TdF: It has begun!

W00T! The Tour de France has begun.  3 weeks of cycling action!  Not to mention lots of late nights waiting for the live coverage to start (assuming I don’t whimp out and just watch the highlight feeds).

What a start it has been; the prologue in Rotterdam, 8.9km of fast time trial action.  Cancellara completed the course in an amazing 10minutes flat!That’s and average speed of 53.4 km/h!  Damn that’s fast!!

And then we get to stage 2 1 (Rotterdam to Brussels), a nice flat stage to help the riders wake up and realise they are in the Tour de France.  A nice causal warm-up really.  Nothing too difficult.  Yeah that is until to add in the need to dodge the odd stray dog!  Oh and I think many of the riders were asleep at the wheel due to the number of crashes!  Pay attention everyone.  It’s only day 2 and you haven’t even found any hills yet!

Oh, and if you want to follow all the action, then I suggest you switch over the TV to SBS One HD (yes, there are actually other TV channels available)! Or follow online via the SBS Live Tour Tracker.  Oh, and if you own a bike, get out there and ride the thing.  Don’t just do a lazy circuit before heading to the nearest coffee shop, but push yourself hard!  That way you’ll feel as shattered as these guys when sitting up late waiting them live.  Nothing like a little bit of shared pain to make you feel like your there.

Oh, and go Aussie!!  I think we have more Australian’s riding this tour than ever before.  Can one of ‘em take the win?  Or at least most of the prize jerseys like we did for the Giro d’Italia?