Hey, at least I have one sport to watch between the end of the NCAA basketball season and the onset of football (American - not that stuff with the shorts and funny rules).
For those with cable or satellite access, the Outdoor Life Network will again carry all stages live and evening enhanced coverage.
edit: Thread title, see reason below
Good job they’re not going anywhere near Edinburgh in the next few weeks…
Reminds me of when I was in college and someone would ask where I was from. To many folks, anything in the US midwest is ‘near’ Chicago. as anything West of the Mississippi is ‘near’ California.
So on those terms, they’ll be spiinin’ through the suburbs of Edinburgh through much of the race.
Go Lance, Go!
Loren
If my wife can watch bullriding then I can watch the TdF. To uterly finish her off, I’ll watch with whistle in hand!
Mike
Could be a tougher road this year. Roberto Heras is no longer with the team. If nothing else the loss of his climbing power will make the flatlandand time trial stages even more important.
Creeping (slightly) back on topic, this seems to be particularly common in Ireland. Several times, upon learning that I lived in San Jose (SF Bay area) I had people ask if I by any chance I knew an acquaintence who lived in the Los Angeles area (~400 miles or ~600 km, your choice). I’d also need to point out that California’s population (just under 40 million) is about 7 or 8 times that of Ireland.
To be fair, Irish friends who’ve visited the US love to tell these stories on themselves, too. (“Well, I had a day free in Los Angeles and thought I’d drive up to visit my brother who lives in San Jose . . .”)
And they get to laugh at us when we try to pronounce Irish place names. 
“The Tour was quite close this year . . . just across the pond from us” 
Dun Laoghaire…Dun Laoghaire…Dun Laoghaire…
Lance was the strongest climber anyway, but yeah, it’ll be tougher without the extra help in the mountain stages.
Certainly it’ll be a huge challange for Lance to win again, but if anyone can do it, he can.
Sadly, I have no Television access, local or cable, this year, so I’m going to miss out on most of the tour happenings - I’ll have to follow in the papers, which just isn’t the same 
Hmph.
Loren
Well, you could always get involved in an affair - ideally one lasting 28 days with a lady who has cable TV…
Better yet, with a beautiful French woman who’s got a cottage in the Alps and a friend driving one of the support vehicles! Hey man, if I’m gonna dream, I’m gonna dream BIG!!
I changed the title because I was watching OLN preliminary reports today and they included a brief clip of Lance Armstrong playing a whistle! Didn’t get a good look, but it appeared to be an all metal cylindrical low D, possibly an Overton or else it looked a lot like one.
Dale needs to fire up Dale Force One and dispatch a reporter to France to get the scoop. This is big.
I’ll volunteer - before Loren does.
Dang it Chuck, you always get shot gun on these adventures, hmph!
I assume you’re pulling our legs about the whistle.
Loren
If I read the posting correctly, Lance came in second in the Prologue, two seconds behind the winner.
Here’s the English version on the official website:
http://www.letour.fr/2004/us/index.html
Best wishes,
Jerry
Poor kid (Cancellara): Lance just 2 seconds behind him on the first day, and such butt whoopin’ ahead of him…
Loren
Nope. I certainly was not! And it looked sufficently like an Overton that I almost asked Colin or Brigitte if they had a celebrity customer riding in the Tour.
And not to quibble, but the actual gap was 1.64 seconds, with the third rider six seconds further back and the “big boys” (Hamilton, Ulrich, et al) barely hanging in to the top 50. George Hincapie of USPS also rode in the top eight or ten. Cancellara, who won the prologue, is a very young rider (first tour) with a name as a sprinter who’ll die in the mountains. In essence, Lance has thrown down the gauntlet and said ‘catch me if you can’.
BTW, this is the last year of USPS sponsorship. The Discovery Channel has signed on as main sponsor for the years 2005-2007.
It was a good race to watch - for a time trial, anyway. One or two spectacular falls, but no one injured. Liege is a gorgeous town (the parts they showed, anyway), but it was raining and riding on wet cobblestones is NOT fun.
Six days of racing and most of it in the rain.
Is it always that wet in Belgium and northern France?
Riding on wet cobblestones - yeek!
Is nobody else outraged by the institution of the new time trial rules?!?
Loren