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It's a few days off yet but I'm beginning to get excited about it, Cycling on TV may not be everyones cup of tea but once they hit those big mountains- I defy anyone to say it's uninteresting.

Can Lance retire with another win or will it be Ullrichs year?

Roll on Saturday and the prologue.

Trouble with TDF is not enough coverage on terrestrial. Can't beat being at a cycling event for the atmosphere though.TV comes nowhere near it

CH4 used to do it, now it's on ITV2 with about 3 viewers.

But Eurosport give blanket coverage to it which is fine by me.

That smiley again Spiky

ITV2 will have an extra viewer this summer

Someone mention Tour de France?! OMG, I'm already salivating...!

C4 used to do by far the best coverage. No one can beat Phil and his sidekick, seven-time Tour rider Paul Sherwen (British National champion, 1987 ). Even their ITV2 shows aren't a patch, the editing is terrible and the commentary sounds false, as if it was all pre-recorded and the commentary added at a later point. Live commentary, with the emotion that went with it was always better. Plus the fuzzy sound, which made you think it was happening right now, somewhere in a foreign land.

Not sure if Lance can manage a seventh successive victory but he is on top form after finishing 4th overall in the recent Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré. But anything can happen, a couple of bad days in the mountains, or even a crash. His nearest rival is probably Jan Ullrich, but even he hasn't been in the best form. An outsider would be Alexandre Vinokourov. Bring it on!

Telekom have been very clever, not only do they have Ullrich but they have Vinokourov and Kloden too.

Another one in their team to watch is Oscar Sevilla, he was a real rising star 3 or 4 years ago but his career got sidetracked by a boil on his ar*e of all things

I hope Lance does win, we'll know his form after the first time trial and mountain stage are out of the way.

Those were the days(goes misty eyed )

Yes, the 'golden era' of cycling was definitely the mid-1980s for me. I can still remember individual stage winners and what the commentary was (I've got nearly all the Tours from 1986 on VHS ) and some from before that. The memory of Robert Millar cycling solo up to the finish at Guzet Neige in 1984 is as fresh as if it happened yesterday (we'll forget about his finish in 1988 - a nightmare!); Stephen Roche pulling on the maillot jaune in Villard-de-Lans in 1987 and Sean Yates' amazing time trial win at Wasquehal in 1988. Happy days... (and it seemed sunnier then). Of course one of the most sensational finishes was at the top of a mountain in 1987 when Roche clawed back enough time from the bottom of the climb to stay in contention.

And Sean Kelly...Interesting fact..My step dad fitted his carpets!!!

Sean Kelly is my all-time hero!

And a great commentator on Eurosport!

"Stephen Roche pulling on the maillot jaune in Villard-de-Lans in 1987"

Is that when he was 2 or 3 mins behind half way up the climb?

IIRC he collapsed at the top and needed oxygen..still won on the Champs Elysee tho.

It's just lots of drugged up blokes on bikes.

sounds like a weekend in Blackpool!

Been in his father in laws shop!!!ner ner ner ner ner!

what a generalisation although I'm sure it was just a joke. If you tested random members of the public most of them would probably fail. There are substances in everyday foods and medecines that if taken by an athlete would cause them to fail a drug test.

There's no denying there's drug taking in cycling - it also happens to be the sport that probably tests the most. Even as a young BCF member if we had to we would supply samples of urine and that's at grass roots level. At what point do we say stop taking performance-enhancing substances? Pasta, brown bread, eggs, chicken could all be argued as performance enhancing so should we ban those too? A lot of chemicals on the banned lists (I say lists because there are different lists for the different sports' governing bodies and what's banned in one sport may not be banned in another) occur naturally.