Seven One Word Events in Lance Armstrong’s Tour de France The “Bonk”
The “Bonk”
Stages in the Tour de France are tough. They often take over 5 hours to complete and the riders never stop. No time outs. No water breaks. If you need to eat or drink, you need to do it on the bike. Team cars, riding at the back of the peleton, supply drinks and food, and there are one or two ‘feed zones’ in a stage where riders can pick up supplies as they ride by. At this level, a rider can burn up to 10,000 calories from their effort. If they do not eat enough, they will run out of energy and suffer a condition know as “the bonk”.
On Stage 16 of the 2000 Tour de France, Lance was safely in the lead over Jan Ullrich by seven and a half minutes. But that kind of time can be lost quickly in the mountains, and stage 16 was full of mountain climbs. The last climb, over the Col de Joux-Plane would really sting the riders as it was occurring after 185 KM of racing. Early in the stage, Marco Pantani, still fuming at Lance from the stage at Ventoux, took off on a suicide attack, leaving the other riders and the peleton behind. At this point of the Tour, Pantani was no longer a threat to Armstrong, but the Texan decided to work to reel in the tiny Italian climber. Fighting alongside Jan Ullrich, Armstrong was so focused on catching Pantani he lost track of his eating. As the chasers began the 12KM climb to the summit, Lance suffered the bonk. TV footage showed a visibly shaken Armstrong, slowly losing time to his German rival. He was isolated, with no teammates nearby to share food or drinks. The team car could not reach him. Seeing a chance, Ullrich teamed with the Spanish rider, Roberto Heras to take as much time away from Lance as possible. By the time they reached the finish, Ullrich had claimed back 2 minutes of the 7 minute gap he was behind at the beginning of the day. It could have been a lot worse. Lance got lucky.
What about Pantani? After baiting the Texan into chasing him, he slowed mid stage, and ended up well down by the finish. His tactic? perhaps, simply to force Armstrong into some trouble.