It's Tour time!

It is that time of year when Phil Liggett, Gary Imlach and the team bring me an inexplicable feeling of contentment as crazy fellows pedal round France. The highlights may have been jumping around from C4 to ITV and ITV4 over the past few years, but it makes no difference...France remains the same and the tour is still the grand act that it has always been. The music is still the same, and it is time to indulge in the lovely jargon: pelotons, echelons, flammes rouge, lanternes rouge, EPO, domestiques etc. No doubt the majority of the riders are hopped up on their boosted blood, but it doesn't alter the fact that I love the Tour.

Mark Cavendish won a stage today with some stunning speed at the final sprint, but it's the mountains that all us armchair Tour riders are waiting for, and they begin tomorrow. Bring it on!

(ITV4 should bring back the riders' intro at the advert breaks.)