The clock is counting down toward the start of that little three-week bike race we all know and love, and a reader asks what the workload is like for Your Humble Narrator come Tour de France time.
Put simply, it was Death back in the bad old days, when Charles Pelkey was the lone web guy and I was a two-day-a-week free-lancer who was shanghaied for the duration during the three grand tours. Charles is an early riser, so he’d be cranking out the live updates at an hour when sane journos were still abed. I’d log in around 7 a.m. and we’d tag-team the editing and posting of words and pictures from John Wilcockson, Graham Watson, Andrew Hood, Casey Gibson and whoever else was across the pond.
Charles would usually fade out early, so I — who spent all those enjoyable years at newspapers working the night shift — would stick it out past dark-thirty just in case the dope cops decided to set riders to jumping out of hotel windows. Then we’d do it all again the next day. Repeat until the Champs-Élysées.
The rules were simple: Post like an ADHD baboon flinging dung against a primate-house wall and find an hour to ride. I added a third: Drink French wine. Come July we’d go through Côtes du Rhône like an alcoholic Panzer division.
Last year, things changed. Steve Frothingham joined VeloNews.com as the full-time web boss-fella, and this year, with him and Charles both on salary (read: no overtime), I’m told I’ll probably only have to cover my usual two days a week, which suits me just fine. I unplugged the cable after the Floyd Landis debacle in 2006, and I am seriously uninterested in watching Versus bury its monocular face in Lance Armstrong’s lap again. Plus the workload these days means I can’t camp on the back deck with a laptop anymore — I need two large monitors, the souped-up G4 tower and the laptop just to take care of business in the modern age.
So I’ll follow this Tour when I’m paid to do so, with the exception of a few stages: Saturday’s opening time trial; Tuesday’s team time trial; the stage-18 ITT; and of course, stage 20 to Mont Ventoux. I like time trials, and you have to watch Ventoux.
In between business and pleasure, I’ll ride my own damn’ bike, see if I can sweat a few pounds off, which seems unlikely. I still like my wine, and I’ll have more time to cook.
Mad Blog Media 
OK, now I can post a comment. Whatever you did to fix the problem ( a log-in was required for everybody) worked! Thanks for filling us in on your routine for the Tour. C’mon, you have to watch the other mountain stages. You could play a drinking game!
I think you should still indulge in CdRhone wine during the tour. We’ve enjoyed 1 bottle tonight. Parallele 45 (Paul Jaboulet) is always a good, inexpensive bet and goes well with pre-TdF gossip.
Libby, what kind of drinking game do you have in mind? If it involves some knucklehead saying the word “Lance” followed by the word “Armstrong” you won’t last twenty minutes on any stage!
Of course, you wouldn’t have to listen to the classic “Liggett-isms” either. My personal favorite: “He’s on the rivet!” Still a fun game, but it ends way to quickly in my opinion.
Patrick, thanks for the visual on Versus’ placement of the monocle. I was beginning to wonder which side of the taint it is permanently attached. Zing!!
Are you going to still try and update us here on some of the goings-on in Frogland? I refuse to enter VeloSchnews’ site at this time of year. I want to hear about guys not named Lance, Levi, Chris or Boonen so you can see that dilemma (I hope). Also, there seems to be an issue with my ancient set-up (older than yours), and the whiz-bang graphics at the Schnooze.
Best of luck in the lead-up to Da Race. My plan is to be in Rotterdam this time next year!!
The problem I had back in my USCF days was that I had my work, wine, and train priorities all screwed up. At least compared to the other racers.
How the hell is someone supposed to enjoy life when one can’t enjoy liberal quantities of wine after a hectic day in bowels of a geochemistry lab followed by a couple hours with one’s nose to the handlebar stem? What we really needed was a race category devoted to those who stored carbs like I did.
Like Patrick, I have seriously detached myself from a former addiction to watching Le Tour on TV. Nowdays, its just the big mountain stages (sometimes) or I just turn off the set and go ride the bike. That suits Meena fine. Ever since I got her the flat screen TV, she goes through Netflix offerings like a kid with a bottomless cookie jar.
Eh, “bike race we all know and love”? Speak fo’ yourself! No love for the Tour de Dope coming from me. I’m here in Europe, one small country away from the Tour, only a 40-minute drive from Colmar, France (as signs all over that fair city advised me when I visited last week, the Tour will be in town July 17-18), and to be quite honest, I can’t wait to get outta here and back to Colorado. I’m sick of bike racing, at least as it is done/covered/perceived today. Perhaps that has something to do with the fact that I’ve been at a European bike race every single weekend since April, or maybe it’s due to the enormous amounts of cash I’ve seen go down the tubes in the form of broken carbon frames, silly-light wheels, and other sultry and stupid bicycle bits, but whatever the reason I am homesick for more than home. I’m homesick for people that ride bikes just because. I’m homesick for bikes that are made to work well instead of just made to work until the slightest accident destroys them. I’m homesick for people that don’t calculate value as inversely proportional to grams. And I’m just plain old sick because I can see that our fine industry has placed virtually all of its eggs in the race-driven basket… we need more Joe Breeze-like people and less Lance-like people. Of course a few more O’Grady-like people wouldn’t hurt either.
Yes, I’m aware I’m whining. So sue me. Sorry for the rant… I’ll be back to my good-natured self shortly. Please hold…