Nous aimons le Tour...

C'est notre événement sportif de favori!
(No, I don't speak French, but I am quite fluent in Internet - thanks to Babelfish...)

There are events in our year that are like seasons to us. There's October, when my brother, husband and I have our birthdays within a week of each other. That signals that it's nearly the end of the school year and Summer starts and Christmas is around the corner. There's Eurovision, that wonderfully kitsch event, that signals that the Tour is getting closer.
And then there's Le Tour de France. The Tour. The central event that our year seems to revolve around.

It's a bit of a family tradition in this house, and for some reason it's the pivotal event of the year that all others seem to be measured by. There's the year before the Tour and the year after the Tour. And in January it's "Ooo, only 6 months until the Tour!"

My husband cycles. Has since I've known him, and I've known him nearly 20 years. So when we hooked up 10 years ago, the Tour became part of my life too. This year is Mr L's 7th Tour. He's been watching it with us for 7 years. It's wonderful to watch him get into it too - until this year he could only name bike riders, no other sporting people. After one season of Auskick (Aussie rules footy for kiddos) he's a little more into footy players (he's more of a statistician than a player), but the bikes still reign supreme in this house. Mr A has sat through a few stages so far in his little life - and will be enduring a lot more I dare say!

My DH is predicting an Australian on the podium on the Champs-Elysées. Michael Rogers or Cadel Evans. Fingers crossed. And Robbie McEwan in green of course. The mountain stages start tonight, so that will mean a few late nights for us. So good that we can see it live. Mr G is on the couch eating corn chips happily watching as I type.

And the ultimate? Well I can't speak for Mr A, but Mr L, I think, won't be riding in the Tour some day. Just not his thing (and he wants to run the CSIRO anyway, not race). And the chances of Mr A making it are slim at best (can't ride up Alpe d'Huez with your fist shoved down your own throat and covered in dribble - things could change...). So the very, very long term plan is to join the massive crowds that flock to watch the race, hire a campervan and queue for 8 hours on the roads each day to get a carpark and watch the peloton whiz by in 15 seconds.

Can't wait.

Catch ya...
K