Confessions Of A TDF Junkie
If you’ve read this weblog with any sort of frequency, you know that I love cycling. It’s a fantastic sport and I love taking a nice and relaxing ride down the country roads leading away from my home. As tranquil as this sounds, and the experience truly is, during the month of July, my countenance changes drastically. I transform from a laid back fan of the sport into a rabid, frothing at the mouth, Tour de France junkie.
For those of you that aren’t familiar with “The Tour”, the Tour de France is a 3-week bicycle race throughout the country of France. There are a total of 21 races (one per day), covering a total of 2,109 miles, and the person with the best overall time is declared the winner. For the past five years the winner as been Lance Armstrong. This year, Lance is going for his 6th win, which no other cyclist in the history of the tour (101 years) has ever been able to do. Needless to say, this year is going to be quite the spectacle with a reported 5 million people on the road and around two billion will follow it on TV or in print. If you haven’t picked up on it yet, the Tour de France is a BIG deal. To learn more about this history of the tour and insight into why 2004 could be a landmark Tour, I highly recommend reading the 2004 Preview on Cycle Disciple.




I’ve been without cable for the past few months since
This week has been very humid, wet and rainy. Today it looks like it’s more of the same weather we’ve been having. It’s overcast, humid as all get out and the threat of rain is ever present. Looks like perfect cycling weather to me.
I love bicycling. It’s one of the few places where I can get away from the stress of the day and just enjoy the outdoors and view things from a more relaxed perspective. Everything just slows down a notch and I find I’m able to see things a little more clearly. Even cycling in city traffic is fun, albeit a little more adrenaline pumping than riding an old country road. There’s just about no style of cycling that I don’t enjoy and I try to remain positive about all aspects of the sport. Since I enjoy it so much, I almost always have a positive attitude concerning everything related to cycling, however after a series of rides yesterday I have to say I do have one pet peeve.
I’m no different than anyone else. We’re all busy and have more to do than we have time to do it, so it was a somewhat unexpected surprise when I discovered that there was a window of opportunity to go on a bike ride. Holly had to sing in all the Masses, so I was left to my own devices for most of the morning. I had to mow the grass and a few other things that morning, but like a bright sunbeam parting the clouds, it dawned on me that if I woke up early enough, I could get in a bike ride.
I haven’t had much motivation to write this week for some reason. I probably should have taken a week off like my buddy