Tour de France Stage 19

It's the big day for Lance Armstrong and Jan Ullrich. Over 18
stages and 80 hours of cycling Lance leads Jan by 65 seconds.
This is an amazingly tight Tour. Today's stage is a 49km
individual time trial. With only two stages remaining most
believe that the Tour will be decided today.

It is a rainy day in France. We're watching OLN live
coverage. For Terp and I it's cool to see the bikes. We're
going to buy bikes today. Tri bikes. While they usually ride
road bikes in the Tour, for the time trials they use trial
bikes, similar to the ones that we'll buy today.

The primary difference is that tri bikes have elbow supports
so that you can get into an aerodynamic position. If you put
aerobars on a trad road bike the geometry doesn't work. Your
knees will come too close to your chest. You won't be able to
breathe optimally because your diaphragm will be compressed.
And your legs won't be outputting work at the most efficient
angles.

So a tri bike moves the crank mount (the pedals) backwards.
This extends your body and gives you a better position. It
also allows your body weight to be supported by your frame,
not your legs. This is important when you have to run after
you bike.

We're waiting for Lance and Jan to start their trial. They
start the field in reverse order so they're the last two to
start. They're expected to take between 52 and 55 minutes to
go the 49 miles.

Exciting. Go Lance!

Update:

Lance did it. He secured a win tomorrow in Paris. Jan fell
off his bike. Prior to that fall Lance and Jan were incredibly
close and Lance clearly had the ability to maintain his lead
in the overall. Good race.