The Tour: Missing the race already

The Tour ended only a few hours ago, and my withdrawal symptoms are already setting in.  Today, after spending two hours on the bike and another five hours at the pool with the kids, I came home, plopped down, popped open a Fat Tire pale ale, grabbed the TV clicker and switched to channel 55 for my daily fix of the Tour on Versus. (I’ve been watching it live in the morning and the rebroadcast later in the day.) But what appeared on the screen was a red Formula One car. No bikes in sight. I sat there dazed, confused and wondering why they wouldn’t rebroadcast the action from the morning. I ended up mindlessly channel surfing. I eventually settled on ESPN, which was showing the U.S. women’s softball team getting their butts kicked by Canada.

I imagine the Tour withdrawal will really hit hard tomorrow morning. I’m a morning person to begin with, but the Tour made me love the early hours even more. The TV coverage usually started at 6:30 or 7:30 a.m. in my time zone. I’d have a nice pot of coffee brewing before then, and a toasted bagel or two before Bob Roll, Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen joined me for breakfast. After spending the past 10 years in Greater China without live TV coverage of the Tour, I was so thankful to be able to watch it in realtime now. When I lived in Taiwan, I remember gathering in a bar that had a computer that was linked to Cyclingnews’ live blow-by-blow text coverage of the race. Last summer in Guangzhou, one of my cycling mates rigged up his TV to the Web via a VPN connection that allowed us to watch live coverage of the stage on Mont Ventoux. He invited everyone in our group to his home for a BBQ feast, followed by a Tour viewing. It was great fun until the Web connection started acting buggy, and we ended up huddling around a laptop to watch the rest of the race.

I can’t tell you how wonderful it was to be able to watch this year’s race live in the comfort of my home.