Okay; from the start I feel that I must issue a blanket caveat to say that I may get some, all or maybe just most of my understanding totally wrong! I only started watching the Tour de France a few years ago when browsing the free channels and stumbling across it on ITV4. Recently, I had just purchased a mountain bike and so the timing was perfect. My interest in cycling grew during this particular Tour but the biggest problem was that there were a few fundamentals that I just didn’t get. How can somebody be minutes ahead of another racer but to all intents and purposes the places had already been decided? What if the racer crashes? I asked a friend. “Well if it happens in the last 3KM then it doesn’t matter.” This didn’t make sense to me. And how can one racer be outstanding at sprinting but then useless at time-trials?What about the chase cars, I could have sworn I saw one racer hitching a lift?! Of course these questions to the true cyclist will appear silly and I’m sure there are reasonable rules and regulations to support them. There are often “The Tour de France explained” sections in most newspapers preceding the Tour but I find myself ignoring them thinking they are for the armchair sportsman. I think I shall continue to support the Tour in complete ignorance then at least the mysteries will remain in tact!