53-11 It hurts much more than 39-28.

July is almost over, welcome back freetime.

I spend almost (ok all) of my free time in July keeping up with le tour. It is an interesting addiction because I rarely get to watch a stage for a few reasons:

1. The tour is on while I’m at work.
2. I don’t have cable.
3. They only show the tour on cable.

I was extremely happy to see that Versus is now offering a low quality stream for free on their website. This means I spend my Saturday and Sunday mornings glued to a very small video of the most exciting bike race in the world. Sure it’s crazy, but it makes complete sense to me and I’m sure to anyone else who follows this race.

On the days that I cannot watch the tour live, I am stuck with watching the video updates on VeloNews and Versus after the fact. I’ve enjoyed the commentary of Bob Roll and Neil Rogers, each on their respective networks.

What does this mean? Well it means that other than things that are essential for me to do (riding my bike and spending time with my kids for example), I happily give up my evenings to take in the updates and make my own conjecture as to what each team’s strategy is for the next day, the day after, and so on.

Although it is bittersweet, the tour comes to an end tomorrow. I am happy about this because it means my free time is back (until late August) and I am not stressed about how my team is performing. However I am also sad because I am done watching this epic event until next year when it starts over again.

Good bye Tour, it has been fun. See you next year.