Vicarious Thrill of the Tour de France

Defending Tour champion Chris Froome is an odds-on favorite to repeat

Another Tour de France is upon us, and I will watch it.  Though not with the fervor I had had of Tours past.  In the heyday of Lance Armstrong's run (1999 - 2005), I'd watch it live, tape it, and watch many of the stages again once or twice.   More than fervor, that was fanaticism.  A lot has happened since, for the sport and for me.  Lance Armstrong had finally been busted for doping, and lost millions along with his Tour victories.  I moved to Dubai, then came back to Chicago.

Increasingly the last two years, I've become really passionate about sports.  Football, hockey and basketball are de rigueur.  But the World Cup, Wimbledon, and the Quicken Loans National, plus the Draft days for each of those major sports, have drawn me.  I have a deep desire to analyze the game and to win a consulting engagement with a team, maybe even get a job.  With that deep desire comes a more pointed eye for the game, its strategy, passion and determination to boot.  

These are what I will bring to watching the Tour.  It looks like individual cyclists vying for stage victories, but there is such complicated, thrilling team strategy at play that casual observers miss.  There is the demand and the endurance of a three-week bicycle race, across the panorama of French landscapes and the brutality of its mountains.  Cycling is the one sport I adopted over the past 20 years, even though I have hardly biked since 2010.  So part of the Tour thrill for me is the feel of the bicycle underneath me, the exertion in my legs, and the depletion of oxygen and the injection of lactic acid.  

Thank you for reading, and let me know what you think!

Ron Villejo, PhD