Columnist Susan Snyder: Wheeling and dealing on the Tour

Friday, July 9, 2004 | 8:32 a.m.

Can Lance win six?

The question is one many Americans are asking this month as U.S. Postal Cycling Team member Lance Armstrong goes for an unprecedented sixth win of the Tour de France.

Now, I'm no sports writer. If it involves a ball, stick, a racket or a club, it doesn't involve me. But this isn't about sports or even about bikes.

This is about what the American public's infatuation with celebrity is doing, or rather undoing, to a sport that gained awareness through three-time American Tour winner Greg LeMond but has gained almost manic, super-sport status through Armstrong.

Armstrong, the 32-year-old darling of the American bicycling world, has the kind of Cinderella story we love. He overcame the cancer that threatened to place him in his grave and placed his front wheel over the finish line to win the world's toughest event in one of the toughest endurance sports. Five times.

Before the Internet and Outdoor Life Network, Le Tour fans had to wait for any number of cycling publications to list who won what and in which stage.

The 101-year-old race, which this year started Sunday and ends July 25, is conducted in 20 stages along the back roads of Belgium and France. It covers 3,390 kilometers, or 2,101.8 miles. Metric conversions are posted in the lower part of the TV screen during OLN broadcasts for the Americans who don't "do" metric but who probably buy most of the Tour stuff.

And you'd better believe there is stuff -- T-shirts, polo shirts, bicycling jerseys, socks, shorts, hats, key chains, refrigerator magnets, coffee mugs, assorted glassware. If they can make it for the Super Bowl, they can make it for the Tour.

Armstrong stumps for everything from bikes to cars to cancer research.

Coincidentally, as Americans' Armstrong awareness has increased, so have sales of drop-handlebar road bikes. Bicycle Product Suppliers Association figures published by the New York times show sales of the high-end bikes increased from 171,600 in 2002 to 185,400 last year. Many undoubtedly sported the decals of Armstrong's U.S. Postal Service Cycling Team.

Even the race rules have changed this year in a manner that better fits American viewing audiences. Team time trial winners win pre-determined time advantage, rather than the actual amount of time they were ahead. So even though the U.S. team won Wednesday's time trial by more than a minute, the most it could win was 40 seconds.

Race officials said the change makes it more "fair" to strong riders who have weak teams. But, they added, it also makes the race more suspenseful by keeping the time margins narrow among leaders.

Hey, nobody enjoys watching a blowout on national television.

OLN strives to keep its Tour viewers between stages with a series titled, "The Lance Chronicles." And after Wednesday's U.S. Postal Service win, it aired an interview with Armstrong's new girlfriend, pop singer Sheryl Crow. What did Crow think about the day's stage?

Um, who cares?

Evidently we do. Now, anyway. Armstrong has finally created a bicycling athlete Americans understand -- a celebrity, complete with messy divorce, ugly drug accusations and stuff we can wear.

Can Lance take six? Maybe.

Either way, we've got the T-shirt.