ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, May 7, 1996 TAG: 9605070070
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C-4 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: TOUR DUPONT NOTES
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG
SOURCE: DANIEL UTHMAN AND RALPH BERRIER STAFF WRITERS
WORLD-CLASS CYCLISTS consume and burn calories in unbelievable quantities.
If you love to eat but hate putting on weight, the Tour DuPont may be your calling.
Of the 119 cyclists who began the race Wednesday in Wilmington, Del., none weighs more than 200 pounds. They range from 5 feet 7, 150 pounds to 6-3, 180. But when they're training or competing, they eat as much as 10,000 calories a day.
``They eat four times what you and I do, and they're skinny as a rail,'' said Rich Danchak, who Monday ran a booth promoting PowerBar athletic energy food at the Virginia Tech mall.
The cyclists can eat as much as they want for as long as they want after each stage is over. It's usually a lot.
During a race such as Stage 6, from Salem to Blacksburg, the average rider burns 7,000 to 8,000 calories. In order to make it through, a ``feed zone'' is established along each route. On Monday, the zone was set up at the 56-mile mark in the vicinity of Paint Bank.
When the riders hit the feed zone, team assistants or soigneurs hand them what are known as ``musette bags''. Each bag is full of high-carbohydrate foodstuffs, some of which would be too spacey for an astronaut.
Most of the American cyclists are content to gobble down PowerBars, each of which contains 230 calories, 45 grams of carbohydrates and no cholesterol. The European teams, however, tend to snack on odd gels and pastes that can be squeezed out of little plastic packages.
Sometimes, though, the goo doesn't hit the spot. Shortly after losing his lead during Stage 6, German rider Sascha Henrix was offered a soda by a support vehicle. He asked for something to eat. He was offered a PowerBar, but responded with a grimace, ``Don't you have something chocolate?''
TOUR DE APPALACHIA: Swiss cyclist Tony Rominger, the world's second-ranked rider who races for top-ranked Mapei-GB, was asked to compare the Tour DuPont's mountainous stages through the Roanoke and New River valleys with the Alpine climbs of the Tour de France, in which he finished second in 1993.
``Here, the mountains are more steep,'' Rominger said. ``Here, it's up and down, up and down. ... In the Tour de France, the [rides up the] mountains are longer. They are more straight in one direction. You can't compare, really. The mountains of the Tour de France are so much higher, but here there are so many. It is a difficult course.''
Rominger, one of the world's great climbers, leads Pascal Herve by one point in the chase for the King of the Mountains title.
ROAD SIGNS: When Tour spectators on Salt Pond Mountain in Giles County line the road, they really line the road.
Many messages were written in chalk on the pavement of Virginia 613 that winds toward Mountain Lake, most of them meant as inspirational notes to the riders huffing and puffing toward the top. Some road messengers were quite creative, especially the person who wrote ``SEX'' in huge letters with a long arrow pointing toward the mountaintop. Riders also were admonished to ``KICK A**'' in another road communique.
Other messages carried deep personal meaning, like the one that simply spelled out ``SKYNYRD,'' an apparent homage to the legendary Southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd.
TOUR DuPOINTS: Tour DuPont radio play-by-play announcer Brian Drebber is a 1968 Virginia Tech graduate. Drebber visited his old dormitory room in Newman Hall, where he once withstood an earthquake on the seventh floor. ... Four-year-old Will Frye of Roanoke won a hotly contested race of miniature John Deere pedal tractors before Sunday's finish. Will's parents are Mark and Lynn Frye.
LENGTH: Medium: 75 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: GENE DALTON/Staff. Pascal Herve and Lance Armstrongby CNB(yellow jersey) are escorted to the top of Salt Pond Mountain after
escaping from the pack Monday. Armstrong pulled away to win the
stage by 1 minute, 10 seconds in downtown Blacksburg. color.