Adventure
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Looking to rachet up your mojo, sans synthetics? University of Massachusetts explorer in residence Chris Kilham, 52, has spent 25 years traveling the world to study native uses of medicinal plants. Despite having zero formal training in botany, the plucky adventurer and author—known to fans of his herbal guides and…
The thriving criminal trade in Native American archaeological artifacts always seems to be one step ahead of law enforcement. But when cops learned that a notorious Oregon antiquities collector had graduated from grave robbing to ordering up a contract murder, their macabre sting operation exposed the dark side of digging up the past.
“Fall line” has become a loaded term in the fashion world, thanks to the Vertical Catwalk, a bizarre confluence of couture and climbing that’s turning the runway on its head. The shows, set to techno, symphonies, and other tunes, send roped-in models sashaying straight down building facades. ¶ The brainchild…
Call us rubberneckers, but who can resist the panic, terror, and inspiration of a good survival tale? We combed through vast libraries of lore to find 10 more unforgettable, nearly unbelievable great escapes. Brace yourself.
Deep inside a remote canyon, a boulder shifts. In an instant, Aron Ralston's hand is pinned beneath half a ton of rock. So begins an ordinary hero's six-day ordeal of grit, pain, and courage—culminating in a decision to do the unthinkable.
Name: NIKI GUDEX Niki Gudex Home: SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA Gig: MOUNTAIN-BIKE RACING Height: 5’4″ Age: 26 Gudex is the grit girl of Australian mountain biking. Since joining the national series, in 2000, she’s finished every season but one ranked first or second in downhill. Last year she…
There's something about New Zealand—and it's not just the soaring mountains, the red-hot culture, or the world-class Kiwi wines. STEPHANIE PEARSON goes in search of the adventure gene that inspires four million enlightened souls and makes NZ's islands a heaven for travelers.
Over four days this past May, 26-year-old Estes Park, Colorado–based climber Tommy Caldwell completed what is arguably the greatest big-wall climb in history. Using only his hands and feet, he made a first free ascent—no pulling up on mechanical aids allowed—of the Dihedral Wall, an obscure route on the west…
Think yoga is for wimps? You haven't reckoned with Peter "Iron Yogi" Seamans, the star bodybuilder who wants to get you ripped—one urinating-dog pose at a time.
I going to climb Mount Rainier and was curious if I should rent climbing boots or buy my own. What's your experience with rental boots? Ken Vernon Hills, Illinois
What would be the best mountaineering boot to avoid the beat-up shins I get with plastic boots? Are there boots made with this problem in mind? I know that it's not an uncommon one for women. Heather San Jose, California
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry spent his life defying and outflying death. Then it caught up.
Wipe out trying to bodysurf the Newport Wedge and you'll burst an eardrum, yank out a shoulder, or snap a few ribs. Daniel Duane tackles the mean blue beast and meets the elite riders who court her lash.
With all but one of the jersey competitions already decided, Stage 20 proceeded as the customary ceremonial procession to Paris this afternoon. The U.S. Postal Service led Lance Armstrong and rest of the peloton onto the Champs Élysées, and then turned the sprinters loose to fight for the honor of…
U.S. Postal’s Lance Armstrong won an unprecedented sixth consecutive Tour de France Sunday, besting his closest competitor by over six minutes in the overall standings. “Everything went perfectly,” the Texan said in French on the three-step victory podium. “The tactics, the training, everything. The team was the best one here.”…
The final individual time trial of the Tour de France is always an exciting day. The men who excelled in the mountains risk losing positions to men who are better against the clock. The overall contenders sometimes have their last chance to challenge for the yellow jersey as well, but…
Lance Armstrong capped his spree of victories in the 2004 Tour with a win in the final time trial, all but guaranteeing that he’ll capture an unprecedented sixth championship in the celebrated race. Lance Armstrong won his fifth stage Saturday, virtually clinching an unprecedented sixth victory in the 2004…
Juan Miguel Mercado (Quick Step -Davitamon) won his first stage of the 2004 Tour de France Friday over Vicente Garcia-Acosta (Illes Baleares-Banesto) in a mad dash for the finish on the 104-mile Stage 18 from Annemasse to Lons-le-Saunier. Dmitriy Fofonov (Cofidis), Sébastien Joly (Crédit Agricole) Marc Lotz (Rabobank), and Juan…
Time trials are never easy, and they only get worse as they get longer. At 55 kilometers, winning tomorrow’s Stage 19 individual time trial will require about 61-65 minutes of intense effort. At the other end of the spectrum, some very exhausted riders may be at risk of missing the…
