le Tour de France

So I've been a fan of cycling since the 80's when my brother started racing in Ohio. He did well as a kid - even racing with future superstars of the sport like George Hincapie. I remember being glued to The Tour when Greg LeMonde was racing & the huge deal it was that he was the first American to win the Tour de France. Sadly, the coverage here in the states back then wasn't very good. Clips here & there & then an hour or so on Sunday's if I remember correctly. Then there was a bit of a lull in my cycling interest - college, mission, ...other stuff & I honestly kind of forgot about it. Then along came Lance Armstrong, and I started paying attention again. ...& so did every one else.

The ongoing doping mess in cycling is unfortunate. With some people we'll probably never know the truth. Many people think Lance was involved, but just had the money & power to keep it quiet. Floyd Landis is still in the middle of his mess & currently, there is no official winner of last years Tour. We all had high hopes for Tyler Hamilton, but he's been tied up in suspension due to illegal substances & the list goes on. It was a huge mess last year & lots of riders were suspended. Riders in this years Tour signed a contract saying they were clean. They agreed to be tested & if found dirty they would pay a years salary plus the normal 2 year suspension. Apparently they weren't happy about signing it, but they did - not much choice since they couldn't ride if they didn't.

Last year we had the fortunate opportunity of having the Tour of Utah. It was great! One of the stages was a circuit where for part of it, the riders came up State street around the Capitol & down Main street. It was SO much fun! We were able to walk between state & main to see the riders 2x per circuit for some laps...others we just watched everyone go by wherever we were & some of the laps we were up at the top of 5th N. & E. Capitol Blvd where the king of the mountain was. Seriously, it was right up there with the olympics - very cool! We thought we'd see Bob Roll as he rode by in a charity ride he was doing, but we must have missed him - too bad. That guy is a crack up! I love watching his Tour de France commentary. Sadly, they're not doing the Tour of Utah this year do to lack of funding/sponsors. I hope it comes back next year because it really is a great race & the potential to have it be huge, like the tour of Georgia is there. (imho)

Anyway, this year is going to be interesting - almost anyone's game. Of course I'm rooting for Hincape, Leipheimer, & Zabriskie - or any other American, but over the years I've done my share of cheering for non-American's too - not so much for people like Ulrich or Indurain, although they are some of the greats. It's fun to see sprinters like Boonen, Hushovd & McEwen fight it out at the finish, or root for the guys fighting it out for the king of the mountain.

Those last 2 Armstrong years I was up many a morning at ridiculous hours 4, 5, 6am to watch OLN's live coverage. That's turned into DVR'ing it & watching it after work - or watching the prime time 6pm coverage. Which is fine, but all too often, I've already accidentally read or heard who won - I try to avoid it, but sometimes it's inevitable. Luckily it's still worth watching how it all happened.

One year I was in NYC for some of the best stages. I sacrificed watching them for a ton of fun in my favorite city, but since we flew Jet Blue, I was able to watch it on the way there & back via my own personal TV. One of my favorite Tour related memories is a few years back - I think it was when Lance was going for a 5th win - I was driving my brother up to the U (he didn't have a parking sticker so I drove him up there a lot) & we saw quite a few cyclists along the road. Every time he saw one with a yellow jersey on (ok, it was only 2x) he'd roll down the window & yell "GO LANCE!" It was really funny!