ProCycling's TdF issue cover. Kiss of Death?

OffTheBackAdam

Rememebering last year's cover, Armstrong had retired, Ulrich and Basso then succumbed to a fatal touch of Puertoitis. So, any bets on this year's issue? Will we see Vino & Kloden, who'll then get the bullet after the Telekom doping revelations? Who else will get "dogged"[;)] with problems?
The bookies have Vino, Valverde & Kloden as favourites.

Remember that you are an Englishman and thus have won first prize in the lottery of life.

Spiralpro

Hopefully. It'll just be Yellow, with huge bold writing reading Le Tour is here!!!!!

Stark.

Assuming the Kiss of Death theory is correct - who would you like to appear on the front cover?

Julspro

Andreas Kloden and/or Valverde. And I mean no disrespect to them, but I have my favorites.

Caribbean Soul

Melpro

Looks like they played safe - David Millar is on the cover. He surely wouldn't be stupid enough to do it again?

To be on the on the safe side they should have put me on the cover - I'm not a doper, unless there is a banned substance in chocolate milk in which case I'm stuffed.

Julspro

I received my Official English Tour de France guide from VeloNews today. On the cover - Levi Leipheimer. The title - 'An American in Paris'. So, my first thought was - Levi doesn't stand a chance. But, the guide is pretty cool. It is 226 pages long. It has analysis of every stage, including the prologue. John Wilcockson has a stage by stage analysis. There are profiles of all 21 teams, and the top contenders of GC, KOM, the green jersey competition and the white jersey competition. It has the TV and web schedules, riders missing in action, and Q & A with Christian Prudhumme (interviewed by Jean-Francois Quenet). John Wilcockson also has an article in there about The Caravan, and an article about 'The Fan from Hell' - yep the devil himself is interviewed. His name is Didi Senft and he has been doing this for the past 15 years. He only speaks German, but does try to yell at the riders in their native tongue - if he can! Hilarious. Great picture of him, too! He told a funny story about going to the Worlds in Canada one year. He travels in costume (can you imagine!!), and as a result, Canadian customes almost didn't let him in. He did say, though, that when he travels, he uses a plastic pitch-fork instead of the one he uses at The Tour. That one he welded out of aluminum.
For all of you UK'ers out there - there are a couple of excellent articles about the prologue and Stage 1. It mentions all of the details about what streets the riders will ride down and what they will pass. They joked that the normally grid locked intersection at Hyde Park corner will be closed- and even the Queen won't be able to go anywhere once the streets are closed for the prologue. Although, they did say she would be watching. A lot of the article played up the rivalry of David Millar and Bradley Wiggins.
They have a first timers section along with a Veterans section (Hincapie riding in his 12th Tour).
this is a North American publication, so there is a section on American riders - but overall, it is filled with pictures and maps and charts and topography - and I just can't wait to get through it. Just came in the post today.

We are less than 4 weeks away!

Have a great day everyone, Juls


Caribbean Soul

Stark.

That's funny, because I just bought "The Official Guide to the Tour" at my local newsagent and it sure isn't produced by VeloNews. Which raises the question, how many 'Official' Guides can you have? This one has a rather fetching picture of the peloton whizzing along in front of the Houses of Parliament. No single rider seems to be picked out, so at least everyone's been spared the kiss of death on this occasion.

I've also noticed that in pages of Cycle Sport (its front cover goes for the rather safe yellow jersey option) yet another 'Official Guide' is being advertised. This is going to get expensive.

Julspro

I went to order the ProCycling Official Tour Guide (I already have one from VeloNews, see comments above) - well, before I ordered it, I decided to read what was inside the Guide - it sounds like the exact same edition as the 'official tour guide I have, only with a different cover.
In my comments above, I outline what was in the VeloNews guide, but I left out Bernard Hinault's analysis of the top 10 tour contendors. It looks like his same analysis is in the ProCycling version. The mayor of London has an article in both.

I guess it can't be the same though. The VeloNews 'Official Tour Guide' has a North American section that has analysis on Big George, Dave Z, Vande Velde, Bobby Jullich, Chris Horner, and of course Leipheimer. The ProCycling guide probably has analysis of Englands local boys.



Caribbean Soul

Julspro

If anyone is interested in VeloNews Official Tour Guide.....

http://www.velonews.com/pr/prn/articles/12382.0.html


I have it as a subscriber and is a pretty good issue. See my post above, dated 12/06/2007 for destails of the issue. Enjoy!

Caribbean Soul

Unknown

Hey

I hear there is a guide to the tour free with The Guardian on the 2nd of July. A cheaper alternative to the 5 quid "official" guide. Brits only though.

I'm going to save my money, ha, ha!

C

Try to keep up!

Ellis_Bacon

Just to try to clarify things re. all these 'official' guides, Procycling does indeed produce the Official UK Tour de France Guide (or the 2007 Official Programme as it's officially (oh blimey!) called...).
I'm not sure what Cycle Sport's guide is actually called, but there's certainly nothing 'official' in the title; Procycling has the licence from the Tour de France organisers, ASO, to produce it for the UK market, while Velonews has that same official licence for the USA. A lot of the info will be the same in both the UK and US versions, or very similar, as France provides us with all the copy they use for the official French version. It's then up to each country to use what of that copy they want (having translated it) and add to it with material that is more appropriate for their own market.
To confuse things further, we then do our 'normal' pre-Tour issue of Procycling, too, although there's nothing normal about killing ourselves with the early mornings and late nights it takes every year to produce two magazines (or three if you count the free Tour guide that comes with the issue of Procycling) in the same space of time it normally takes to produce one.
And of course, various newspapers and magazines are producing their own guides, too, with the Tour coming to London this year. So hey, it's all good for promoting our sport, isn't it? Just make sure you buy ours... ;0)
Hope that sort of clears things up!

Ellis Bacon
Deputy Editor
Procycling

campagchris

Its worth buying for the œ4-50 you save in total off the next 3 issues,more if you buy the other mag.Plus its a cracking read with great pics.