DeeKnow’s Grotto

Hold onto your saddles folks coz the main cycling event of the year, le Tour de France, has just kicked off with the opening time-trial and 1st stage being held on Sunday and today NZ time. Everyone knows about Lance Armstrong's amazing string of victories, and he was a top favourite for the short opening time-trial but ended up being narrowly beaten by Swiss rider Fabian Cancellara who had this to say...

"It's very difficult to say what I really think," he said after his victory. "I'm a very emotional guy. I can't hide my feelings. To have the yellow jersey is really really great."

No kidding dude !!!

You'd be excused for not knowing anything about the event given the microscopic coverage we get on poor-mans telly each night. I winge about it every year to anyone who'll listen but this year things are especially bad. I was telling friends about it last night in their lounge just as it came onto the 6 O'Clock news and by the time I terminated my sentence the 1st stage coverage was all over.  A grand total of about 15 seconds !!!  I kid you not.

A cool feature of this years tour though is we've got a kiwi back in the peleton in the form of local Waikato rider (well Waihi is kinda local) Julian Dean who actually led out the start of the sprint for the line in todays finish. Great stuff.

Each year I do a little evangelising and hook another couple of suckers into following this mammoth endurance event, so if you're one of last years victims and want a quick catch-up on whats been going on and who the favourites are, check out my tour roundup for a run-down.

6:56:26 PM