the Tour in 2003.

They want to see Armstrong bring home win No. 5.