The Tour day schmalz is a decade old, and it wasn’t until we just celebrated my daughter’s 10th birthday that I realized that. The TDS was initially concocted as a way for me to keep typing on the internet while awaiting the birth of my second child. Back then I only wrote about my experience in local races, and since my daughter’s due date was fast approaching, riding around in bike underwear all over the NYC area was not an option. Instead I decided that the world needed was a PG13 accompanying commentary to the TV offering at the time.

The year was 2005, and it was the last year of the Reign of Lance Armstrong, the Eye of Sauron of the bike world, and since I am a person who likes neither money nor cancer survivors, I would treat Lance like the cocky jerk he was. Oddly, this attitude found traction, one of my first typings about Lance was when he slipped out of his pedal in the prologue. I typed “Lance immediately drops a pedal. Half of Shimano USA’s staff is now fired.” And that began an imaginary quasi-combative relationship with a person I’m sure has little or no knowledge that I exist.

Of course, Lance won that Tour, said his little inspirational piece about being sorry for people who couldn’t believe in miracles, dropped the mic and quietly retired. Kidding! Lance, being a super jerk, looked around in 2008, decided that the guys winning the Tour weren’t up to snuff and decided he would return to the race, and in the process setting a date with destiny and any number of sanctioning bodies. But enough about that crabby retiree, let’s recap the our so far.

Due to the shenanigans of the aforementioned Texas super-turd, Chris Froome will have to endure questions about his team’s dominance after every single stage. This is the way it is in 2015. If you’re team is dominating the race like US Postal did in the days of EPO and blood bags full of courage, that’s going to raise some red flags. Sorry, that’s the way bikes are these days—and it serves you right for making me Google “ketones”.

Otherwise, this year’s race is threatening to become super boring. Froome, Porte and Thomas have been able to smother any uphill action, so this Tour will either end up being super boring, with every uphill attack covered, or it will be incredibly exciting if Quintana or Contador or another climber (not Nibali—be serious, please) can crack the Skybots. There’s not a lot of potential for (barring any crashes) Froome losing a lead though, so we’ll probably have a cracking race for the minor placings. Sixth place fever, catch it!

In other news, Nibz boss Vino is a super “richard”. Vino has expressed his disappointment in Nibz performance at this year’s Tour, even saying that he was going to try and get rid of Nibz a year before his contract expires. I find Vino’s disappointment remarkable, as Nibz’s win last was the closest any Tour winner came to having the Make a Wish Foundation set up a perfect race, as Froome and Contador both crashed out, and Quintana wasn’t in attendance because Valverde locked him in a closet for the entire month of July. These statements coming from Vino are a bit disconcerting because Vino himself was kicked out of the 2007 Tour because his blood contained extra erythrocytes, sticks, twigs and bits of gravel. It also seems the the “Culture of Vino” at Astana has produced a bumper crop of doping positives—enough to put Astana on double secret probation with the UCI. So, you know, I’m sure Nibz would love to stick around and ride for such an inspirational leader.

I will be live posting here for the rest of the stage, with the same stuff ending up on the nyvc twitter feed.

Live portion

106k to go I really hope Sagz wins today, I can’t take much more Sad Sagz.

De Gendt wins the intermediate sprint, are we sure he’s not French?

103k to go That was like a real sprint there, shoulders and everything.

96k to go WHERE ARE THE TRACTORS?!

These fields are perfect for tractor dancing.

On stages like this, they should really just have the helicopters seek out livestock to hassle.

92k to go This break is only half French, which means it only smokes  in hospitals.

90k to go De Gendt beat Luc Périchon to the intermediate sprint money, depriving Bretagne-Séché of beef at the team dinner tonight.

88k to go It’s on long uneventful stages like this that I want to email chardonnay to Carlton Kirby and see what happens.

87k to go Giant working hard to be tired at the finish.

82k to go Really hoping for a Not Valverde win today.

In this region of France, the staple crop is ennui.

75k to go Gautier gets a flat, is reminded that life is pain, France smiles.

65k to go De Gendt takes more money on the road, does Lotto need to pay for some minibar violations?

63k to go Is that roadside art of a chicken in a pot of boiling water?

62k to go In year’s past, today would be a day for Cipo to work on his tan.

59k to go Peraud crashes on sandpaper lane.

55k to go Peraud to be only shot from behind today?

OH GOD, DON’T STAND AND PEDAL!!

53k to go That was for those of you who didn’t know what Peraud’s “Little JC” looked like.

51k to go Full frontal JC? French TV really is racier.

43k to go How about someone wraps Peraud’s shorts in medical tape?

43k to go Cipo kicking himself for never thinking of exposing “little Mario” this way.

42k to go Exposing man bits still less embarrassing than wearing brown Ag2r shorts.

37k to go René Haselbacher just breathed a sigh of relief, as he will no longer be the poster boy for ripped shorts.

29k to go Sooo, this break has no chance…

20k to go Tuft who sits second last on GC is working for Matthews, the Lantern Rouge.

10k to go This race is starting to contain excitement-like substances.

5k to go The GPS indicates heartbreak at the finish.

SAGZ NAILS SECOND!

GVA wins, his second place magic is nothing compared to Sagz’s.