Tour de France 2006 (Stage 8)

I love the month of July because it is the month of the Tour de France. If any of you are watching you already know how utterly fascinating it is. If you're not, I highly recommend that you tape (or Tivo, if you've joined the 21st Century) the morning coverage (generally starts at 8:30 a.m. ET), as opposed to the 8:00 p.m. "Enhanced Coverage." The reason I recommend the morning coverage is that you get Paul Sherwen and Phil Liggett as commentators vs Bob Roll (see: Most Annoying Color Commentator in the History of the Freaking World). Besides if you tape it, you can fast forward through the darn commercials, and that is all good. I have no clue what's "enhanced" about the prime time coverage, unless it's the whole Bob Roll thing, because he annoys me so badly that five seconds of him on my TV and I'm ready to throw my beer bottle at it.

One of the things I love about the Tour is when the breakaway actually works and someone who left the group early in the stage wins. It rarely happens, sadly, but today (Sunday) it did. Congratulations to Sylvain Calzati, who had to abandon the Tour last year in Stage 8. He took off at kilometre 46 with a group of five riders, but with 30 km left, he decided to take off on his very own. Very very cool to see a breakaway win.

The Americans are in trouble, except for Floyd Landis (probably my least favorite American, although I can't say why I haven't warmed up to him). My very favorite, Levi Leipheimer, had a shitty time trial on Saturday and when he should have moved up the standings, he lost 6 minutes and fell way back. In today's interview he explained that he hasn't been feeling well and he's hoping that he starts to feel better. I hope he can go out in a breakaway in the mountain, and gain some time back.

Monday is a rest day, so you have until Wednesday until I bore you with another Tour de France post.