vive le tour!

it is arguably my favorite time of year. as the july heat is ratcheted up in the lone star state, so the summer in france sizzles with excitement. it is time for the tour de france, or simply le tour.

as they hurl toward the prologue, riders from 22 teams will each take their turn to churn out 8.9km as fast as they can in an atmosphere of exhibition on saturday. to be sure this will be the beginning of a gut wrenching covering of 3,642km over 20 stages with a couple of rest days sprinkled in between. there will be big names who crash, big names who fail to live up to expectation, and big names who are disgraced - only adding to the blight and shadow that doping casts over the sport. but there will also be big names and unheralded names who conquer both mountain and flats to rise victorious, even if only for a day. and they will succeed on the backs of their teams as they pull them through stage after stage and only one man is left atop the podium donning the yellow jersey that is known the cycling world over.

dirty racing is something that we unfortunately come to expect in the cycling world. we wonder if humans are really capable of achieving the feats they seem to accomplish in the days leading up to failed tests. we know that it will be present this year, but we hope that it will be lessened in each of the successive races. whole teams are beginning to make efforts to clean up the sport (see team garmin-transitions). riders are tested more often, especially if your initials are la (just follow @lancearmstrong to find out just how often that is). as a devoted cycling fan i can only hope that this year will be cleaner than last and the next even more so.

despite all the dark publicity brought to the sport every year in doping scandals, i find myself excited and ready to watch the 22 teams begin a quest to accomplish their goals both as individuals and as cooperatives. it is compelling to think that no man can succeed in winning the tour on his own, he is constantly in debt and dependent upon the team whose colors he pulls on each morning. the cooperative nature of this type of sport reminds me time and time again that we are not alone. that in our greatest successes and failures there are others who celebrate and agonize with us. vive le tour!