Just reading through the Official Tour de France 2014 Guide (as always a superb production from the guys at RIDE) and thought it might be interesting to distill some of the team/race data to present some truly useless bits of trivia surrounding the 2014 race.
Heaviest squad?
Lotto-Belisol, average rider weight 71.9kg
Tallest squad?
Lotto-Belisol, average rider height 183.8cm
Shortest squad?
Lampre-Merida, average rider height 177.4cm
Oldest squad?
IAM Cycling (wildcard), average rider age 29.7 years – however the average age of the Trek TDF team is more like 32!
Youngest squad?
Cofidis, average rider age 26.8 years
Most TDF experience – squad?
BMC, 80 starts
Most TDF experience – rider?
Jens Voigt, 16 starts (he’ll equal O’Grady and Hincapie’s record this year)
Most TDF success – squad?
Omega Pharma Quickstep, 41 stage wins
Most TDF success – rider?
Mark Cavendish, 25 stage wins (equal 3rd all-time)
Least TDF experience – squad?
Bretagne-Seche (wildcard), 10 starts
Most KMs raced in 2013?
Katusha, 339,232km
Least KMs raced in 2013?
Bretagne-Seche, 137,023km
Longest 2014 stage?
237.5km – Stage 16, Carcassonne to Bagneres-de-Luchon
Shortest 2014 stage?
54km – Stage 20, Bergerac to Perigueux (ITT)
Highest point?
2,360m – Stage 14, Col d’Izoard
Most categorised climbs?
9 – Stage 2, York to Sheffield
Past winners competing?
3 – Froome, A Schleck, Contador
2014 rider with most yellow jerseys and fluffy lions?
28 – Fabian Cancellara (Eddy Merckx holds the all-time record with 96)
Largest Twitter following?
287,000 – Team Sky (more than double anyone else, Orcia-GreenEDGE has about 80,000)
Active dopers competing?
TBC