Tour de France on TV

Over the past 7 years or so I have started to notice how I watch the Tour is an interesting footnote about where I was at in life each year.

My first Tours I was employed at a cable ISP as a entry level technician. I didn't have too many responsibilities at the time and was blessed with bosses that were also cyclists as well. One of them brought in a TV, plopped it down on my desk which was at a centralized spot for everyone and we let it roll live every day. Awesome. I think I was at this job when Beloki had his carreer ending fall and Lance showed off his cyclocross skills without flinching. I still remember a few of those commercials - the DR Field and Brush mower! And something about a pancake.

Over the next few years I watched it every evening by way of the Tivo - only one of the best invention made has ever created. This allowed watching at night, on my own schedule and without commercials. One year I attempted to use the Tivo tools to pull recordings off the device and onto a desktop.

In 2005 - and Lance's last win (well, his original "last" win) - we were in Europe and had the opportunity to see the final time trial and the loops in Paris. Amazing!


For years in a row Versus was rumored to be finally doing HD. Murphy's Law Of course this year in 2009 I wasn't ready for it since we canceled cable late in 2008. I did sign up for the online streaming which was nice but not the same as watching it years past. I was able to find we still got Versus since we still had cable internet service albeit not in all the High Def glory i saw clips of. Blast! Even worse, I figured I would be able to catch some of the replay's at work in the break room since they have Dish service and nice HD tv's. Nope. They don't get Versus. BLAST! One good thing about working the terrible work shift I am on (10am to 7pm) is it let me watch most of the stages live in the mornings. I was even able to get morning workouts in, see the last 30 mins of a stage and get to work on time.

Since we are moving into our new house soon I am pricing out our options for the future. I'm leaning towards Dish network at the moment. I will have the Tour timeshifting in High Def next year!