The month of July has come once again, which of course means there’s a certain cycling race getting underway in France. (Actually, it starts in Germany this year, but French soil isn’t far off.) Starting today in Dusseldorf, here we go with the 104th Tour de France!
My favorite sporting event of the year is well underway. Here on the first day of the second half of the year, Stage 1 of the 2012 Tour de France is rolling through not France incidentally, but eastern Belgium. The city of Liege marks this year’s starting point, following yesterday’s individual time trial prologue.
As usual this time of year, I know how a good chunk of my free time will be spent– watching NBC Sports that is– likely around 5:30am to catch some live moments of this exciting professional cycling action.
From there comes the continued accumulation of my own road cycling mileage, which I’m happy to report more than doubled in the first half of 2012 compared to the same period of 2011, putting me at a modest yet respectable 2,106 miles so far this year. If this number sounds like a lot, keep in mind the fact it happens to be 55 miles less than the total distance of the current Tour de France itself!
After sacrificing pedaling for motorcycling in ’10 and ’11, I’ve since happily reignited my cycling discipline and kicked back up my overall mileage. Still, my personal record is not about to be broken, as I’d have to triple my latest figure in order to exceed my 2008 total of just over 6,200 miles. At this point, two-thirds of this record by the end of 2012 will be more than satisfactory.
Meanwhile of course, for the next three weeks once again, vive le tour!
Ryan R. Sanderson 