Lance Armstrong won his fourth stage of the 2004 Tour Thursday, blasting across the finish line of the 128-mile Stage 17 from Bourg d’Oisans to Le Grand Bornand inches ahead of his rivals. The win was Armstrong’s 20th career stage win at the Tour and proved to be an intense…
Gifts are for birthdays and anniversaries, not bike races. This was the sentiment expressed by five-time Tour de France champion Bernard Hinault as Lance Armstrong walked to the podium Thursday after winning his third stage in as many days. The issue of “giving” stage victories to other riders has…
The longer you prepare for an event, the sweeter it is to succeed when the time finally comes. Lance Armstrong has been preparing for the Alpe d’Huez individual time trial ever since he learned it was included in the 2004 Tour de France route. This afternoon’s performance in Stage 16…
Five-time Tour de France champ Lance Armstrong snuffed out any question of whether he has a sixth Tour win in him Wednesday as he buried his closest rivals on Stage 16’s 10-mile L’Alpe d’Huez time trial course. Armstrong posted a time of 39:41, 61 seconds better than second place finisher…
Five-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong found himself in a familiar color Tuesday. The U.S. Postal team leader won the 113-mile Stage 15 from Valréas to Villard-de-Lans, surging past the likes of Ivan Basso (CSC) and Jan Ullrich (T-Mobile) in the last feet of the stage, and snatching the…
I hate to tell you, “I told you so,” but it came as little surprise that Jan Ullrich found his legs during the rest day and had the power and motivation to attack Lance Armstrong during Stage 15. Besides Armstrong, Ullrich is the only other man in…
The Pyrenees did a lot of damage to the Tour de France peloton and to several riders’ chances of challenging for the yellow jersey. Nevertheless, there are still a lot of very strong men left in the race, and the next major challenge before them is the Stage 16 individual…
With two weeks of hard racing in their legs already, most of the riders in the 2004 Tour de France were content to take it relatively easy today. To help further reduce the work they had to do during Stage 14, riders chose different equipment than they used yesterday in…
After spending two days in the Pyrenees, five-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong (U.S. Postal) and the rest of the riders in the 2004 Tour got a break from the mountains Sunday as they made their way 120 miles from Carsassonne to Nîes on the flat, winding Stage 14…
Stage 13 proved to be a very hard day in the saddle, and several riders found it too difficult to finish. Denis Menchov, winner of the Best Young Rider competition last year, withdrew from the race with knee pain. Haimar Zubeldia, half of the Spanish duo that caused Armstrong so…
Five-time Tour winner Lance Armstrong won his first stage of the 2004 Tour Saturday, edging out CSC’s Ivan Basso on the 128-mile mountain course from Lannemezan to Plateau de Beille. Although Armstrong put considerable time between himself and his main rivals he still wasn’t able to wrest the yellow jersey…
CSC’s Ivan Basso beat Lance Armstrong to the finish line by less than a bike length Friday to score his first Tour de France stage win. The 123-mile Stage 12, from Castelsarrasin to La Mongie, proved to be a grueling one with a number of riders dropping from the main…
The Tour de France offered up a few surprises during Stage 12, during which we saw the emergence of some new potential challengers for the yellow jersey, and some signs of weakness that may cost a few pre-race favorites their chance to win the Tour this year. Italian Ivan…
France’s David Moncoutie (Cofidis) took Stage 11 of the 2004 Tour de France Thursday after attacking with about six miles to go in the race, edging out Juan Antonio Flecha (Fassa Bortolo) and Egoitz Martinez (Euskaltel Euskadi). Moncoutie wins the Tour's second mountain stage Moncoutie wins the Tour’s second…
While it’s still cold and gray in northern France, the sun is shining brightly as the Tour reaches the foothills of the Pyrenees. The rising temperatures will increase the difficulty of the next two stages and may have a significant impact on the outcome of the entire Tour. Temperatures…
With five USPS teammates present in the lead peloton at the end of today’s Stage 10, Postal was one of only three teams to have six total riders at the front of the race. A strong team is going to be an important key to winning the 2004 Tour, and…
Frenchman Richard Virenque (Quick Step) won the first mountain stage of the 2004 Tour de France Wednesday, Bastille Day, edging out the rest of the peloton and posting one of the longest successful escapes in Tour de France history. The 148-mile course from Limoges to Saint-Flour is the longest stage…
Lotto-Domo’s Robbie McEwen won his second stage of the 2004 Tour de France Tuesday in a last-second photo finish on the 100-mile course from Saint-Léonard-de-Noblat to Guéret. McEwen, along with sprinters Thor Hushovd (Crédit Agricole) and Stuart O’Grady (Cofidis), caught leaders Inigo Landaluze (Euskaltel) and Filippo Simeoni (Domina Vacanze) with…
