On a roll

The Tour has been, once again, a really enjoyable experience this year, with OLN doing a great job of bringing us the race in huge chunks in the morning and a three hour "recap" each night.

All of the announcers/analysts are terrific -- genuinely excited about the race they love without losing track of the details, but, of course, Bob Roll is the spiritual leader.

Here he is describing the feeling of being in an escape group that's about to be caught by the peloton (transcription courtesy of Madame Cura):

Bob Roll: ...senses some real doom, chasers in the peloton breathing down their necks….

Al Trautwig: It really is an unbelievable thing the peloton...it’s timed perfectly

Roll: By staying in motion the Tour peloton maintains -- even if it’s on the brink of chaos -- a steady course. Those left behind forfeit the sheltering benevolence of the group and are cast adrift to fend for themselves without mercy. But to cut the apron strings in a break away is the opposite side of the dynamic tour stage coin and is almost impossible to do.

And here he is yesterday, asked by Trautwig to provide an "essay" on the surging masses who line the mountains of the Pyrenees and seem to threaten the very lives of the riders straining to make it over the fearsome climbs (no idea about the spelling):

If there were no mountains, there would be no schlugs; if there were no schlugs, there would be no drunken schlugs; if there were no drunken schlugs, there would be no schmenges –that’s a Basque fan that’s drunk, and a schlug. Without them there would be no sponsors; no sponsors no tour; no tour no Lance; without Lance’s story, we wouldn’t have a job; we could take July off.

And you wouldn’t have the most perfect allegory between real life and the sporting event that is the TOUR DAY FRANCE.

This Tour is bitterweet, watching Armstrong, Basso, and, for a time, Ullrich climbing together the last two days, and knowing it's likely the last time for all three on the mountains of the Pyrenees. And also knowing that, as Roll says, without Lance there's probably not enough interest for OLN to televise so much of the Tour in the U.S. (when they started -- the first year, coincidentally, that Armstrong won -- OLN only had a half hour each night). Oh, well.