Tour de France 2008 Underway!

Every July, I get excited for two main reasons: First, it's Independence Day! Barbeques, fireworks, our country's birthday! No holiday beats Independence Day for patriotism and good times. Second, it's the month of the Tour de France, the world's most important cycling event.

Most Americans couldn't care less about cycling, much less French cycling. But most hard-core recreational cyclists, like me, enjoy following it at least to some extent. I'm a little more crazy than most; I actually watch most of the 4 hours of live coverage available on "Versus" every day. To me, it's exciting and relaxing at the same time.

Although I've been cycling off-and-on since Junior High School, and have known about the Tour all during that time, it wasn't until a few years ago when I realized I could actually watch the event on a little network on my DirecTV dish called "OLN" or "Outdoor Life Network." I started watching and got hooked on the whole experience: The veteran British cycling commentator Phil Liggett and his sidekick, former pro racer Paul Sherwen; the beauty of the French countryside; the quaint French villages with ancient churches and castles in them, where the residents all come out to watch the Tour fly by for a few minutes; the craziness of the long climbs through the Pyrenees and Alps, with fans just inches from the passing riders; the elegant power of the Peloton (the group of 100+ riders) as it winds its way down tree-lined two-lane roads at 30mph; the drama of a breakaway (a small group of riders trying to escape the Peloton) as it struggles to survive the stage; and the frightening way in which a caught breakaway gets swallowed up by the Peloton. I could go on.

I watched OLN's coverage of the Tour for several years, and continue today after they renamed the network "Versus." I got to see Lance win 3 or 4 times, and the year after he retired I got to see Floyd Landis, one of Lance's former teammates, have the best year of his career and win the Tour, only to see it get taken away in a doping scandal (I still believe he was set up). And then last year, yet another American stepped up to play the hero, the cyclist who filled in for Lance at the Olympics in 2004, Levi Leipheimer. Never a podium finisher, Levi got to lead Lance's former team, which was still extremely strong, and did manage to make the podium, but was outshined by his much younger teammate, Alberto Contador, who came out of nowhere to win.

Shake-Ups in the Off-Season
During the off-season last year, a lot happened. Discovery Channel ended its sponsorship of Armstrong/Leipheimer's team, and rather than get a new sponsor, as they had done previously when U.S. Postal Service ended its reign, the team just dissolved. Riders went their separate ways, to different teams. At the same time, in the wake of huge doping/steroid scandals at last year's Tour and throughout the season, Team Astana basically fired the entire team and started over. When they did this, they first hired Johann Bruyneel, the former manager of Discovery Channel / USPS, Lance's manager throughout all his Tour wins. He brought with him Contador and Leipheimer, and they built a quality team, made up of riders who had never ever been busted for doping. They also instituted a super-harsh doping control system over and above what the Tour and the international governing body, UCI, require. All in all, a great setup.

Then the Tour organizers announced that, because Astana had been such a disgrace the previous year, they would not be invited to this year's race. This, despite the complete re-construction of the team, and the fact that the 1^st and 3^rd place finishers from 2007 were on the team and ready to defend the title. And the organizers never budged. Since the Tour is an invitational, they had total control over who can race. So, this year no Contador, no Leipheimer, and no Bruyneel. And frankly, so many of the big stars of the past few years – Ivan Basso, Alexander Vinokourov, Floyd Landis, Tyler Hamilton, Jan Ullrich, Tom Boonen, etc – have been caught doping or with drugs and suspended (and humiliated), that it's hard to know who to cheer for. It's a little disconcerting.

Watching is Different
So this year I'm watching, and enjoying, but I haven't figured out who to cheer for yet, and instead I find myself getting caught up not in the "GC" overall standings, but in the daily stage wins instead. I focused on a small 4-frenchman breakaway yesterday that included young Thomas Voeckler, who carried the yellow leader's jersey for several days a few years back, winning the affection of everyone watching, before enjoying the last-minute catching of the breakaway and the sprint for the finish line by the "God of Thunder," Norwegian Thor Hushovd, and almost caught in the process by a no-name GC contender, Kim Kirchen. And the hard-fought win the day before by Alejandro Valverde. These guys are big names, but not Tour winner names. The real contender has yet to appear, and won't for another week or more. Two of my favorites, though, Armstrong lieutenant George Hincapie and Christian Vandevelde, are only 7 seconds off the lead. How great it would be to see one of those guys win.

Even the commentators are second-string. With Al Trautwig, the host of Versus's pre-race show every day, out covering gymnastics at the Olympic trials this month, Versus tapped the most stiff field guy they could get, Craig Hummer, to fill in for him. Another former racer, Hummer's interviews with racers out in the warmdown areas have always been pretty lame. Now that he's doing pre-race, I try to watch a little because I enjoy Bob Roll, a real nutty American former racer whose trademark is absolutely butchering any French words he encounters during commentaries. And then Phil and Paul will join in for a few minutes of banter, which is fun, but overall the pre-race just isn't the highlight I used to enjoy.

So this weblog has wound up always being about politics, even though it wasn't intended that way. And I just noticed I hit 100 posts the other day (and one comment among them – awesome!!). So to celebrate, I'm mixing it up. I'm going to blog a little about the Tour. Maybe I'll even get some theology mixed in here some day, too. Or maybe some Xbox 360 articles. Who knows? With the political scene so depressing this year, I'm going to have to write about something uplifting before I have to go on medication.