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It’s July 2nd. I’m guessing for most of you here in the US, that signifies a certain pining for the long weekend ahead, fireworks, and a cold one in the park. While we’re excited for the July 4th

weekend also, and hey, it would be the perfect excuse to shamelessly promote Urban Blanket Bags as your perfect long weekend accessory, it’s also the day before our favorite annual event begins, Le Tour De France!

I know, I know, you just expended all the energy you have for ‘new’ sports interests on the World Cup, but now that our guys couldn’t stack up against Ghana, it’s time to tune into Le Tour! It’s this monkey’s opinion (and hope), that we’ve got an all-star year for American riders.

When I first got into following cycling, it was a pretty intimidating world with lots of names I’d never heard, technical lingo that seemed ridiculous, and short men in bright spandex. But then, I got my first glimpse of a breakaway move and it was lights out. I’m hooked. Here’s a classic Lance Armstrong video with one of his now infamous moments at 2:25 and a video of a Sandy Casar breakaway move that’s pretty jaw dropping considering those guys are already doing ~22 mph when he hits the ‘gas’ about 21 seconds into the video.

Ok, did that get your heart racing? Here’s some fun things to follow on this year’s Tour. Like every year, the route is a little different, so to give you some perspective, here’s this year’s route map. It’ll take these guys most of the month of July to complete it (you can watch live coverage starting on July 3 on Versus). One thing to make watching the Tour more understandable is to remember, this is a month long event based on the best overall time. So, there’s lots of talk about winning stages and dominating mountain sections, but it’s fastest overall time that takes the big prize.

Most of the hype this year will be around Alberto Contador and Lance Armstrong. Why the drama? Last year, Contador won the Tour de France with Lance on the same team taking third place. This year, Lance has created his own team poaching a large portion of the riders from last year’s winning team. Adding do the buzz, Lance has also indicated this is his last Tour.

Besides Lance and Condator, a lot of the talk and coverage will go to British rider Mark Cavendish (a truly legendary sprint finisher who has proven just about unbeatable in the final push to the line) and the young American, Tyler Farrar, who will try again this year to crack Mark’s record of perfection. Here’s a really quick video of a Cavendish finish to give you a flavor for how insanely fast this guy can go:

There’s also going to be plenty of talk about team Saxo Bank and the Schleck brothers who hope to unseat Contador, not just in the mountains where Contador beat up on them last year, but to win the overall race (Andy Schleck came in 2nd in ‘09).

Ok, you’re almost there, you’re ready for the action to begin, now you just need an “underdog” to root for. Well I’ve got my favorite American rider and I’m hoping you’ll be rooting for him too, because I’ve got a feeling he’s going to be sneaking up on all these guys to take a spot on the podium. Christian Vande Velde is the name, and pure bad a** is his game. He’s no rookie. In fact, he was a part of 2 of Lance’s winning Tour de France teams and has plenty of accolades of his own. But in 2009, he showed what kind of toughness he’s really got. Less than 2 months before the Tour, Christian broke 7 bones (five vertebrae, a rib and his pelvis). Seven weeks later, he took 8th place in the Tour. Do I need to say more? Ok fine, I will. Even finishing the Tour is a major accomplishment with all that can go wrong in 3 weeks of intense riding. To come in top 10 is a lot of these guys dreams when they are completely healthy. Go show them what you’ve really got Christian!

Now go get outside and enjoy the long holiday weekend, but don’t forget to tape le Tour!