Tour de France Sites I Love

OK, first off, I'll admit I'm a fair weather cycling fan. I've only seen less than 5 races in person and I only follow the bike races that come on TV like the Ironman Hawaii, Giro d'Italia, Olympics Road Cycling and Tour de France. Since I like to putt putt on my bike around the neighborhood, I like to see the extreme those same bike riding skills can be taken.

That said, I want to share some of my favorite Tour de France blogs and websites. I like the ones that are clever, thorough and/or kind of dishy/gossipy. Thank goodness for these sites, because OLN as the official English language site of the TdF is NOT getting it done. You can hardly ever find anything on the site they advertise on TV as being on the site.

In Order of Entertaining-ness:

• Frank Steele's Tour de France Blog: http://www.tdfblog.com/.
  
  • Very thorough with both news and pictures.
    
  • Very insightful and knowledgeable posters.
    
  • Site is even sorted by different stars like Robbie McEwan, Ivan Basso and Michael Rasmussen.
    
  • With tons of links to other sites, it's like a one stop shop
    
• The Fat Cyclist, http://www.fatcyclist.com/
  
• At first I thought it was a blog to rip on Jan Ullrich since he has drama every year about being above his ideal weight by the start of the TdF.
  
• Instead it's a funny and fun blog by a guy trying to get in shape for cycling events.
• Don't miss taking the Tour de France Personality Test on July 13th. If you don't see yourself, then you aren't a true fan.
  
• Graham Watson, http://grahamwatson.com/
  
• Beautiful, epic photos, more than just transferring information. You can almost image some as images in marble. Check out the Basso, Ullrich, Armstrong one below.
  
• Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_Tour_de_France
  
• Great for tracking day to day status of the race
  
• CyclingNews, http://www.cyclingnews.com/
  
• Comphrensive road cycling site with decent coverage of the Women's Cycling events
• They have great photos (check the thumbnails) . I think those photographers who you see waiting in the bends of those steep climbs must work for this site.
  
• Yahoo Sports Tour de France Site, http://sports.yahoo.com/sc
  
• Rider bios and photos

Tour de France 2005
Graham Watson, The 'Texas Longhorn' fan strikes again...on a bicycle!
Stage 13 - Miramas > Montpellier, 173.5 km

Tour de France 2005
Graham Watson, Basso is still the freshest, but Ullrich has managed to stay with them...for now
Stage 14 - Agde > Ax-3 Domaines, 220.5