Stage 1

Tour day schmalz index here

It’s hard to believe that little Claire will be a year old soon. Waiting for her to arrive last year was the beginning of the tour day schmalz, and now she’s almost a year old. In fact she’s yelping for breakfast right now – gotta go.

Claire falls for the Cheerios trick – parental magic those Cheerios. I’m hoping that Claire will become the bike fan in the house, because her sister is over it. She already starts to moaning whenever I fire up a race on the Tivo. Favorite quote, “Daddy these bike races are soooo long.” Claire cannot speak yet, so I’m holding out hope.

So, I’m going to jump on the retro-grouch band wagon and say that I’m sick of race radios for the riders. They are killing these early stages. When directors can call each other on their cell phones while watching the TV coverage to calculate the gaps and the necessary chase, it’s become ridiculous.

I say throw out the radios. Let the riders make the on-road decisions. I want to see a confused Moreau looking around asking, “Who’s up the road?” I want to see a break have a chance on a sprint stage. I want to see the look of panic on Toto’s face when he realizes that Flecha went up the road while he was picking up a brisket in the feed zone. I want more than just the last 10k to matter on a hilltop finish. I would also like a cocktail, but it’s 8:40 in the morning.

Floyd’s skewers caused his delay at the start, he hasn’t enough power to fire anyone at Zipp headquarters, but if it were another rider from last year….

Haven’t had any Commesso sightings yet – I missed him in the prologue. I always enjoy Toto in his skinsuit. I’m hoping for some “gun” shots from him today as he rolls his sleeves and begins his search for Flecha. It seems that Freire has joined Flecha in the Toto haters club Remember his two curb bunny hop to ditch the purple and pink pilot fish? So these early stage breaks will be magical I hope.

Greg Lemond spot here. They’re discussing Lemond and Hinault’s square dance for the top spot in 1986. With Lemond waiting for Hinault while France chuckled. Hinault joins Lance in being booted off of the Lemond’s Christmas card list. That list is growing every day – maybe I can make it one day.

There’s Thor. SMASH in yellow! Sprint one goes by with no one caring. There’s a break of no-hopers up the road. Wegmann is the only name in there among the desperate Frenchmen. Credit Agricole is working to keep Thor in yellow. SMASH! I’m just going to copy that to the clipboard right now.

With a break off, it’s going to be a little dull now, hopefully we can get a glimpse of a rider whizzing or a shot of Toto basting a ham.

Oof, this is going to be a long stage, might have to take a trip to the hardware store and let Tivo do its magic.

The Saab Fly to the Finish secret word is “overexposure.”

Let’s make up a quote for Thor shall we? SMASH! “I resemble the yellow. It reflects my manly-hoodi-ness. I will crush smaller riders.” That’s more fun if you say it out loud with a fake “Arnold” monotone accent. Try it – it’s going to be a long stag

Feed zone, c’mon Toto…

CA at the front, since they’re a French team they’re not used to this.

The break’s chances are somewhere between “none” and “absolutely none.”

Another Lance interview, I really needed a Lance break this year, but they keep dragging him back out. So dull, why don’t they ask him if he’s going to just foxy box with Greg Lemond and get it over with so we can all move on?

Another generated Thor quote, SMASH! “He he, the Gerolsteiner outfits are silly fancy! We wouldn’t let women-folk ice dancers wear the outfits, as they are too feminine.”

In the only climb of the day, Wegmann get the points for the Polk Dot jersey, dashing his French cohorts hopes for any glory. Um, that can just become a theme for the rest of the Tour.

Ekimov gets a wheel change, and we have a new contender in the Tour of hair with the Eki-mullet. Laurent Brochard might have to resort to yellow streaks, which is in a grey area legally with the UCI.

Quick Step at the front now, mmm, tactics.

With the Nike “10/2” moments rolling, Lance has now joined Lady Di as another celeb we will not be allowed to forget – ever.

OLN will be changing its name to Versus. Does this mean I won’t be able to see squirrel hunting weekly anymore?

Ooh, a Thor spot is coming up. SMASH! Wait! That’s it? Don’t toy with me, OLN. Oh, here it is. Priceless, absolutely priceless. I have become such a nutcase that I actually expect him to say SMASH when he’s interviewed.

Someone should inform OLN that the Ks to go in the lower left corner get cut off so you can’t see the first two digits. This makes me angry because I’m unbalanced.

Back from the hardware store and through the miracle of Tivo, we will move forward in time to the interesting parts.

The gap is shrinking steadily and dully – see what I mean about the race radios?

Looking for Toto, his race number is 85. Yes, I have two daughters and a mortgage – why do you ask?

George was just handed a bottle from Noval, that looks so strange.

Let’s jump to 20k to go.

Frankie spot, someone keeps pranking his Blackberry, someone with a Texas area code…

Lampre at the front, but not Commesso. Toto works for Toto.

24 seconds until the catch at about 16k to go. Little attacks in the break, whatever. Beneteau throws down a French leg pump of a move. Saucy! Bold! Hopeless!

Rest of the group caught by the peloton. Beneteau still pedaling. This move would work in March maybe, not July on the first stage of the Tour.

George jumps for the time bonus. Surprise! Someone forgot to SMASH! At last Thor’s teammate took George one place down. Thor now has to get a top three to save his yellow. We need a SMASH here.

This makes me wonder – why would George want the yellow already? He could have the sprinter’s teams do all the work this first week.

Wonder if anyone is going to bite it – Dumoulin is in the race so there’s always a chance. No Rene “look at my ass-elbacher” this year though – robbing me of an opportunity to remind everyone of his crash that had his butt hanging out of his shorts, but it would be tacky to mention that.

Milram at the front, looking to screw up the leadout. Looks pretty Boner-ish to me. With the easy turns and all.

They’re coming in like a herd of squirrels, looks dicey. Final kilo coming up, Thor in good position – SMASH?

McEewn elbows Thor near the barriers. Boonen goes to the front WAY too early. Gets swarmed and Jimmy Casper wins because no one was watching him – because he’s Jimmy Casper.

OH NOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Thor down! ANTI-SMASH! He fell after the line. What the hell happened?

Tragedy! Did he hit a photographer? No, they show the replay of one of those Goddam green hands hitting him in the arm, and maybe a spectator hitting him in the head. Aaaagh, it was some idiot with a camera sticking it out into the field that knocked him in the bean. Those green hands are a menace! That’s a great idea – hand out large obstructive promotional objects to the crowd at the barriers, next stage, let’s hand out yellow razor blades.

So it’s a huge paper cut! Those sting! France hates the SMASHING! Norway should totally invade for that one.

George in yellow by two seconds. It’s still really early.