Beth’s Tour de France blog

The first day of the 2004 Tour finally arrived and I had no idea how excited I was until I found myself up at six friggin thirty on a saturday morning waiting for the start of the race, broadcast live on OLN teevee. Today’s broadcast didn’t start until nine thirty am but I was up and ready.

I’ve been a little depressed lately, as a result I’ve stopped paying attention to the world news, the American political scene, left leaning websites and right leaning talk radio. A lot of it is hard to avoid, but I’m feeling much better now that I’ve eliminated this from my life for the time being.

Thank gawd the Tour de France has started.

I’m going to try, but won’t promise, that I’ll blog my own impressions of the Tour for the next 21 days. (OK, I know, I know…so what? I’ll just be one of many of the great inarticulate to do so. But it’ll be my perspective and I’m sticking to it.)

Today’s race was a time trial event, usually a bit boring as far as cycling is concerned. The commentators are often at a loss for interesting words and if the cameramen aren’t positioned right a lot of the interesting parts of the race are missed. Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen do a great job of commentating, but I do miss Bob Roll’s live action commenting so far this year.

There’s been plenty of hype leading up to this year’s tour, some pretty good and not so good programming on OLN. “Lance’s Five Battles Won” was an hour long program hosted by Al Trautwein that was shown several times over the past week. If you are interested in the history of Lance’s wins it was pretty good, and it’ll probably be one again, and is worth a watch.

If you haven’t seen today’s race yet, and don’t want to know the outcome, stop reading now.

I was touched to tears seeing the close up shot of Fabian Cancellara of the Fasso Bortolo team when he realized he’d ridden two seconds faster than Lance and the rest of the riders in today’s time trial. (Actually I was pretty amazed that Armstrong placed second. I really thought he’d pace himself more on the first day.) Cancellara is twenty three years old, riding the first day of his first Tour de France and walked away with both the yellow and the green jerseys. Imagine how he must feel tonight.

Some riders who aren’t in this year’s tour who will be missed by me:
Davide Rebellien-Gerolsteiner
Dario Cioni-Fasso Bortolo
Damiano Cunego-Saeco
Victor Hugo Pena-USPS
Alexander Vinokourov-T Mobile

Riders to watch (some obvious, some not):
Jan Ullrich-T Mobile
Tyler Hamilton-Phonak
Iban Mayo-Euskaltel-Euskadi
Roberto Heras-Liberty Segurous
Isidro Nozal-Liberty Segurous
Fabian Wegeman-Gerolsteiner

There has been a lot of hype about Levi Leipheimer but I’m not convinced he is a real contender in this race.

Worst part of the three week tour:
The “Messinger” ads on OLN
“The Cyclism” hype
getting up at 6 friggin 30 every day to watch

Best part of the three week tour:
Men in bike pants on the podium

Oh, if you are planning on entering the Tune to the Tour contest sponsored by OLN, today’s word is (gag) “Cyclism”

cks/BL Tridiot rating: 06’52”