Tour de France 2009

There is one month out of the whole year that my husband and I will agree on something to watch on TV. We enjoy a few series shows here and there, but for the most part don’t really watch the same shows. The exception comes as the calendar moves to the month of July.

The excitement in our house is palatable…an autographed water bottle from US Postal makes its way onto our mantel. An autographed Coors Light cycling team shirt drapes nearby. Outside, my garden is teeming with a variety of sunflowers ready to bloom their bright yellow heads and face the daily sun. It is time for the TV pilgrimage to France and a 3 week bike race that has us sitting on the edges of our seats and routing for our favorite riders as they race in the le Tour de France.

As I had mentioned in a previous post, I love sports. I have loved them for as long as I can remember. As a young girl I was fascinated by Ruffian and watched her tragic match race with Seattle Slew. I read everything I possibly could on how she was healing and I cried when she didn’t make it. I kept a huge poster of Secretariat, another great race horse above my bed. It was an awesome thing that looked like a headboard that went to the ceiling. This is what I looked at every night before going to bed- the muscles on this animal just amazed me.

I watched the Steelers or Cowboys play every Sunday. I watched Billy Jean King on the tennis courts. I even watched a little bit of the Indy 500. But my favorite time in front of the TV, barring Sunday night with Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom and then the Wonderful World of Disney (I’m really dating myself here) was ABC Wide World of Sports. I loved whatever they were covering- it didn’t matter- skiing, tennis, track, boxing, weightlifting- all of it. Maybe it was hearing Howard Cosell’s voice or possibly the way Jim McKay always made you feel like he was sharing the athlete’s story with just you. I couldn’t get enough. Then one Sunday as a special broadcast, they covered the Tour de France. It was 3-weeks of the entire race combined into one hour of coverage. Basically, the highlights of the tour; however, it was still exciting to watch these guys flying on their bicycles through the little towns in France. I was hooked.

Then cable arrived. Coverage of the racing started to encompass more than just a day. If you were lucky to find an obscure channel, you might have been able to catch a week’s worth of racing. But then came OLN, or now called Versus. They not only cover every stage of the race, but they cover the entire stage with commentary! That is a good 2-3 hours of bike racing! And if you missed something, they repeat the coverage 2-3 times over the course of the day! We will be able to see great feats of athleticism like that of Secretariat or Ruffian and learn a new story of a cyclist that will break away from the group and race until their legs feel like rocks and their lungs feel as though they will burn out of their body at any moment.

So, I welcome July with the anticipation of watching greatness unfold on the roads in France, in the Pyrenees and Alps and ending in Paris. I will sit with butterflies in my stomach wondering how do they go through the throngs of crazy roadside spectators and will scream “will you get out of the way already?!” at the Viking helmet clad moron that is trying to run with the cyclist-OK, maybe living in a Winnebago on the side of a mountain for 3 days with nothing else to do but drink enables one to wear the helmet, but cheer standing still!