The stage following a rest day in the Tour de France can be a very difficult day in the saddle for some riders. Try as they might to keep their minds and bodies in the rhythm of the race, the rest day disrupts riders’ routines just enough to leave them…
The first week of the 2004 Tour de France was difficult and nervous, and by the time the peloton crossed the finish line yesterday, most of the riders were exhausted. Tom Boonen put it nicely when he told a journalist, “Everyone sits like a corpse on the bike.” It’s difficult…
In 2003, the heat caused problems for many riders at the Tour de France. In 2004, it’s the cold and rain that has everyone wishing for a change in the weather. The forecast calls for cool and possibly rainy conditions for another few days, but as the Tour heads south…
Norwegian sprinter Thor Hushovd (Crédit Agricole) won Stage 8 of the 2004 Tour de France Sunday in a battle at the finish of the 104-mile course from Lamballe to Quimper, France. Kim Kirchen (Fassa Bortolo), Erik Zabel (T-Mobile), Robbie McEwen (Lotto-Domo), and Andreas Kloden (T-Mobile) rounded out the top five…
Fassa Bortolo’s Filippo Pozzato won Stage 7 of the 2004 Tour de France Saturday. The course wove riders 123 miles from Chateaubriant to Saint Brieue in Brittany, the heart of the France’s cycling region and home to such cycling legends as five-time Tour de France winner Bernard Hinault. The win…
There’s a reason riders and team directors pore over stage profiles prior to each day of racing. It’s the same reason Lance Armstrong previews portions of the Tour de France route months in advance: the better you know the course, the more you can exploit its features for your benefit.
Stage 6 began with a scare for five-time Tour winner Lance Armstrong. The Texan was involved in a crash on the 123-mile course with riders from teams Gerolsteiner, Domina Vacanze, FDJeux, and Lotto-Domo after just eight miles. No one was injured in the incident and all riders were able to…
Unfortunately, the demand for bandages has been high over the first seven days of racing at the Tour de France. There has been at least one crash every day of the Tour, though many are never seen on television coverage. This year it seems there have been more falls than…
Australian Stuart O’Grady (Cofidis) won Stage 5 of the 2004 Tour de France in what proved to be a tactical showdown in the final mile against Jakob Piil (CSC), Magnus Backstedt (Alessio-Bianchi), Sandy Casar (FDJeux.com), and Thomas Voeckler (Brioches La Boulangere). A series of attacks and counter attacks on the…
With more than two weeks remaining in the 2004 Tour de France, and knowing how difficult the final week will be, the US Postal Service was more than willing to let a five-man breakaway escape today and take the stage as well as the yellow jersey. While it might…
Five-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong took the Tour’s yellow jersey Tuesday when his U.S. Postal team blew away the competition in the Stage 4 team time trial. Lance Armstrong's U.S. Postal Service Team won today's team time trial. Lance Armstrong’s U.S. Postal Service Team won today’s team…
The team time trial is a tremendously difficult and technical event, and winning one takes a lot of horsepower, a good plan, and discipline. U.S. Postal Service wanted to win the Stage 4 team time trial of the Tour de France for a few reasons. Most importantly, they wanted…
It doesn’t take long for a brilliant Tour de France to take a turn for the worse, as Euskaltel-Euskadi leader Iban Mayo learned this afternoon in Stage 3. His high hopes of challenging for the yellow jersey were seriously damaged after he was involved in a crash immediately prior to…
Sprinter Jean-Patrick Nazon (A2R) won the third stage of the 2004 Tour de France Tuesday on the 131-mile course from Waterloo, Belgium to Wasquehal, France. This was the longest stage to date in this year’s Tour, and the last stage to take place in Belgium. Erik Zabel (T-Mobile) took the…
Team Lotto-Domo sprint specialist Robbie McEwen took the second stage of the 2004 Tour de France Monday, while a dramatic crash in sight of the finish line highlighted a day in which a number of accidents befell riders on the flat 123-mile stage from Charleroi to Namur, Belgium. Tour…
Thor Hushovd learned a lot from the top-ten sprint finishes he recorded during the 2003 Tour de France; he learned so much that this year he’s finished in the top three positions during the first two road stages, and taken the yellow jersey for his efforts. Things are going his…
Rain blasted the peloton during Stage 1 of the 2004 Tour de France, in which multiple riders crashed on the wet roads between Liège and Charleroi, Belgium on the 121-mile course of rolling hills and valleys. 2004 Tour de France : Jaan Kirsipuu Wins Stage 1 Jaan Kirsipuu Wins…
It was heartbreaking to see the breakaway of Jakob Piil and Mark Wauters swallowed up so close to the finish line, right? Were you sitting on the edge of your seat wondering how the peloton timed their surge so perfectly? If you’re relatively new to the Tour de France, I…
