Armstrong, Simeoni flap enters new phase; Ullrich not happy with boss

VeloNews.com/Agence France Presse ^ | July 27, 2004 | By Agence France Presse

[Docbarleypop]

oh the can race as teams, or at least make alliances!

[Heyworth]

a co-worker just stopped by and also told me a "criterium" is a race for a fixed time, like 45 minutes, not a fixed distance(?)

Your friend is wrong. There are some things in cycling that are fixed time--the one-hour record is the major one, but that's done on a track--but how on earth could you even have a fixed time race? Would everyone carry an alarm on their bike and have to stop dead when it went off? Usually a criterium is a lap course on an urban course, with lots of tight corners. Usually a lot of crashes, too, because they're tightly packed going into those corners.

Here's a definition from a website: "A criterium race consists of many laps around a short course. The course may be a few city blocks. Criteriums are good for spectators, less popular with racers. A criterium bicycle will often have a somewhat higher bottom bracket than a road-racing bicycle, to allow pedaling through the turns (there are a lot of turns in a criterium!) Criterium bicycles are designed with a particular eye to manuverability, because the peloton in a criterium is likely to be large and dense. Criterium bicycles are not usually built for comfort."

The only other thing your friend might be thinking of are brevets and randonees, which are different names for the same thing. Those are long distance rides (150 out to 750 miles) that have to be completed under a certain time limit. The big one in the US is Boston-Montreal-Boston, which you have to do in under 90 hours

[expatpat]

I hope your elboes will groe back.

[Fred Hayek]

Some criteriums are done on a time basis. During the race the officials are recording the lap times, and will show at a certain point the number of laps remaining. Usually at 5 laps to go (depending on the course length) the remaining laps are displayed, this is also about the time when the wheel pit closes. The time basis is used when there are several divisions being run, to keep the event running on schedule.