Preview
Prologue Through Stage 2

Stage 3

I’m going live today, so I will get the full VS plus commercials experience for today’s stage. It should be grueling.

Dwelling on yesterday’s stage, I do have to say that the Boner is a very classy guy. He seemed genuinely happy for Steegmans. Boonen seems to occupy a sort of Tom Brady like position in cycling. He’s very hard to dislike. Only someone very spiteful and petty would call him “Boner”.

Here’s the VS recap portion of the show, Paul and Phil look like they’re broadcasting from a darkened water closet.

140K to go and we have another (surprise!) Agritubel guy trying to earn enough sprint bonus money to be able to supersize tonight’s team dinner.

Vogondy can almost taste that bacon and Swiss. Take that, Barloworld!

Thor SMASH! fell yesterday. He banged his back up a little. Thor SMASH! is having no luck this year. First he gets the runs in the spring and now he crashes at the Tour. Norway is vomiting up herring into its mouth.

Um, Gary Coleman just did a commercial for a cash loan business, “When no one would loan me money – not even my family – Cash Call did.” We need to have all commercials from now on done by Gary Coleman. OH MY GOD! He’s sitting in a car now! These may quickly become my favorite commercials of all time.

117K to go. Today’s stage pace is brought to you by sloth.

This is a stage where commentators really earn their $4.95 an hour. There is nothing going on, the break has no chance whatsoever, and Toto is not in the Tour. If I were commentating, I would have to eventually resort to free form poetry about my crotch. If that isn’t a reason to watch, I don’t know what is.

Robbie Ventura is profiling the finish – there are cobbles. Mayo’s crotch heart should be soiled by the time they hit that finish. That’s two crotch references in two paragraphs for those of you keeping track at home.

98k to go, situation unchanged. I am gassier though.

We’re in the middle of a 236K track stand. Looks like everyone decided to try and nurse their boo boos today.

66K to go, the only thing to look for is the occasional shot of someone whizzing while they roll along.

Ok, Salvodelli looks ridiculous in his Specialized helmet. His mini-child head is the anti-Vino head. How can these two be on the same team? Is Astana the freak head squad?

Paul dropping a little WW2 knowledge on us. Did you know Franco’s favorite dog had his own velodrome?

I’m now going to lament Toto’s absence from the Tour this year. There’s no way he would’ve missed such an easy opportunity to ride at the front of the race today. The guns would’ve been out and we’d be treated to Toto hamming it up for the camera. And by hamming it up I mean actually eating an entire ham. Damn you, TDF selection committee!

59k to go, and we’ve just passed the imaginary line where the peloton decided to start racing. Milram wanted to wait until 10k to go, but no one cares about Milram any more.

They just showed a Boonen Specialized spot. Um, he’s on a TT bike, which makes perfect sense. He has a Belgian accent, but I can’t help but expect him to say, “Papers, please.” somewhere during the commercial.

The average speed today is around 20 MPH – I could totally ride the Tour!

Four guys at the front now that Augè and Willems have joined the break.

Finally! An erectile dysfunction ad! Four hour erections! That’s like a description of today’s stage.

40K to go, they are now working at the front. 3 minutes, by my calculations, they will catch them in Delaware.

OOf! Nasty crash. Steegmans, hits the dirt kinda hard on a bridge. No information as to whether Boonen nudged him with a shoulder.

Auge will probably get the KOM jersey now from Millar, probably because Millar no longer cares about the jersey. The race has left England after all, and getting up on the podium and showing off the latest in dodgy metrosexual fashions no longer interests Millar. My interest in metrosexual fashion never wanes of course…

The guys at the front are working now – so it’s like a race now.

20K to go, gap at 2:43, coming down slowly. Dropping like a pair of plumbers pants.

Inside 2 minutes with 15K to go. Hoping Thor SMASH! can channel his anger into a win here. McEwen seems like he’s still hurting from his crash on stage 1.

8K to go Jens Voigt comes to the front – would you like to be chased by Jens? Me neither.

1K to go and the camera fades out as the operator has spilled his wine.

Cancellara goes! He’s catching the break! Dear Lord!

Fabian uses the remnants of the break as a speed bump to the pack as he hits the barriers. This could work!

Cancellara holds it! What a finish! Zabel second. Do I even need to type that? Isn’t it implied automatically?