The 2004 Tour de France kicked off with a 3.8-mile prologue course through the streets of Liège, Belgium Saturday. In his first Tour, 23-year-old Fabian Cancellara of the Fassa Bortolo team took the stage in 6:50.94, while five-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong came out firing, taking second place…
Now that’s what I wanted to see: Lance Armstrong powering out of the start house to the roar of the crowd, and then returning less than seven minutes later to a top-three finish in the prologue. His preparations for the Tour were nearly flawless, and his performance this afternoon showed…
As the world anxiously awaits tomorrow’s Tour de France start, 21 cycling teams are undergoing routine physical examinations and making last-minute race preparations. Several Tour heavyweights, including Lance Armstrong, Jan Ullrich, and Tyler Hamilton, have also appeared at pre-Tour press conferences in Belgium. At one such July…
The conditions change for many major sporting competitions each year, but very few events get the kind of radical yearly makeover the Tour de France gets. The weather might be different from year to year in Kona, Hawaii, but the Ironman Triathlon route has barely changed in twenty years. Marathons…
A guy named Lance has a date with history at the 91st Tour. Will Armstrong win his sixth in a row and triumph as the greatest cyclist of all time? Dive into our jam-packed Tour guide and find out why the Texan has no doubt. Then share the pain with…
Don't know a peloton from an echelon? Relax-the Tour is complicated. Here's a fast and light summary of how cycling's greatest race is run.
Holy bitumen! It's Phil and Paul, the excitable Brits who give le Tour its champagne gush.
Eddy Merckx (Belgium) Tour de France 2004 CLICK HERE for Outside’s Guide to the 2004 Tour de France, follow the race July 3-25 with our SPECIAL ONLINE COVERAGE.Tour de France Eddy Merckx Age: 59 Tour Wins: 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1974 Wore Yellow: 96 days…
Lance's 2003 Tour victory was almost a loss–in his own words, he "dodged a bullet." This year the Tourminator is plenty fit, a little less furious, and hungrier than ever. A revealing interview with the greatest rider on earth.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's plane wreckage answers a 60-year-old riddle. Or does it?
Zodiac introduces a rugged special-ops vessel that'll make you the talk of the dock
With Lance Armstrong shooting for a history-making sixth Tour de France victory, scores of off-and-on Tour watchers will find themselves glued to the 91st running of cycling’s gnarliest race. But it’s not always easy—even for gung-ho weekend roadies—to tell what’s going on. The bluffing stops here, with Outside‘s [guide] to…
Victor Hugo Peña grinds for U.S. Postal and Lance, but make no mistake: Ultimately he pedals for the pride of his country, the violent and tumultuous Andean nation of Colombia Victor Hugo Peña Update
Once and for all, why do pro cyclists shave their legs? 2004 Tour de France Backstage2004 Tour de France Backstage2004 Tour de France Backstage2004 Tour de France Backstage2004 Tour de France Backstage2004 Tour de France Backstage2004 Tour de France Backstage2004 Tour de France Backstage Despite what your silky-smooth cycling…
Hideous crashes? Shattered bones? Tyler Hamilton smiles through it all—which is just what he needs to beat you-know-who.
Via satellite phone the team reports that scouting the river upstream of the village of Luku is proving extremely challenging as a monstrous flood two years ago scoured the walls of this incredibly steep section of the lower gorge. There are now a number of new rapids that did not…
We have finally made the climb out from the upper gorge—but instead of reaching Payi and heading to the Po Tsangpo confluence, we have descended to the village of Gobden and Luku. This is actually our planed take out point, but we were forced to come here due to the…
Gyala, Tsangpo Gorge—We have been on the river now for four days and many things have happened. For one, we have realized just how small we are. Since reaching the end of the road, we have hired 68 porters that have carried all our equipment from camp to camp.
Kintup Falls, Tsangpo Gorge—We have just completed the Pemakochung bend and made it past Kintup Falls—this was a long day of portages and discovery. It was also the first day on our satellite photo, which was very exciting as we can now see every rapid as we come to…
VIDEO The Foam Zone click here Expedition member Steve Fisher plunges into the Upper Tsangpo Gorge Portage from Hell click here Porters and paddlers trudge 5,000 feet straight up on the epic mountain portage from Upper to Lower Gorge Going Deep click here Ground team member Andrew Sheppard rappels…
Lhasa, Tibet – After three flights we have finally made it to Lhasa, Tibet. We managed to check in 14 kayaks and 26 bags weighing 30 kilograms each all the way through with very few problems. From San Francisco, Cathay Pacific styled us all the way to Chengdu, a huge…