I took the Fourth of July off from typing about the Tour because I’m a goddamn American, but I’ve signed up for the NBC internet Tour tracker thingy so I can watch the Tour from my desk at my remote office in Iowa. Yes, I am that dedicated to making snarky comments about Euro dudes pedaling across France.

Today is a sprint stage, and there’s a group of five away with almost no hope of success. It looks to be a Cav day today, but it will all depend upon the profile of the final kilometer. If there’s even the tiniest hint of an uphill gradient, look for Garvelo to have success.

Thor SMASH and the Boner are having a chat. "I remember when you were having of the career Tom." It’s nice to have the SMASH in yellow, and it will be a nice for Thor SMASH when he negotiates his new contract with someone else during this year’s Tour. Methinks the offering of the yellow jersey will not be enough to placate Thor SMASH. Look for him to SMASH elsewhere next year.

The best part of Contador losing time on stage one is that there’s a possibility for action on every stage, as Bert will be looking ot gain time whenever he can. This will make stages like this exciting because Saxo will be looking to take advantage of cross winds, dropped chains or Frenchmen tossed into the road to gain back time.

Has anyone interviewed the spectator that decided the Tour this year by getting clocked by the Astana rider? That spectator is so far the most important person at the Tour so far. That individual definitely will have more of an effect than Tom Danielson will.

OK, time to take advantage of this NBC thingy and speed ahead a bit.

I skip ahead to 71k to go, Phil and Paul are commentating now. The gap is 3:22 and Phil mentions that Danielson, despite his Eskimo heritage, could actually pass for a white man. Did Phil have to apologize for his "colored" remark? I haven’t been on the internet. Is he doing an apology tour with Tracy Morgan?

Garvelo is at the front, and that’s going to be the status quo for the next 30k, I can’t handle P&P reading from the media guide about local cheeses, so I’ll skip ahead. This is mostly a 20k race today anyway.

25k to go, the break is still away, their chances at success at the same as the chances that I get some Fincel’s sweet corn before I leave town. Pow, there’s a local Iowa reference for you! And savvy sweet corn connoisseurs know that it’s "knee high by the Fourth of July".

Uh oh, there’s a crash. BMC is involved. Saxo and Leopard at the front. They are racing each other right now. They are going to be so used at staring at each other’s asses for three weeks that they will be able to make a wall sized mural of man butt for the team buses from memory.

20k to go, the break guys are attacking each other, you know, to make it look like a bike race.

17k to go, the break has about 30 seconds. Gutierrez and Delage are away, but HTC is on the front. It’s Grabsch time!

Garvelo is working at the front also. Who will they work for in the sprint?

These two guys have the same chance at staying away as Katy Perry has of NOT eventually making a song that mentions camel toe in the chorus.

I must admit that I loves me the last 10k of a sprint stage.

Whoa, there’s a lot of guys near the front of the race. That makes for the crashy.

Gutierrez blows a kiss to the camera as he and Delage get caught by the peloton—no handshake? That’s so uncool!

8k to go, and this is awesome. The field is stretched out like a tube top at the Dubuque county fair—trust me on that one.

6k to go, whoa, tight barrier squeeze there.

Lampre near the front to make Petacchi feel better.

Cav and HTC looking awfully good, but are they at the front too early? Tony Martin is taking a big turn at the front. Renshaw looking for someone to head butt.

Where’s Garvelo?

It looks like HTC is going to get swarmed. They may have been a bit premature at the front. If you say that with a Pepe Lepew accent, it sounds dirty.

There goes an attack off the front, a sure sign your leadout is not going well.

Renshaw will need to head butt about twenty guys to give Cav a clear shot to the finish line.

Thor SMASH is near the front. This is going to be fun.

1k to go, Garvelo in a good spot. Thor SMASH sitting solid, it’s funny how little he gets pushed around in a sprint.

Tyler is right on Thor’s SMASH wheel. They’ll have to work hard to screw this up.

Tyler goes early and YYYYYYYEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!

Farrar gets it!!! He does the "W" and almost falls off his bike. If you aren’t happy for Tyler, you are some sort of bummer monster.

HTC led Cav out right to the side of a milk carton.