Vive le Tour!

The month of July is upon us and with it Tour de France fever. Each morning in our house the Tour is the first thing that gets turned on. My ten-month old is being indoctrinated already, even though my wife and I said that we would never put him in front of a screen. What else am I supposed to do when I am feeding him? C’est la vie.

One of the fun parts of following the Tour is having some friendly competition. Each year I have a bet with one of my friends about who will win the team GC. We figure this is one of the more interesting categories within the race. This race is decided on the cumulative time of the team’s top-three finishers on each stage. To win team GC the team has to be diversified, not too focused on winning the overall, willing to ride in the breakaways and motivated to win this category. They need to be putting riders in the breakaways each day, or even riding on the front of the peloton if necessary, protecting their team GC position. Take a look through the team rosters and think about which teams fit these parameters. It is a tough competition to predict.

The other great aspect of the Tour is the motivation that it gives everyone to get out and ride. When I was a teenager starting to ride seriously my buddies and I would head out each day – but not until the day’s stage was finished of course! It meant riding in the blazing heat of the day, when the tarmac was melting. Just like the riders on the Tour. We would talk over the stage’s result, attack one another, and best of all go and find some hills and ride them as if they were giant cols. We also tried descending them like the riders in the Tour and I distinctly remember washing out in the apex of a local switchback. Just like what happens in the Tour.

Each year the Tour reminds me of why I like cycling. Funny that it should over shadow the many other races on the calendar. Most of the sprint stages are not even interesting, and yet somehow it is a real spectacle. Enjoy your month of July. Vive le Tour!