Like millions of bike riding enthusiasts, I’m a big fan of the Tour de France. 

This year’s edition was filled with excitement due to the many unexpected events in the early stages.   Lance Armstrong of Radio Shack didn’t drop out of the race, but his chances were finished early due to crashes.  Christian Vande Velde of the Garmin/Transitions team was also an early victim of a Stage 3 crash.  Then there was the disastrous chain malfunction for Andy Schleck of Saxobank that effectively allowed Alberto Contador of  Astana to breeze through to win the overall GC classification and its yellow jersey.  Mark Cavendish of Columbia HTC once again showed that he is the undisputed sprint specialist in the world, as he collected five sprint stage wins including the prestigious final stage in Paris.

Canadians are not known  for chest pounding, self congratulations.  However, as a Canadian, the highlight of the tour for me was the incredible performance of Ryder Hesjedal of Victoria, British Columbia.  Ryder has an incredibly powerful engine and was expected to once again support Garmin teammates Christian Vandervelde in the GC competition and Tyler Farrar in the sprint competition.  When the two highly esteemed team members dropped out of the Tour, Ryder was given the green light to see what he could do.  Ryder responded to the challenge far better than anyone could have imagined.  During the climb of the famous Col du Tourmalet during Stage 17, while the cycling world was focused on the attack by Schleck on Contador, Ryder silently pushed through the mist unnoticed to finish 4th in the Stage and grab the 8th position in the overall GC competition. Ryder improved his position to 7th overall during the 52 km time trial during Stage 19 to complete the competitive segement of the Tour.  

The TDF is the premier cycling event in the world and attracts all the top teams and riders.  Finishing 7th put Ryder ahead of many legendary names in the world of cycling and will make him a household name in Europe among the millions of cycling fans.  The 7th place finish was completely unexpected and was the best showing by a Canadian since Steve Bauer finished 4th in 1988.  Every Canadian cyclist is proud of Ryder today.

Now you may ask:  “What has Ryder Hesjedal got to do with water?”  If you are a cyclist, or a cycling fan, you will know how important proper hydration is to the athletes.  You see the athletes constantly taking on water and the announcers talking about the importance of proper hydration.  The following quote from Hesjedal’s longtime trainer, Juerg Feldmann, portrays how important water is to the athletes when he said in a telephone interview from Victoria this week: “If Vande Velde could ride, Ryder would be one of the top water carriers in the Tour de France.”

I wish I could say that Ryder was using ionized water during the Tour.  It would have been true if I had been more persistent.  One of the athletes that I sponsor is the World and Olympic triathlon champion Simon Whitfield.  Simon, like Ryder is also from Victoria, and they train together in Maui during the winter.  Last winter, Simon asked me to contact Ryder so that Ryder could use ionized water as part of his training.  I tried repeatedly to reach Ryder but was never able to hook up with him.  I did speak to Ryder’s Mom, who gave me Ryder’s contact information, but I was unable to reach Ryder in Spain where he trains the rest of the year.  I wish I had been able to hook up with Ryder as the water has helped many of our top athletes. Perhaps Ryder could have improved on his already incredible performance.   Maybe Ryder will find this article and look me up. I would be happy to teach him about the water and get him hooked up with a sponsor to provide him with a machine for his training.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.