6.7.05

OLN

It's that time of year again, when addicts like me tune to cable channel 470 to watch the Tour de France. I love the Tour, I've been a fan since Jr. High School. In high school I did some training with the idea that I'd try out for the University of Colorado cycling team. My heros back in the day were Greg Lemond and Stephen Roche. I've always know about Miguel Indurain and Jan Ullric (von Lichtenstein) and I'm pretty sure I remember hearing about Lance Armstrong even then. CU is in Boulder, CO and is a prime mountain training area for world class cyclists. Moving to Austin and hearing he was a local boy, I was a bit torn. I thought he was local to Colorado. Maybe somewhere, a small city in Idaho also claims him as their own.

At any rate, it's that time of year again for OLN to gain a marked increase in viewership for a couple weeks. I love watching cycling and always have, but it's like having a love for rugby or jai-alai or fencing, it's just not something the average joe sports fan is rabid about in the States, unless you're from Austin.

There are Go Lance tags all over the roads here. The yellow wristband is an epidemic, was since this time last year. You can't go 10 feet without hearing news about Lance, not The Tour, but Lance. I'd like to know who won each stage, who's wearing the white, green and polka-dot jersey, not just the yellow. I want to watch each stage unfold. I want to watch the heartbreaks and triumphs and falls and sprints. I want to see the speedy time trials with the post modern futuristic helmets. I want to see the peleton swallow up the leaders.

I don't want News 8 Austin and NPR to give away the endings before I can get home to watch it. Time delay or not, people, there are fans that would like to watch this stuff. Talk about it tomorrow.

So anway, the viewing in our house now is OLN and Futurama and that's about it. Besides, I should be drawing.

Page 15 is done.

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