Tour 2005

I've been doing almost nothing but watch the Tour de France every evening. There are three hours of coverage on OLN every day, and five hours on some of the longer stages, so I've been picking up something for dinner and watching until I can't keep my eyes open any longer. I'm still two days behind because of my trip to Houma this week.

I've been a Tour fan for a lot longer than Lance Armstrong has been around, I first saw the tour in 1969 when we moved to Belgium. It was the Tour de France debut of Eddy Merckx, when he won the yellow jersey, the green jersey and the polka-dot jersey all in the same year, at age 24 (he would have won the white as well, but it didn't exist until 1999). Eddy Merckx was god in Belgium the years we lived there, and still is to this day. I still believe that he was a more dominant cyclist than Armstrong because he rode more than just the tour. Eddy Merckx won over 525 races in his cycling career out of 1500 races, he's one of only three riders to ever ride all five classic races in his career, and his 34 Tour de France stage victories dwarfs Armstrong's 16 (and counting), even though it looks like Lance will win seven compared to Eddy's five Tours.

My TiVo is great for this kind of thing, especially since I installed the additional hard drive space. My affection for the Tour de France reminds me of when I was in college in 1987 and I would set my VCR (Sony Super-Beta HiFi) to record the America's Cup in Freemantle. The race was fantastic, Dennis Conner came back against huge odds to beat the New Zealanders with their winged keel, but more than the race, the scenery was so grand, so sweeping, so epic, that it was as much a part of the experience as the sporting event. Rick and Claire later lived in Perth, which is very near Freemantle, and when I went to visit I remembered that beautiful mottled blue-green water and white beaches. The Tour completely circumnavigates France, and there are some amazing sights.

Lance is pretty much going to win for sure, which is great. I'm not sure I trust him to retire after this one, he would be the first ever to go out on a win. It's been an exciting one so far, and there are some real stars in the making if he does retire.

Late.